The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Postgame Show: MMA HANGOUT + THE HOCKEY SHOW

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

We kick off the Postgame Show with Tony's MMA Hangout. Tony talks to MMA legend Demetrious 'Mighty Mouse' Johnson about the state of MMA, his career, and Johnson's thoughts on the main event of UFC 298. On The Hockey Show, Roy and David Dwork...of The Hockey News...will have a conversation with Erin Brown....of The Hockey News...about the PWHL. Plus, Mark Lazerus of The Athletic joins Roy and David to talk about how a game last season changed the landscape of three NHL franchises. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network. Welcome into the MMA Hangout. That right there is a legend in our midst. DJ Mighty Mouse, Meetress Johnson. DJ, first off, a pleasure to have you on, bro. You are a absolute legend, one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time. You told me you're cleaning the house right now. You're being a great dad.

You're watching the stock results for NVIDIA, just trying to figure out where we're at right now. Just, you gave me some life advice. You gotta invest your money wisely. You know, you're taking care of everything. How do you have time to do everything in your life? Well, I have a great support team behind me, you know, without my wife. I wouldn't be where I'm at.

Then I have three children, obviously schools, take care of them right now. And for me, I try to, you know, time is valuable. So I try to make sure I space out my day accordingly based on the day. So woke up, had breakfast, took breakfast from my dad. He just took out to Vegas, took the kids to school, went to the gym, worked up for two hours, now I'm home cleaning the house for the wife and we're watching the stock market to see what Nvidia is gonna do.

Then we got this and another interview after this and we'll get down to office and start creating more content. They're gonna pick the kids up. So you just gotta manage your day. I try to fill my day to be very, very busy and I've been doing it for a while now. What's the most difficult part of your career? Is it was it be was it getting into the UFC? Was it leaving the UFC now

into one? Obviously, you're the flyway champion for one championship right now. Legend in the UFC, obviously 11 title defenses, you and John Jones, I think are the only ones that have that number. So you've had so many transitions in your life now transitioning to, you know, the back end of your career with one and kind of what's looking at in the future. Like what's been the toughest part for you? I would say honestly just being busy and staying consistent. I've always worked my whole entire life ever since I was 15 and a half working at you know, parking and produce, moving the golf course and even up to when I thought

from my first four title fight in the UFC, I was working full time. So for me, always staying busy is kind of built into my nature. And now, like you said, I'm on the back end of my career where I'm not competing as often as I was when I was in the primary career,

like three to two times a year. Now I'm focused on just building content, building my brain as big as I can and trying to be present with my kids, my wife, and present in building the content as well. And that's probably the hardest thing, it's always trying to evolve as not just an athlete or business member, as a person.

What's been the funnest part of your career? When you look back and be like, damn, that that was it Yeah, I'll play honestly probably creating career but Craig career creating content hanging out with other athletes and Just travel with my wife. That was probably the best part in traveling my teammates and the coaches That was probably my favorite part of their career. I mean, I love every bit of it and you know, I'm still you know active, you know, I Would say that was by it right there just to traveling hanging out with other fighters. I don't forget me Cody no love a couple people from a baby made junkie and the UFC Brass as you can call them we're out in Japan getting drunk and it was pretty cool

May like that stuff would never happen if I never were competing in the sport. Who's the member of the USC Brassie? You can talk about those drinking everybody under the table. All right. He was drinking anybody on the table. It was Sean and Shabby, though. He was out there with us hanging out, getting lit. There must be so many great stories of obviously that time in the UFC that it was kind of totally

different than what it is now right like you've seen mixed martial arts grow into such a almost mainstay like worldwide sport and obviously Ilya Dupodia just won the featherweight championship like opening up an entire new demographic of fans in the European market in the Spanish market with Spain you know obviously being on top with him like and I want to get to that fight in a second because I want to get your expertise on that. But isn't it crazy how when you got into the game, it was completely different than what it is now?

1000%, I mean, you just look at everything. Technology evolves over time. And what I mean by technology, like the technology to be able to stream the fights and have high quality footage of life bikes going on. And I think, you know, with Ili Deporia coming into not just him, but just anybody mixed martial arts, depending on what organization you're in, you're going to get the best streaming service, as you can say, right? I mean, if you have CDs on

ESPN, you have more chips, chips that's on Amazon Prime and these Broadcasters do an amazing job to broadcast all the fights when they're going on live I think when the deporia did he did he gets outspoken Oski and have all of Europe and Spain behind him watching I mean I saw one video it was on like a a stream of a Of a huge coliseum. So the technology has come so far where if this was back in the early 1993 when mixed martial arts were started to its emphycy stage, it wouldn't be the same.

Looking at that fight, obviously it was a masterclass between Volk and between Ilia. What I was looking at and the people that I've been watching that know their shit and obviously I'm very interested to see what you have to say, knowing the most shit out of everybody that I would listen to is like, what they told me is watch their footwork. It was an elite footwork game,

a game of chess between Ilia and Volk. And you speak on like some of the things when you watch fights, how you watch them differently being a fighter yourself. I know you have a ton of breakdowns on either your TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and all those different things that you kind of break down your own fights. But when you look at elite level guys like that,

how is it that you watch it? First off, I watch it by the footwork and how they're going to cross the void, aka the distance, and how do they approach the fight? Obviously, with Alex Volganovsky taking on Ily DePoria, it was gonna be a battle of, you know, Ily DePoria, once he touches you, you typically go to sleep. And Alex Volkanovsky has outstruck everybody.

He's spot, all the guys who are taller than Max Holloway, Yaira Rodriguez, Brian Ortega, the list just goes on. So you had a guy like Ilyzuporia who likes to weight his self across the void with a beautiful head movement. And when he gets to the right distance, he unloads a three to four punch combination boxing style. And when he gets his opponent's escape, that's when he's most successful.

So when I sit back and I watch it, I'm looking at how is he going to cross the void? How is Altsforum? I was gonna keep him away from it and he likes to use the moon shaped arc. And that's how I look at it and that's the stuff I try to bring to my YouTube channel for people who are out there who aren't keen

on what they're looking at. Instead of like, I'll have people watch, I was like, I wanna see who's gonna get knocked out. I'm trying to break it down to my mindset when I'm watching the bites and a lot of the fans love to see it. Who is the person right now across any promotion, right? Whether it be one, whether it be obviously

PFL and Bellator together, UFC, who you watch and you go, that guy right there or that girl right there is kind of leagues above everybody else. Ooh, leagues above everybody else? That's a hard one to say. I mean, I don't honestly, I haven't thought about that by anybody yet.

I think everybody has these vicious ease, including myself, that we all can get better at doing. So, like I said, I think the last person that I thought, where I was like, ooh, this person is good, was Ili Tuporia when he bought Josh Emmett. He did a lot of things good, correct. And now that he's just be out for Konoski, you know, I'll say he's normal. But even even he has deficiencies, we just haven't seen it yet. When you look at the the spectrum of fighters, right? And you kind of look at your own career and you're like, oh, I see myself in

that person, right? Like looking at that younger, that younger generation and seeing kind of who's next, who's the next Mighty Mouse, who's the next DJ who you're like, oh, that guy reminds me of me. Oh, that's hard, because I felt like in the beginning of my career, I was so, I think there's snippets of me in a lot of people because I felt like I have snippets of a lot of people when I was upcoming in my career, right? And I think, you know, Sugarcane Melle, the way he's able to faint, the way he moves, forces people across the distance, you know, Ili Dupori, how he stops his opponents, you know, is on a sign, how he's so dynamic and athletic, you know, you you have there's so many people out there.

So for me, I'm just trying to take snippets of people where I wish I had earlier in my career, because we're not, we're not all people are going to be better than me. I was able to put stuff together because of my, my structure, my size, my mentality. And I think a lot of these guys have snippets of me, which I had snippets of earlier fighters at Grand Pages Jackson. I'm about, he moved my pressure style,

kind of like Randy Couture. I mean, the list just goes on, and Mirko Krokop, how he would throw high kicks. So for me, it's like, when I look at the younger generation, I always tell people, be better than me, don't be like me. And I don't see anybody who's like me, which is not a bad thing. Everybody's our own personality and our own style of fighting. You're, you're close to Sean.

I've seen you do a lot of stuff with Sean on your, on your YouTube channel. This, this fight with him and Cheeto, uh, his only loss of venging that got the title beat Aljo when Aljo was kind of on a tear. Obviously. Um, how do you see Sean kind of his trajectory into Superstardom in the sport? Well, I already think he's a superstar. I don't think regardless of how this fight plays out, I mean, he already lost the cheeto once and it started kept on growing even though Cheeto beat him and finished them.

So I think the biggest thing that Sean on line has been able to do is create a brand outside of mixed martial arts with, you know, his Sugarline, his gaming, his YouTube, his podcast. So I think for him, him going out there, if he beats Chico Rivera, which is pretty possible, I think, you know, his stars are going to keep on rising because he's going to continue to do other things that got his star even higher, which is building his brand. What do you talk to me about what you're doing with OnlyFans? I know that obviously you've got, you're doing content everywhere. I feel like YouTube, Twitter, Twitter, like across the board, you're doing content everywhere.

What makes the stuff that you're doing with OnlyFans different than what people see on your regular channels that obviously you pump out a ton of content already. Yeah, it's the content I put on OnlyFans is exclusive. So if you go through all of my Instagram, YouTube and all that stuff, the one thing I do not post about is my diet, my recovery and like behind the scenes of my competition and training and archives. And when I got approached by OnlyFans, when me and my producer were searching for a platform to go to host our library of rich content,

OnlyFans was the perfect place because it's for the true fans who want to see that side of things, right? You have YouTube where YouTube is specific for certain niche words like, you know, breakdowns, you know, the mighty cast, the podcast about other stuff. And then you have the Instagram was more family like and you know, your lifestyle a little

bit. Do you have the only fans where it's truly for the super fans where it's like, Hey, I'm posting my diet. Right. If I was supposed to send content on YouTube, it just wasn't, it wouldn't do it as good because people don't really care about my dad, but the super fans do. And so we have, you know, a lot of content that, you know, we could post on there

that it's gonna be good for the fans. You truly wanna see behind the scenes of stuff. And that's a thing too. We're only fans, you can do both. You can do long form content and you also do short form content. Where a lot of these places, you can't really do it. And if you do short form content,

you kinda ruin the algorithm on YouTube essentially. So we felt that OnlyFans was the best place to build the house of this type of exclusive content. And we're gonna put all the links in the bios below on our YouTube channel on the podcast and all that stuff. So we'll direct everybody, go check out DJ Mighty Mouses, OnlyFans account, he's gonna have a bunch of cool stuff on there, I might be out there too.

Seeing what you're eating dude, so I can replicate this. Well, it's funny because you know, I was literally just down in California at the Jackson podcast at the Jackson studio. You have Rampage Jackson, Luke Robhold, you have Bear, you had a lot of the guys and I took my shirt on and I was like, dude, why do you still have abs on that?

You're not in fight camp. I was like, well, I live my lifestyle as a clean, healthy lifestyle. And what I eat is very, it's very bland. It's straightforward, but for the super fan who cares about, hey, what does Miss Johnson eat? That's where I'm gonna show it. But if you posted video on the YouTube,

say, hey guys, this is what I eat, da, da, da, da, as you know how YouTube works, it's all about the algorithm, it's a niche platform, right? If I would do that, nobody, we posted some amazing things on YouTube, just doesn't do very well. And so that's when we're like, okay, let's find a platform where our fans, my fans,

who are a fan of the brand of the Mighty Gaming, Mighty Mouse, Demi Shunson, fan of the brand of the Mighty, Mighty Gaming, Mighty Mouse, Demetri Johnson, where they, the content can live and breathe. And that's where only fans came to mind. And that's where we made that merge of bringing a content there, the exclusive content. I love it, man. If you're a Mighty Mouse fan, go check out his only fans, dude. Thank you so much. You are an absolute legend of the game. And it's such a pleasure and an honor to talk to somebody who has done all the things you've done and in the in the content game just like me and understanding how these things

work so thank you so much for hanging out they really appreciate it. Hey man, I appreciate you. God bless. Later man. The Dan Labrador show was still got to sponsor by Better Help. A lot of us spent our lives wishing we had more time. The question is time for what? Go for a run, take a nap, read a book, show it for a friend? If time was unlimited, how would you use it? The best way to squeeze that special thing into your schedule is to know what's important to you and make it a priority. With more time available, individuals may find it easier to schedule therapy sessions without feeling rushed or overwhelmed. This can lead to more consistent attendance and greater engagement in the therapeutic

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Stugots, if you give him the choice, Stugots, you can have the very same thing one of two ways. You could get it honestly or you could steal it. He'll always choose stealing it! Stugatz. Well it's the quicker path. I mean it's just this is the Don Lebatar show with the Stugatz. Welcome to the hockey show my name is Roy Bellamy David Drogger the hockey news is to my left later today we have Mark Lazarus of the athletic to talk about the most consequential night in recent NHL history. We also have Aaron Brown from the Hiky News to talk about the PWHL, but first we're going to do a quick Panthers recap. The Panthers lost one nothing

to the Carolina Hurricanes last night and what was a playoff atmosphere. It was back and forth. atmosphere. It was back and forth. They played basically the similar styles and at 16 seconds left in regulation, Sebastian Aho ended up scoring on a turnaround wristor that beat Bob. Yeah, it was a fun game, right? It was interesting because you heard Paul Maurice speaking after Florida's overtime win earlier this week saying he wasn't particularly happy with how they played against Ottawa, but they got the two points. Then you come to this game against Carolina they lose in regulation the first regulation loss in the play or in the on the road in over two months. Yeah. And he's like no I'm happy

with how we played that's a good road game. So it just kind of shows that when the Panthers are playing their style they're going to win more times than not and that night I mean it was a combination of a great playoff at playoff atmosphere tight game and great goal tending by Peter Kochetkov of the Carolina Hurricanes. And Sergey Baratsky also played excellent. He made some great saves, but the posts got in the way of both teams in this one.

It was a game of bounces in this. Yeah, well, you're gonna get that when you got two teams that are so good against facing each other, two top Eastern conference teams that they're both playing really well. We've talked a lot about how the Panthers have played excellent, excellent hockey over the last two months.

Carolina's right behind them. They've only lost like two or three more games than Florida has over that same span. So it was a great matchup. I hope we see it again in the playoffs. It'd be another great conference final if we get that far. But yeah, I mean, two good teams, they beat the crap out of each other.

And finally, the biggest news out of the game, obviously, is the injuries to Gustav Forsling and Matthew Kutchuk. And I really don't know how this is going to affect the team especially going towards the trade that line. This is a big blow. We don't know how long they're going to be out. So I guess we're at a wait and see approach here. Potentially could be a big damage just because you got obviously Kitchuck. He's been on fire. He's been the NHL's best scorer over the last month and he plays so many different crucial

roles for the Panthers and then he got Gus Forsling he's a guy that plays penalty kill he's a guy that eats up a lot of minutes on the top pairing with Aaron Eckblad hopefully neither of them the inner juries are that bad we'll find out more tomorrow and Saturday when the Panthers have their morning state before they face the Washington capitals but yeah it's a very flexed time right now for the Panthers and hopefully for their sake that it's neither player is a major injury. Well March 14th will be the next time the Carolina Hurricanes and Florida Panthers match up that will be in Carolina last night ended up with some

fireworks that that's how the game ended so that game should be a lot of fun but let's switch over to the women's side of the sport. We got Erin Brown of the Hockey News she's going to talk about the professional women's Hockey League. How did we get here? Karen Brown of the Hockey News, she's going to talk about the professional women's hockey league. How did we get here? That's probably too long of a story for this short amount of time. Long and short, there were two leagues.

One league bought out the other league and they started a league from scratch and that is underway as of January 1st and it's fantastic. And how has it gone so far? Awesome, awesome. The quality of play is exactly what they have promised, the best players in the world. As far as the quality, the games are close,

they're exciting, high skill level, just incredibly fun to watch. If you have not watched Women's Hockey, or the only Women's Hockey you've been exposed to has been through the Olympics, this is at that level. So, lots of fun. So, who would you say would be the best representatives of the sport so far, as far as who's more recognizable?

So, you're going to obviously go with your national team players. A lot of those players are going to be with the league for at least three years because of the contracts that they've signed. So, if we're going off of quick names, Marie-Philippe Pellin is phenomenal. It's nice to be able to watch her when she's not wearing a team Canada jersey. No, yeah. Not get upset when she scores goals with 16 seconds left. That's one thing. Kendall Coyne Schofeld, Hillary Knight, Alex Carpenter and Allie Spooner, Sarah Nurse, Aaron Ambrose. There are just a ton of national team players. Pretty much every Canadian and U.S. national team player

is in this league. If you're looking for some players that are coming from outside the country, Alina Mueller from Switzerland, Chloe Arrard from France, You've also got, oh geez, off the top of my head, a number of Czech players, Katerina Morozova, Teres Vanasova, lots of incredible talent to watch. Oh, yeah, that's awesome. Sarah Nuss, yeah, that's my girl. So before I dive into the storylines of the season, because there have been some cool ones,

I did just want to want to touch on some of the rule differences that the PWHL has. Because my favorite thing, and we talked about it with a few guys at All-Star, was the jailbreak penalty rule, which I think is so cool. I would love to see something like this, kind of maybe get tried out in the AHL, or they tried it in an All-Star game or something.

I think that's really cool. They also have a different point system. So can you walk us through some of the rule differences? Yeah, so we'll start with the jailbreak goal. So it wasn't called the jailbreak goal initially. Or calling it the jailbreak goal. I mean, they were, but it was one of those things that just kind of like took off where they said,

yeah, let's call this. So the gist is basically if goal is scored during a power play, whether it's obviously power play goal, the player comes back on the ice. But the twist here is that if the team that is short-handed scores on this penalty kill, it frees the player. So there have been a couple of them.

I think at the quarter point, I think I counted there were about three of them. What was interesting is that two of those really changed the course of the game, where the team that was trailing or tied, they scored and ended up, you know, scored that jailbreak goal and ended up winning. So it's interesting right now, I think, because, one, you're getting that mentality change where you're not playing a super conservative penalty kill. So I noticed, for instance, Ottawa was playing a very, very aggressive penalty kill where you had almost three players much closer to the points, because obviously, if they pick

off a pass, get on a short-handed breakaway and that changes the complexion of the game. So you can kind of start to see where just this rule change is starting to shift some strategy. So that's the first thing. And then like I said, it's also, I think, a mental aspect for the players to be thinking about, hey, it's not just that we're gonna have a power play,

but we also have to play good defensively. Oh yeah, a whole different strategy. Exactly, exactly. So it does make that, I don't wanna call it a free for all, right? Cause it's not a total free for all during these power play slash penalty kills for whichever team,

but it's definitely making players think differently, play more aggressively, and it is very exciting to watch. You have six teams in this league so far. Is there going to be any expansion in the nearby future? I think right now they are just trying to get this league settled right now. Six teams, yes.

They are going to have two appearances, one in Pittsburgh, one in Detroit. So I think they're kind of, I don't want to say testing markets, but we know Pittsburgh is a good market. We know Detroit probably is a good market, considering Michigan's got great hockey as well, but the women's hockey, there's no NCAA women's team

in Michigan. So I think NCAA women's team in Michigan. So I think that it's the first step. Eventually, I imagine there will be, there has to be, I think DC would be on that. They've shown incredible support. So I think right now it was finding those markets that they knew they would get good responses out of. Other markets just kind of setting a foundation like, you know, New York, I think they've said like New York was kind

of going to be the market that they were gonna have to work the hardest in, but all the same, it's a major media market, major sports market, so. Andy's six teams are only named off of the location. Are they gonna have nicknames? Eventually, yeah. Right now, you know what, right now, like the honeymoon is awesome. Like the hockey is fantastic, the players are playing at a level that is just pure joy. Like you can tell they're enjoying just coming to the rink

and this being their number one job, their number one focus. So right now it's, you know, honestly, I get it. I get the importance of branding. I get making that identity, but right now, enjoy this. You're not gonna see this forever. So this first few, let's say half of the season, maybe full season even. It's gonna be something special.

I don't think we'll see moving forward, just because it's so new and unique and just fresh. And you see it in the way that the players are playing. So there's a few storylines that are going on this season that have been cool to talk about. I don't have time to get into them all like Kendall Coyne and Natalie Spooner coming back after having kids was really cool.

But I did want to ask you about the goal tending just because some of the goal tending numbers in this league are pretty ridiculous. They caught my eye when I was going through them. Why are the goalies so good? I guess why are they doing so well? Because we knew that they were good. You know what I think that one of the things is that it really is that there's a strong concentration of elite talent. This is something I've been wondering about. What's going to

happen when you have some of these goaltenders from college or from overseas, try to crack the lineups. There just aren't enough teams, and every team carries about three goaltenders. The third is usually the backup, in case one of the first two gets injured. I'm familiar with the third goalie role. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay.

But yeah, it's just, I think it's just a huge concentration of just the elite of the elite talent. So that's pretty much, not all of the teams, but pretty much everyone I think has someone who starts for a national team. And that right there is a key factor. But yeah, I think there are five players who, for five goalies I should say,

who have a goals against under two. And that's really impressive. I felt that. Aaron, I'm gonna ask you to stand up and do a little troll and explain to Jersey. Okay, so. Look at that. Wow.

She's wearing a, well, is it a Tony Granado jersey? No, how would you, what's the one in hockey segment? I'm just making sure. It's a very American hockey family, I'll give you that, or Amy Granado, Jamie? No, how was she, what's the women's hockey segment? I'm just making sure. It's a very American hockey family, I'll give you that, but what are we doing here? Yeah, yeah, what's women's hockey? So it is a 1998 Olympic Jersey, Cammy Granado, yes, I've had this since.

The first women's Olympics. The first women's Olympics, yes. Cammy Granado is the first woman to have a gold medal draped around her neck in Olympic Games for women's hockey. Yeah, that was an amazing tournament. Yeah, we were just kids when that happened too. We were teenagers. Yeah.

Yeah, I was skipping my AP chemistry class to watch that game. Worked out OK. I'm not doing chemistry these days. Yeah, I was just saying, you're just teaching now. The path has worked well for you. Absolutely. Where can we watch the professional women's hockey league?

So if you are in Canada, I think every single network broadcasts games, I'm not going to get into Canada, you'll find it easily. If you're in a market with a team, so between New York, Boston and Minnesota, it's going to be your regional network. So Nessan MSG, MSG, and then I think Bally's North carries it. But otherwise, if you are out of market, you can see all the games on YouTube and the production quality is fantastic.

It's not overloaded with ads or board ads. You know, it's just very, very high quality. I've, I kind of get sad when there's not a game at night. You know, it's just very, very high quality. I kind of get sad when there's not a game at night. So yeah, YouTube is probably gonna be the place to go for most people. Just look up the PWHL account and you will find the live streams every day. Aaron Brown of the Hockey News,

thank you for braving traffic to get down here and talk about women's hockey. For women's hockey, I will brave traffic anytime. Don Lebatard! If I'm at the house with them and they're all rooting, I could just be like, yeah, rah, rah, rah. Go Yankees. Stugats!

Do you know how unsettling it would be if I attended a live sporting event and someone behind me was just going, rah, rah! Rah, Browns! Rah, Heath! Rah, rah, rah! This is the Don Lebatard Show with the Stugas.

April 11th, 2023 was one of the most consequential nights in NHL history because it changed the course of three franchises. It was the night that the Chicago Blackhawks defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-2 and knocked the Penguins out of playoff contention and sent the Florida Panthers barely into the playoffs. We have Mark Lazarus of the athletic. He covers the Blackhawks. He wrote about this story and it was really, really an interesting story of good

perspective from all three sides. Mark, tell us about the story. Well, I actually wanted to write this story for opening day because the Blackhawks opened the season in Pittsburgh and I wanted to talk about it then, but you know, it's hard to get people to talk about a game that happened months earlier and that most people were not happy about the outcome. So it took me a little bit of time, but it's really, it's just a fascinating thing. And I know people have talked about it before, but like, if the Blackhawks don't win that

game, a game they had no business winning, the Penguins were, you know, playing with their playoff lives in the line that everything to play for. And the Blackhawks were like this patchwork group of A. H. L. guys after they got decimated at the trade deadline on a tanking team. And the Blackhawks went into Pittsburgh and they won that game. Without that, they don't get Connor Badaard because they finished dead last and they had the wrong odds to actually win the draft lottery. The Penguins maybe don't fire Ron Hextal and Brian Burke. Maybe Kyle Dubas doesn't leave Toronto to go to Pittsburgh and the Panthers don't get in the playoffs. They don't make that magical run.

They don't get a huge boost in attendance this year. Matthew Kachuk isn't a huge star in this league. The ripple effect of that game, it's just always been fascinating to me. What do you think was the most interesting ripple that came from that game? Because you just kind of described, there were so many different elements that came into it. You had a team that probably wouldn't have made the playoffs,

go to the Stanley Cup finals, you had a team that was trying to get the number one pick, got him kind of backdoor-ish. It just, it fascinates me. And then you had the changes that happened in Pittsburgh. I'm just wondering, did you think there was one maybe above the others? It's just such a cool situation.

To me, being based in Chicago and primarily covering the Blackhawks, the badard of it all is what's fascinating because at the Blackhawks, after that just egregious, super cynical, kind of gross tank job they did last year, if it ends without them getting badard, if they get Fantilly or they get Leo Carlson, that's a totally different vibe here in Chicago. Like the franchise is like a disaster, right? But now that they have Badaard, they're selling out, they're making money, there's jerseys everywhere,

there's genuine hope for the future. So I think that maybe Chicago of all teams actually had the most, the ripple effect here, having the guy who's going to be one of the biggest names in the sport in one of the biggest cities in a market that desperately needed it after losing Kane and Taves, I think that might have the longest term impact. I mean, it's entirely possible that Ron Hextal and Brian Burke get fired

regardless, even if the Penguins do squeak into the playoffs. I think most people in Pittsburgh will tell you that was probably going to happen. But how many times have we seen a team just like the Panthers sneak into the playoffs and then win a couple of rounds? If they make it to the conference final, they're not firing their front office. So the Kyle Dubas of it all is certainly interesting, but in terms of the grand picture of the NHL, where Connor Bidad landed, he's in Chicago instead of Columbus or Anaheim, I think that's going to wind up being the biggest ripple. You speak of Connor Bidad. Obviously, he got hurt in the game versus the New Jersey Devils

on the hit by Brendan Smith. Even with that hit, is he still the game versus the New Jersey Devils on that hit by Brendan Smith Even with that hit is he still the rookie of the year oh Yeah, I mean if he stays healthy the rest of the year with all apologies to my friends in the Twin Cities Brock favorite doesn't stand a chance. It's gonna be borderline unanimous But what Baudard is doing with the teammates he has with the line mates. He has is just spectacular He's basically a point to game guy. He's he's creating goals out of thin air. And he's the biggest star on his team.

He's the only star on his team. So I think what he's doing, I mean, I'm always a guy who wants to give credence to a defenseman in these debates, because being a young defenseman is harder. And I don't care that Brock Faber's three years older than Connor Bidard. He's illegally a rookie that he's qualified. He'd be a worthy Calder candidate. But assuming Conor Bidard stays healthy, he's going to finish with 25-30 goals, even with missing six weeks with a broken jaw. There's no way he doesn't win the Calder.

And with the trade deadline coming up, and you mentioned that he is the only star on the team, how would the Blackhawks build around him? I mean, it's going to be a quiet trade deadline here, right? Because they made so many moves last year where they, you know, traded Patrick Kane, they traded Jake McCabe, Sam Lafferty. They made all these moves and decimated the roster. There's nobody left to trade this year. I mean, their biggest trade ships this year are Colin Blackwell and Tyler Johnson,

who are, you know, nice pieces to add for a contending team. Tyler Johnson's won multiple Stanley Cups. He can fill a role there, bring rings in the room and all that, but you're gonna get like a fourth round pick for him at most. So like the the the teardowns already happened. This is year one of the rebuild in a lot of ways. And you know, the Hawks had two first round picks last year, three picks, three first round picks the year before that. They got two first round picks. This year they got two first round picks the year after that. So that's where the that's where it's gonna all come from within.

The Black Hawks aren't gonna spend any money the next two summers. They are not going to be a cap team for a while here. It sounds like patience is going to need to be a virtue for the fans in Chicago for at least a little while, right? Oh, no question. And it's hard, right? Because I know nobody in the rest of the hockey world feels bad for Chicago. They won three Stanley Cups in the cap era.

But that this is year one of the rebuild is tough to swallow because they've been bad now for four or five years, right? They were kind of walking in the wilderness, trying to piece together a competitive lineup and finishing in like 10th, 11th place. You know, that horrible mushy middle where you're not bad enough to get good and you're not good enough to make the playoffs.

Yeah, we're familiar with that down here. Yeah, exactly, right? And you look at somewhere like Buffalo, Ottawa, Detroit, this is a long term thing. I mean Buffalo has been doing this it feels like since like the 1970s and the Detroit's in like year seven of the Iser plan and they're trying to scratch and claw their way into the playoffs. They just became a team that added last summer and they were still trading for they traded Philip Aaronic for a first round pick last year at the trade deadline at 24 year old defenseman. So this is a excruciatingly long process.

And Kyle Davidson, the general manager here, he has that kind of leash. The ownership of the team, Danny Wurz, he understands, and this is going to be a long and painful process. And having Connor Bidard makes it so much easier for fans to swallow, because if you didn't have him, it'd be a disaster right now. So switching gears for a second,

I wanna ask about something else that you wrote about recently, and it's Steve Larmer. His number is not retired in Chicago. I'll be honest, I wasn't super familiar with the details of his career before I read your story. I knew he was a very good player in Chicago that put up some big numbers, but holy shit, when I looked up his stats year over year,

I could not believe, like, how was this guy not in the conversation of why isn't he in the Hall of Fame yet? Let alone his number being retired in Chicago. So I completely agree with you. Is this going to happen sometime soon? Cause based off of what I'm seeing, it needs to. Well, it's funny. You know, we, uh, at the athletic, we do the shadow Hall of Fame committee where

Eric Duhachek, who's been in that room, kind of leads 15 of us as if we were voting for the Hall of Fame and two two straight years, I nominated Larimer and he got zero votes every time I nominated. So it's not gonna happen. He's not going to make the Hall of Fame. He's just not. He's that Hall of Very Good. Maybe his career wasn't long enough.

You know, maybe he was overshadowed a little bit by playing with Dennis Savard and Jeremy Roanick a little bit. I got to know Steve Larimer through like the EA Sports Video Games in the 90s, right? He was unbelievable on NHL 94. So like that's how I kind of got to know Steve Larimer through like the EA Sports video games in the 90s, right? He was unbelievable on NHL 94. So like that's why that's how I kind of felt got to know. But it really is something. And as for the Jersey retirement, it's interesting because the Blackhawks for

years were just notoriously stingy with their Jersey retirements. But last year, when they when they raised Marion Hostess number 81 to the rafters. Now, this is not a trying to be smirks the good name of Marion. Osa, maybe one of my favorite players I've ever watched play hockey, but his best years offensively came in other markets. They came in Ottawa and Atlanta. He was only in Chicago for nine years, a small portion of his career. So once they decided to put host up there, how do you not put Steve Larmor up there? How do you not put Doug Wilson to putting Chris Chelyos up on Sunday? if you're gonna put it and yeah

But he was here for nine years. That's it most of his career was elsewhere, too Wow, so you know he won two Norris trophies here. He's certainly worthy of it He's a Chicago guy everybody loves Chris cellos But if you're gonna put guys like hosta and large and and and cellos up there, how do you not put? Larmer how do you not put Brent Seabrook? How do you not put Corey Crawford like it just opens the door so wide for so many guys that have been waiting for this chance because the Hawks have been so stingy.

Yeah, you bring it up, then, being stingy. I don't understand why Chris Ciello's is waiting until now to get his number retired. Is it because he went to Detroit? That's part of it. Chris Ciello was kind of persona non grata around here because he went to Detroit and won a couple of Stanley Cups out there.

That's why it's going to be Patrick Haynes coming back on Sunday. I don't expect it to be similar. Haynes is going to get showered with love here on Sunday. But there was some bitterness to Cellios for even though, you know, he didn't trade himself. They traded him. Well, you have a list of the best in the worst outdoor game jerseys. Now, these jerseys, I mean, they haven't really been the best,

but I mean, the Blackhawks have had pretty good jerseys, in my opinion. I don't think Detroit's outdoor game jersey was great. I mean, the big Gothic D. I like the 0-9 one. I mean, the Hawks have had so many of them over the years. Some of them are just like, they're just like variations on a theme.

They're pretty boring. I love their black and white ones from the, oh, I gotta cover so many outdoor games of the 2019 Winter Classic, the Notre Dame game. They went black and white, and then every time they would wear them at the United Center, they would make all the scoreboards would go black and white, and it created this really kind of cool vibe

in the arena, so I always liked those. Well, you have more on your list. What are the best outdoor game jerseys, and then we'll get to the worst. Oh, God, at the top of my head, I got to go back and look at what I wrote. I love the the Krakens this year, the one that kind of nod to the old Seattle metropolitan.

Yeah. I think we all come back to the original winner classic, right, that penguins game against Buffalo outdoors in the snow. Frosby scores the winner in the shootout. Those baby blue penguins jerseys. Don't talk about Frosby, don't talk about Frosby scores the winner in the shootout. Those baby blue penguins jerseys. Don't talk about Frosby, don't talk about Crosby. We don't, by the way, that brings me back

to the Blackhawks win last year and how happy that made me, just based on the fact that we don't have to see Sydney Crosby in the playoffs. And now we will have to see him again this year. I thought we came, I thought the hockey world came back around on Sydney Crosby. Like everyone loved him when he came up and then there was the backlash

and then he was whiny and cry baby Crosby now we all realize that he's literally like the third or fourth best player in the history of hockey Not reach the hockey show that no that opinion has not made it here Yeah, I feel like I have a friend who's got a guy who's got a kid who plays hockey and when he was like eight years old He hated Sidney Crosby and I convinced him that no Sidney Crosby is actually really good. And he's a great guy. He's like a model citizen. He does all kinds of work in the community without people knowing it.

He talks to the media every day. He's like the model hockey player. And actually the kid, he turned around so hard, he actually asked for a Crosby jersey for Christmas. Oh wow. Well, my beef is on ice. It's not off ice. I know how charitable and what he does for the community.

So yeah, it's definitely on ice over the years. And the fact that the league shut him down on collective thoughts. Well, that's like, I mean, I live and work in Chicago. I walk by the Michael Jordan statue every day. I hate him more than I've hated any human in my life because I grew up a Knicks fan. He ruined my childhood year after year. So I understand that. I get it. All right. So going now, kind of sticking with this theme with the outdoor jerseys, we just found out that the Black Hots are going to be in yet another outdoor game.

That's shocking, isn't it? I was hopefully will be there. So next year's Winter Classic at Wrigley Field. I was actually at the first one at Wrigley Field in like 2009, which was really cool. I was there as a fan. We're hoping to get up there again this year. But I don't know, as a guy who's covered the Black Hots

so much, this wasn't your question, I was going to ask originally, again this year. But I don't know, as a guy who's covered the Black Ops so much, this wasn't your question, I was going to ask originally, but you kind of brought it out of me. Is there overkill at this point? Like, what's the deal with the Black Ops being in it every year? Your perspective of it, obviously, is a little bit different. But is it time for maybe other teams to get in there? Or is this the deserved thing and we need to just get used to it?

I mean, of course, it's time for other teams. And thankfully, the Hawks haven't had one since I think that 19 one against Boston at Notre Dame Then they were getting an outdoor game every year basically during the height of their dominance and it's because they were a TV ratings powerhouse, right? I would like to see personally like the winner classic doesn't do good ratings It's just it's not it's not a big deal on TV It doesn't look good on TV. The most recent one with the Kraken and the Golden Knights just, I think it was the lowest rated one of all time. What makes the Winter Classic great is being at the Winter Classic or the Stadium Series. It's fun to go

to these games. I'm pretty cynical about them having covered six or seven by now, but I'm always like, oh, god, I got another cover, another outdoor game. But then you get there and you're like, ah, this is kind of cool. This'm, you know, this is fun. It's kind of like the All Star game. It's a local event. It's not really a league-wide event in outdoor game. It's for the local community. And like, when you have one at NC State,

Hurricanes fans are loving it. When you have one at the University of Minnesota, Wild fans are loving it. It's really cool when you're there. I feel like the league should stop worrying about the TV ratings and start just putting more teams in these, you know, like Columbus is finally getting one next year.

It's gonna be a stadium series game against Michigan and I'm sure we'll have the Ohio State and Michigan vibe for everything, but we need to get more teams involved cause it's really fun for the local fan base and that's what you gotta worry about. If you want better TV ratings, give me more Lake Tahoe games. That looked awesome on TV.

That was over a year where they couldn't have a book. Put a game on the D.C. Mall. Put a game in Central Park in New York. Put a game on Grand Park on Lake Michigan here in Chicago. Put a game at Lake Louise. Like there's a million places you could do that that would look awesome on TV and would get people's eyeballs that would catch their attention. Right. Yeah.

So do that because you're going up against the college football playoffs now. You're not going to win that battle. If you insist on having these games on New Year's Day, frankly, I think that should be on Christmas Day, go compete against one NBA game would be a lot easier. You'd have to negotiate that into the CBA, but that's the day to do it. But stop worrying about the ratings and just make the event really cool, and that's how you're going to make hockey cool again Hopefully we'll get a lightning and Panthers with a classic

Doubted but hopefully we'll get that it would do terrible TV ratings and it would be awesome in Florida That's what matters more glasses at the athletic. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me