The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Local Hour: The Yankees Beard Policy Reveal

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

JUST before the show began, Taylor walked into the studio and delivered the news that made the Shipping Container burst into applause. Then, the 4 Nations Face-Off ended with Canada taking down the United States in a game played in Boston. The crew begins the conversation by breaking down the game and what happened on the ice between these two teams, but it's almost impossible to avoid the off-the-ice circus of this event after some of America's political figures hijacked it. Mike, Jeremy, Jessica, and Tony dive deep into what it means to root for athletes and teams despite having different political views. Can you put everything you believe in aside in the name of rooting for your country? Plus, the crew discusses the news of Victor Wembanyama missing the rest of this season and what it means for the NBA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and on time each month. Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. This is the Don LeBattor Show with the StuGuts Podcast. I'm not gonna start in the obvious place. We'll get there in a second. But something happened before the show that I want to address because I was envious of what happened in the other room.

I saw a door swing open and I saw an entire room light up and react to news that they had received. I thought someone said, did you, Donnas Haslam walk in? What happened over there? And then big news was broken to me, and God, I am so jealous of Taylor, who got to deliver this huge news. Chris, what was the news that you guys received

that made that entire room light up? It was baseball-related. If we start there as a hint, like what could I say in the baseball realm that would get the room fired up? And I'll tell ya, it's the Yankees getting rid of their beard policy. Woo!

That's insane news. It's huge. And worthy of that reaction. I think we did it. I think it was us. We were the tipping point. Tony, I think you're absolutely right. Our edition of Who Dat Is, the most recent one,

where we couldn't get two of the most recent Yankee signings because Paul Goldschmidt looks Dominican all of a sudden when he's clean shaven. Get okay. The guy's a Hall of Famer, and none of us knew him. Totally unrecognizable clean shaven. So I'm glad that the Yankees, and look, America's already on the rebound.

Nature is healing, the country is healing, at least in sports terms. George Steinbrenner is rolling over in his grave right now. Jess, do you have an official statement? This is worthy of an official statement from the New York Yankees. Yeah, it says, statement from Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner,

alteration of Yankees facial hair policy. In recent weeks, I've spoken to a large number of former and current Yankees spanning several eras to elicit their perspectives on our long-standing facial hair and grooming policy and I appreciate their earnest and varied feedback. These most recent conversations are an extension of ongoing internal dialogue that dates back several years. Ultimately the final decision rests with me and after great consideration we will be amending our

expectations to allow our players and uniform personnel to have well groomed beards moving forward. It is the appropriate time to move beyond the familiar comfort of our former policy." Well-groomed beards? It took them a while to have this conversation. It took them a while to just say, hey, you can grow a beard. Who determines what's well-groomed? How many PR firms helped craft that? The dean of my Catholic school determines what is well-grown. Someone or some company made at least $600,000 coming up with that statement. And I still stumbled over Hal for some reason.

Man, this just teaches me change is possible. Yeah. I would have never thought that they would do this. And they did. Hooray us. Hooray Yankees. This is great. This can only help the game.

Thank you, Al. All right. So speaking of growing niche sports, let's talk about hockey last night. He's the best player in the world. You may want to mark him. That was ridiculous. All right, so look, headline, great for the sport.

They gave us a week in February, a random week in February, that we all really came together and argued about politics, and it was great. And we loved the game of hockey. The hockey was top of the line stuff. You had a great game deliver on all the hype and expectation. I'm sure this number is gonna be massive.

You lose in overtime, that's tough. I understand that. But how you lose in overtime really kinda, really twists a knife a little bit because number 97 is Connor McDavid, McOverrated, I think we can drop that for a little bit. Pretty big goal that he scored last night. He's the best player in the world.

He's wide open in front of the net. He's wide open in front of the net and that's number 34 that is supposed to be marking him, Austin Matthews, who in the group chat I saw was referred to as Austin Badthews, who did not have the greatest tournament. I know he set some people up, and defensively he played all right,

but this is a huge, huge mistake from a Selkie finalist, one of the top defending forwards in the league. You cannot do this. From face-off dot to face-off dot, top of the face-off circle to the bottom of the face-off circle, that's how much room that he had. It was a full, like they were in Rhode Island. That's how wide open they were.

It's not only Matthews skates away from McDavid in that defensive spot. He had three scoring chances minutes earlier. So Matthews had on both ends of the ice, a chance to do what McDavid did in his first chance in overtime. He got the puck and he stuck it home top corner. Maybe.

I mean, I wasn't rooting against team USA. I really, I swear to God I wasn't. However, when I heard as I was falling asleep, I heard the game winning goal call. I did do a, hee hee hee. Yeah. When I heard Connor McDavid had scored,

I did a hee hee hee. Yeah. And then I rolled over and fell asleep. Mike, Jordan Binnington, the start over time. Yeah, he was incredible. Made three huge key saves. Went back to time. Yeah, he was incredible. Made three huge key saves. Went back to 2019. Yeah, he was incredible for them.

But I think we all kind of had the Alonzo morning reaction to that goal, which is not the result we wanted, but certainly the result we deserved. What I don't get, though, is we're going to play this Marshand sound, where he's kind of going at the Kachuk brothers for giving them bulletin board material. Before we play the Marchand sound, what did they guarantee victory?

Like what is he talking about here? Or were they just, was it the fights at the first game? Like I don't understand though, but he said he specifically says when you're running your mouth in the media, like what were their quotes? Let's, I'll address that because I know what he's talking about.

Here's Brad Marchand, who I hate immensely. This guy sucks. He's a rat. But he's look, grats to him. He gets to be the winner on the day. Let's hear what he had to say post game. Sometimes when you shoot your mouth off in the media and mean it quite soon. You know, you can do that during the season, but when you're playing best on best, it's different. They've got a little bit ahead of themselves, but they're great players. There's not many guys in the league that play the way they do, and they're extremely effective. But when you start giving teams ammo, it can work against you as well. um so the running the mouth and the kachuk brothers they can run their mouth

primarily on the ice but what he's referring to is what happened after the united states beat canada for one in montreal they were asked about the fight and they said that it came up in the group chat and in the ensuing days um i think brendan hagel said like we don't have the group chat. And in the ensuing days, I think Brendan Hagel said, we don't have a group chat. And then Matthew Kachuck was asked about that while he was sitting next to his brother. He's like, I don't know what to tell you.

Maybe they don't like each other. That's what he's referring to. That is repressed Canadian male emotion right there. For them to take such issue with a group chat thing is, I don't know, kind of weird to me. Because then look at this this and credit to Canada, good banter from Trudeau on down. They deserve it.

Look, we certainly deserve it. But do we have the still of Brendan Hagel's IG story? So a group chat has, big breaking news, a group chat has finally been formed. Brendan Hagel has given evidence of this and it's called Champions with a big Canadian flag and cool, I can see Sam Reinhardt's in that, glad he made the cut, Brad Marchand's in it.

Sydney Crosby's in it. 227 unread messages, is he in our hockey group chat? He must be in our hockey group chat. Man, that's a highlight group chat on a given day. But- I'll just Ethan. Special. You have no idea how much that cuts for poor Ethan.

There is at least 33% of the main group chats have Ethan muted. I love Ethan, though, when he's in. He's all in. He's all in. Volume shooter. But he makes some occasionally. Love you, Ethan.

Ethan is wearing a hockey jersey today. Again today. As a big surprise. I guess he's going to a steakhouse after the show. Tune into Mystery Crate to hear that story. Yeah. All right, God bless, Ethan. The group chat thing is weird.

They're really seizing on it. I guess, like, man, you want to talk. Really reaching for bulletin board material here. It's USA, Canada. When you have the president insulting your country as a whole in 51st state, to seize on the group chat thing is a little odd. I don't really get what's happening there,

but let's go back to the macro. The whole theater of this thing that culminated with last night's incredible moment. That was an all-star game. Was that the immediate pivot, Chris? You've gotta be kidding me. All-star tournament. Was that the immediate pivot, Chris? You've got to be kidding me. All-star tournament.

Was that the immediate... Exhibition. Great exhibition. I mean, honestly, I felt better about USA losing when I saw how indifferent the... You know, they get their chance with the Cup, like they do with the Stanley Cup. They didn't care. Dude, the hockey players with Stanley Cup, they do a full lap around the arena. It's like, you can see them, like, oh my God, the Canadian guys with that trophy They went like 10 feet turned around handed to next guy like it did like I know I'm drawing for I'm reaching here

But it did make me feel a little better about the law a couple reasons for that. No one grew up Wondering about the day that they might possibly lift the four nations cap. I mean, it's just the four days I just love the way we were talking about this four days ago. Oh no, I can't so much. It's the greatest event that was ever created in the history of sports and made the NHL far surpass the NBA in everything that we've ever imagined about leagues. And it would have been if the US won. And if the US won, it would have been the greatest thing that's ever happened.

But as we said, it was just a geopolitical moment that was sweeping everybody up. It will never ever, ever, ever be as cool as it was four days ago Alright, shut up. You could do the four nations cup for a hundred years. It'll never be I'm sure we let's talk wemby and how the look the NBA is in shambles right now look NBA is not in shambles by the way NBA is doing a great job. Crazy people. I love the NBA What what so no Jeremy you seized on that. I don't.

I wholeheartedly still stand by my statements. This was awesome. This was the biggest thing. I would love to have won it. It hurts to lose it. Glad you enjoyed it while it was cool. It's still cool. It was still the best.

And I can't wait for next year in the Olympics. Now we have a great storyline. They hadn't played best on best these nations in 11 years. And all you had was, you know, a historic rivalry. The US got the better of them in the World Cup of hockey in 1996. I remember watching that as a little kid and knowing what a big moment that was.

But recently when these two nations have met in finals, it usually ends in heartbreak. In fact, Sidney Crosby has five medals, to his name, five gold medals in international hockey. The United States as a whole have four in their history. So we are absolutely little brother here. And it was weird. It was weird in how the politics of it the the media coverage of it. We somehow gave

Canada the right to be the underdog in hockey I mean they at certain points in this tournament they had Sydney Crosby Connor McDavid Nathan McKinnon and Kale McCarr on the ice They are not the underdog like if we're doing this in video games, their overall team score is higher than the overall team score of the United States, but the United States had the vibes, they had the attitude, they were hosting the final. This was a pick-em game when it came to betting lines and most of the action was on the United States, but make no mistake about it, the United States is always going to be the underdog against Canada,

and something weird happened, maybe politically, where that narrative switched, and you can't give the more talented team also the right to call themselves underdog. That's weird. Well, going into this tournament, I mean, their inspiration was Johnny Goudreau, and his death and the memorial right

lies in him in this tournament. That overshadowed. The fans chanting Johnny Hockey was awesome. That was awesome. It was a great moment. Michael Ruzioni coming out in the Johnny Goudreau hockey sweater. Yeah, that got buried. That got buried by all this ridiculousness

as it made it to the cable. No, I don't think anybody would agree with that. Oh, it's a great show. No, it isn't. It's good just background television. Ridiculousness? Oh, just put it on. Always on at the barbershop.

2010, maybe. Ah, come on, still slaps. How many times did Canada have to have too many men on the ice before they were gonna call it? The puck was too close to the bench. But there was multiple times where the announcers were like, that could have been too many men. Yeah, it seemed pretty, like, the one penalty that,

I think they only called one penalty the entire game. It had to be, like, super obvious that, I think they only called one penalty the entire game. It had to be like super obvious. You knew that the stripes weren't gonna be coming out. Yeah, there was playoff rules in this one. Which I loved, look, top of the line effort, great theater, great drama, the players caring. Matthew Kachuck's probably not gonna play for a few games for the Florida Panthers.

It's insane that the players that were in this tournament have to turn around now and start playing for their clubs in two days, some tomorrow. Can we put back up the Canadian group chat? I'm wondering with all this group chat talk, if there's like USA players or Canadian players not in these group chats, and they're like, what the hell?

Yeah, there's gotta be a green phone. There's gotta be a green text. Like, Swamen's like, why am I not in these group chats? Yeah, I like the idea of there being like, maybe Kayle McCarr in these group chats? Yeah. I like the idea of there being maybe Cale McCarr in this group chat. Man, shout out to the NHL. They got this right.

And it's not just the NHL. The players also have to show that they wanted to do this. And the players union were a driving force. International hockey means a lot to these guys. And I know PK went viral drawing comparisons to the effort to the NBA and the NHL, but that's also one of the other storylines that was unfortunately bigger than the Johnny Goudreau thing.

And I understand the Johnny Goudreau thing is for hockey puck heads that know the story. For me, that was prevalent throughout this tournament. It wasn't what was headlining cable news. We all know that, but it happening during this kind of weird inflection point for the NBA, as I want to get to the Wembe stuff now too, is really interesting because there were Abuelitas that were watching this game last night. This was huge for the sport of hockey. I don't know if that sustained momentum, but like I said, the Panthers played a morrow.

There's a lot of people that are going to identify with this and it's really unfortunate that Matthew Kachuck got hurt because he is shown time and time again on grand stages that he's willing to be the superstar. He's willing to be the face of hockey and you would love to just keep that momentum going. But I do, I cannot think about this NHL exhibition tournament, whatever you may call it, best on best though, and not think about the NBA. And the NBA had a crushing blow yesterday with the Victor Wimman-Yama news. And this is really

serious. As he fans know that that went through the Chris Bosch thing like this is career in jeopardy type of stuff now there have been reassurances that they think he's gonna be fine they caught it it has not spread they caught it in the shoulder but this is a really scary thing Tony were you the first on this beat I had some I had some information that was given to me that I kind of had seen the the writing in the the writing on the wall, like hey, something's happening with Wemby. And Mike, you talk about the deep vein thrombosis thing, obviously Chris Bosh had that.

But Brandon Igram also had almost basically the same exact thing that Wemby had, which is a shoulder. So I'm not a doctor, obviously I only play one on TV. But those blood clots obviously can move around your body into places that I think Serena a couple of years ago had one in her chest and her lung or something. There's a lot of things that blood clots can do. Luckily, they caught this.

They were talking about how Wemby was very sluggish, how he was very just kind of like, he looked tired. He looked exhausted 24-7. Obviously, you're playing an NBA schedule and flying and doing all these different things You're gonna feel pretty exhausted, but the team was like wait something just isn't right here Obviously ended up finding that that he had that It's a tough it's it's tough for the NBA right now

But the good thing is that in six months when the season starts again He'll be back and ready to go and I thought there was something interesting where Anthony Edwards who is obviously Bravado who is face of the league in a sense, got asked during the All-Star game. I don't know if Jeremy, you saw this. It was like, hey, are you ready to be the face of the league? Is that your place?

And he's like, no, that's Wemby. Like Wemby's gonna be the face of the league, not me. It was, it is. I mentioned that this week on the show. The face of the NBA is Victor Wemba Nyama. And 48 hours later, he's out for the face of the NBA is Victor Wimbenyama. And 48 hours later, he's out for the rest of the season. And there were some Bosch parallels because when Bosch had his second one, remember Bosch bounced back after the pulmonary embolisms. And then

there was like a weird skills competition and Victor Wimbenyama had a weird skills competition, which feels a little weirder now with the news. That is funny. Yeah, and so there are parallels there. For Bosch, when the second one popped up, he's on blood thinners for life. That's not necessarily gonna be the case here for Victor Wembedyama, which was actually the solution, the cure for Chris Bosch is what caused the end

of his career, which was the blood thinners. That's exactly right, and with Wemby, he will go on blood thinners to fix this blood clot but that's the whole thing you really can't play sports on blood thinners that's why heart issues become the thing and and players are immediately out of the league so for Wemby at least the reporting thus far and everything that the Spurs have said indicates like Tony said he'll be back at the start of next season and they'll go from there they right now were a couple of games

out of a play-in spot anyhow and so they have their own first round pick. If you're looking at the future of the Spurs, him now missing this amount of time and getting them in the top three or four of the draft and landing Cooper Flack inevitably. Stop that. We can't let that happen.

I'm just letting you know. We can't let that happen. If you don't think that's a possibility that just letting you know. We can't let that happen. You don't think that's a possibility that they end up in the top three and land, if not, Cooper Flag and Ace Bailey or whoever is gonna be right there to help catapult them with De'Aaron Fox

and Victor Wemba. I mean, look, it's the Spurs. All that said, this is a scary thing. Anytime blood clots pop up, you're worried for the future of anyone's athletic career. With Wembe being everything that he is, not just as this athletic freak who was going to win Defensive Player of the Year,

who's one of the most dominant forces in the league already in year two, you also have all these guys like Anthony Edwards across the league embracing, that's the guy. Wembe's the guy that all of us are willing to look at and go, he has everything that's needed in terms of personality, in terms of demeanor, in terms of competitiveness to be out here

as the face of the NBA. So when you miss that guy for the second half of the season and a chase for a play-in spot, of course that's awful news for the league. I'm wondering what this did to his memorabilia market, because Wemby's the hottest name in terms of cards and memorabilia, so I wonder if, are things crashing?

Are people buying low? How do you? I think it's a huge blow, not just for the Spurs. However, the first name that I thought of was Chris Bosh. The second name that I thought of was David Robinson, because the Spurs were in a similar position. They had David Robinson. He got hurt. They put themselves in position to get Tim Duncan. And if they get Cooper flag at it, this whole thing, that's incredible for the franchise. I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. But I think the league

could have really used Victor Wemba Nyama in the postseason. I think it's a huge blow. You worry about the rest of his career because if this pops up again, you have the very recent comparison with Chris Bosch that, okay, that's blood thinners for life, right? He's a liability out there. You can't put him out there, and that's hugely unfortunate. I'll address the elephant in the room with my initial Victor Wemba Nyama takes. This was not what I had in mind, okay? When I talked about his long-term health and his fragility, I was thinking maybe ankle, all right? And knee licks.

Lickiness, yeah. No victory lap for you today. Yeah, no, no victory lap. I was made very uncomfortable with the amount of text messages and DMs that I got. Like, Mike Wemby. Mike, you were right. You're like, wait, what?

It's a dub, an unfortunate dub. A victor lap would be funny. How are you taking a victory lap today? I feel like Jer-Bare should be taking the victory lap. For being right about everything involving hockey ever? Whoa, whoa, whoa. How are you right? How was I right?

Are you politicizing this? The last week. Yeah. I'm politicizing. Yeah, you're politicizing this. I was me, I was me. It's bad body. Let's just take, I was the one who did that. The last week and a half was awesome for hockey. Yeah, it was super cool. There was me. It was me. I was the one who did that the last week and a half was awesome for hockey

Yeah, super cool. There was also a lot of politics involved. Yeah, and everything I said was right What'd you say? What did you say on Tuesday? Yeah, what'd you say when I told you guys that inevitably team USA would embrace Trump because the overwhelming majority of the roster Is right-leaning and so in turn when he embraced the team they would continue to embrace it and politicize it in a moment That only was being followed by the Abuelitas that you mentioned because of this political moment All of those people will drop off the face of the earth and the tournament will never be a school Again, they are I didn't even well apparently he's done in-depth reporting and he seemed like their voter Asking what did they do to embrace him? I did every quote that came out after

No, not every quote you got a quote from JT Miller and a quote from Bill Guerin. And there was another, I'll find another one if you'd like. No, but you've clearly seen all their voter ID cards. Did you give them a pump up speech or something too? He spoke on, like so, was it Bill Guerin that came in with the speaker phone? Yes, yes. Alright, so we know where Bill, I think it's safe to say, given the Fox News interview hit that Bill Guerin did, where he lines up politically. Uh huh. And remind me of his title.

He's a general manager. Yeah, that's right. What does that mean? He knew already. Mike, Jeremy's an ally. Mike, Jeremy's an ally. Would you like me to go into the political donations of Pat Riley and Mickey Harrison?

No, but we should do that all day and out. That would be hilarious. Let's do that and throw a blanket over. Let's throw a blanket over an entire organization Because because of a general manager well and players and look I mean I'm not to assume crazy I understand what you're doing. What's your duty for the Canadians? It was this guy Rudy for the Canadians. Oh the Canadians aren't conservative not at all No, the Canadian hockey players no Wayne Gretzky is only playing golf with

45 47 all the time and being encouraged to run for Prime Minister of Canada. Ooh, the great one. Yeah, the great one. So like, look, there's conservatives everywhere. We have to try our best to make this work. I don't like it either. And yes, I looked at the screen cap

and I tried to identify who's smiling. I know who was smiling. Austin Matthews, you got a huge smile on your face. I know what you wanna do with Matthew and I'm not so sure there, pal. No, I think it's more progressive. But I want to do it, actually. Yeah, but just given, if you want to read into quotes and what Matthew Kachuck has said, I know he spoke very excitedly, proud to be an American at the White House, but he's also

been- What do you expect him to say? Yeah. He's one of the captains of Team USA going into this tournament. What do you expect him to say? Of course. He's been really good about shielding that, but when it came to the Rainbow Stick Tape, Matthew Kachuck's been on the right side of that.

I think Matthew Kachuck is playing this about as well as you can, but I don't know the political leanings. I think it's safe to say. No one's asking you to go like player by player. It's just that I've seen fans say that the current feeling of patriotism is a little icky when the president of the United States is threatening the sovereignty of our friendliest neighbor, threatening tariffs, all of that. I think that was Jeremy's point.

And that it would have been embraced differently had you been said it, because we were talking about this in the context of the NBA all-stars and the NHL all-stars and obviously if you were sending the NBA all-stars up to Canada this all goes differently. Oh it's not who we would be rooting for. I root for the United States of America. I'm not anti-American. We'll put it on the poll. Put it on the poll. It's Jeremy Tachy and Adam. We'll put it on the poll. Put it on the poll. It's Jeremy Tashay. Howdy folks, it's Mike and look, it's been an exhausting couple of weeks. Even on the show, there's all sorts of debate which sport takes it seriously enough. Where's the effort? Let me tell you something. As long as I'm sitting down on the couch and

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Jeremy got shouted down on a number of points that were then. Proven right within 12 hours. But again, he's lifting up a JT Miller quote and a Bill Guerin quote and projecting that over an entire team, which I think is a little unfair. I'm projecting it over a moment, Mike. No, you cannot talk about this moment without the politics. Right, that's all I did from the beginning,

was saying how this moment. I think if you really listen to this segment, you would feel a little bit different. Well, I'm taking a victory lap. Yeah, victory lap. But that's the thing, you're taking a victory lap. Victory lap. Look, I'm sure this wasn't like when the US women were

being attacked by men 45. And that was kind of ideal if you were on one side of the political spectrum because you got to be a patriot. You knew where you were aligned ideologically with the players. And it was like a great moment. Megan Rapinoe, that's like, okay, yeah, you get to pound your chest and wrap yourself in the flag,

you get to be patriotic, and you get to stand up to someone that is your oppressor the way that you feel. Like, that's a great moment. This one's way more complicated. As is everything right now, overly complicated, and I do not like, from a side of the aisle, that during the Kaepernick thing wanted a clear division of politics and sport. And now, like many people in the

past, you have a leader that is using the avenue of sports to not just normalize some of this behavior as Steve Bannon gives a very clear Nazi salute at a CPAC, very clear Nazi salute. Like, this is abhorrent behavior. I understand why it's hard to disassociate some of this stuff. You know where I stand on this stuff. I have a very difficult time reconciling what's in the news, but then I hear Free Bird. Right, right.

And I see players. This is the whole thing. There's a lot of athletes that I am, former athletes that are conservative that I'm friends with. I live in Miami. It's why the echo chamber thing is insane to me. I'm a second generation Cuban.

We don't even have to do all of that. I think the point is just that a lot of people are trying to pretend like this wasn't tense for a particular reason last week. A lot of people are trying to pretend that this wasn't tense for a particular reason last week. A lot of people are trying to pretend that that's not the case. It was only as intense as it was because of what the moment was. And that was what I was saying then and it's what I'd continue to say now. I think it would be plenty intense.

And I don't think the intensity from the players would be any different if that storyline was not there. Trust me. You're right. From the news perspective, he's right. What I'm talking about is the gloms of people who have flocked to what this All-Star weekend was, who had zero interest in hockey before this. Press secretaries alike. Correct.

Yes. I'm with you. And so using it as a vehicle. And the issue for someone on my side of the aisle, whether you're as far to my side of the aisle or a little bit closer to the middle, it was a difficult thing to put all of that aside. To find myself reading for these guys. Who by the way, like the Panthers on the team,

Matthew Kachuk, like these guys are awesome guys. I'm not trying to disparage any of those human beings for what they were going through. It was a pretty intense thing to have on your back on top of wanting to honor Johnny Goudreau. There's a lot going on there. Hugely unfair, I think, to these players. Right, and so that became the issue.

Who were kind of professional and rolling with this. Yeah, they did what they could, but I mean, obviously there's some bites that come out and, you know, I'll see them, anyone else will see them, you get frustrated, but you don't have a long in-depth conversation with other players on the team who might not feel that way. At the same time, it became really difficult to view this game and this tournament

through any prism outside of what an administration that is at the same time doing some of the most heinous things I've seen while I'm alive on this planet and then wrapping themselves in the American flag around this hockey team. It's tough. I get you. 100 percent. I can say that the players, they didn't care about that stuff. That was not really talked about. That's totally fine. I'm just saying, like Justin Trudeau tweeted last night, you can't take our country or our game.

Politics was a big part of the storylines of this tournament, and that's, I think, just- It's why 1980 mattered. That tweet did numbies, though. 9.4 million views. Big numbies. Look, we went, Chris and I were in a group that went up to Montreal.

It would not have felt as tense were not for the political situation right now that the US finds itself in, seemingly by its own doing. Not seemingly, totally by its own doing. We've never ever had an issue with Canada, and now all of a sudden, a really friendly nation is booing our anthem straight to our face. Like, it's not great, it's impossible to ignore.

The players did their best in navigating this. Outside of maybe one wayward J.T. Miller thing that you could really read into, no one gave a quote that's like, man, damn, you really let me down there. So credit to them, hockey players are pretty good that way. They're not gonna give you too much because then Brad Morchan may seize

on something totally innocuous. I do wanna say though that I wanna credit this team for how well that they handled all this stuff. They could have come out and made this an Uber distraction. They didn't, they let it, hey, there were people, Jeremy, and people that feel like Jeremy, that were tuning into this specifically because they wanted to get one over on Canada

because the cultural personality is such, yeah, you're already in on the 51st state. And it's kind of like Republicans buy shoes too. Like Team USA, they did nothing to dissuade puck heads that really didn't want the politics being infused into this kind of tournament. They did nothing to dissuade us from it, really, and they certainly didn't do anything to dissuade the people that were coming to this game for that too. In terms of being able to capture a market

and know how to grow your game, I gotta say that the players played this to perfection. I had my thoughts about Bill Guerin, but what can you do? The other player quote that I had seen, I remembered seeing more and it was Noah Hanifin who said, hopefully we can get the win tonight for our country and for Trump. Well, okay. That's Noah Hanifin. Yeah. Well, there's two. There's two. Again, I'm not going to, I'm not going to project over an entire team. I think it's safe to say, like white rich athletes in hockey, you can estimate, you can do your best

to try to figure it out. I think you'd be shocked to know how many people on the Canada side are kind of, I know it's a progressive nation. I don't think anyone would be shocked. There you go. We know, yes, we understand that people with a lot of money tend to skew more conservative. It's like when I'm watching the Masters, I'm like, I kind of do you think he might be lib? No, I'm kind of make the White House yesterday. Yeah, celebrating. Our social team really put is Jeremy Tashay, anti American on Twitter. Thank God. Caboclesian. Here's the thing. Do we need to have everybody that we watch in sports be on one side or the other? Like, does it matter?

I voted yes. Thank you. I'm gonna vote yes after. But does it matter? Like, oh, this guy's Republican, this guy's Democrat. Like, we're watching the games. Like, are we really that invested with the polarization of politics?

In this moment, yes. To be like, oh man, JT Miller said something. That's not what we're talking about. That's not what we're saying. But you guys are parsing. This is a sporting event between teams that represent two countries where one country is All sports. Oh my god Tom Brady said what to who he's got a hat wear like we do this all the time

Oh, this person is progressive. Okay, great what I don't like for him more what I don't mean what I don't like is Yeah, that's a message Rest of ism stands for like having basic human rights point in history But my point is... Like do you believe that gay people should be married? I don't know. Well if you don't, I might judge you a little bit for that. But my point is this, we're watching a game, right?

Let's just watch the game, right? But they're not allowing, and by there I say conservatives because that was the message when Kaepernick was doing his thing. And it's very convenient to flip the script and just be like, hey, go ahead and deal with it. Okay, I'm dealing with with it I'm a UFC fan I see a political rally at UFC New York I see a victory lap I see every winning fighter go over there and can get congratulated by the president it's kind of impossible at that point for me to draw the line okay especially when Dana White is fully

endorsing okay I understand that. But my point is, you can just kind of be like, are you upset at that? Or are you like, okay, whatever, it is what it is. I think you can be disappointed by disagreeing with people's politics. I wanna hear what Jess has to say. There's plenty of players that I love watching

who I'm incredibly disappointed by constantly. And I still love sports, and I still watch sports all the time. I love football, I enjoy the shit all the time. I love football. I enjoy the shit out of it. I understand that a lot of my favorite players do not agree with me politically. It's tough.

Sometimes there's a line that you draw and you decide I'm not gonna watch that person anymore. That's every person's individual decision as a consumer of the sports that we watch. And it's obviously a very shitty and unique situation that this tournament came at this time where these two countries are in the most tense situation they've ever been before in history.

It really is remarkable the timing. And you can't ignore that. You just can't, like a lot of people covering sports are being told by their bosses just to ignore all of that. But when the president of Canada is tweeting, you can't take our country after Canada wins, it's kind of tough to ignore that that's happening. It is pretty crazy how all of this align

because the US and Canada never had issues. As long as I've been alive, they've been friendly neighbors. As a hockey fan, it's been awesome to shit on Canada my whole life and make fun of them for not winning any Stanley Cups in my lifetime, even though all of their players were the stars of the team that I liked that won several Stanley Cups. But that's beside the point.

You had Kainer. Bataves, Bataves. You had Kainer, but again, you have to do the, well, morally, I'm not really down with this guy, but go, go Hawks. I mean, it's a great, like, there's tons of ethical decisions that you make watching sports and just living in the world every single day and no one is saying you should like

You know change what sport you like because of whatever Tony like you are welcome to like what you like and do what you do However, I just think it's hard to ignore and that if you feel sort of icky and yucky Rooting for a team when this is going on in the background, I understand that, that's all I'm saying. Down the middle, Chris thinks this is an important conversation and he's glad that we're having it. I'm super glad that we're having it. The discourse is fascinating because like,

all this stuff happened at a moment in time where the politics were impossible to ignore. From the national anthems, they're booing the national anthem. Why are they booing the national anthem? Well, they were booing it because the Canadian national anthem was so terrible. Well, I heard that too, but you have-

Did we do that on purpose? That was the internet. They put a bad singer on purpose, got them! They should have had Greg do his song. There was no outside framing. Like the Miracle on Ice, you kind of knew the story geopolitically. This one, you had bad faith politicians,

bad faith aggregators doing what they could to manipulate a storyline that couldn't give a shit less about the sport. And while all that circus was going on, again, credit to the NHL, they leaned into the circus. They played it down the middle, non-political. When it came to their presentation, they would acknowledge it.

The players, for the most part, overwhelmingly, didn't close any doors to people that were coming just for that, and they are Legion. I think there's gonna be a massive number. But the people that truly have a passion for the game, Roy, I feel like I can speak for you. This was an amazing experience. This was one of the best things, genuinely,

one of the best things I've ever experienced around this sport, and that's not just because I went to some of the games. No, watching it on television yesterday was one of the iconic games in the sports history. Yeah, I think it might actually grow to sport because a lot of demographics that don't usually watch actually watch for the intrigue, so I think it might grow.

I can't believe that Yankee story. Actually, I wanted to get back on the topic because we've been trying to discuss back here like who is the Yankees player who benefits the most from being able to have their facial hair now. So Taylor put together a few photos for us of before and after shots of Yankees with and without facial hair.

So here, the first one is Devin Williams. I'll take your word for it. Going to be difficult to beat that. Devin Williams? He just looks great with a beard. So good with a beard. So much better with a beard. That's not the same person.

It's just flatly not. The eyes are closer together on the photo on the right. That's not the same person. You guys are trying to trick me. And then of course we have Paul Goldschmidt next, who you know, you have. Oh, there he is. Oh gosh, Paul Goldschmidt. Those are two you know, you have. Oh, come on.

Goldschmidt. Those are two different people. That's not fair. Looks thinner on the right, too. And the salt and pepper is great. Yeah. I love a salt and pepper beard. If I see the salt and pepper in a beard,

I'm like, that's Paul Goldschmidt. Is that Gino? I think we have one more. Let's see what the next one is. Oh. Oh, wait a second. No. That can't be right.

Mike Ryan plays for the Yankees? I'm really mad about this. Taylor might not be here next week. No. Guaranteed. Hey there, wellness warriors. If you're like me, you've given a lot of thought to how to improve your health and wellness routine this year.

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