The Hockey PDOcast - All-Star Takeaways, and how to improve hockey broadcasts

Episode Date: February 7, 2023

Sean Shapiro joins Dimitri to talk about this past weekend's All-Star festivities, where the league missed the mark on most of the programming, and how it can improve its broadcasts moving forwardThis podcast is produced by Lina Setaghian and Dominic SramatyThe views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Philippobo. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name's Dimitra Filippovich and joining me fresh off of his trip to Florida for the All-Star break and all the festivities that happened over the weekend. It's my good buddy, Sean Shapiro. Sean, what's going on? Much, not much.

I'm back out of the sun now. I'm into, actually kind of got a little bit nicer here. But no, it's nice. I'm now back out of the sun and watch. some, I guess all-star was fun, but also it's good to be back to watch some real hockey that matters this week, too. So it's a, it was a good break, a good time to get some work done, good place to go for a couple days, and now it's good to be here. Well, let's talk about that then. Let's pick your brain. I have to admit, I legitimately didn't all watch a single second of the actual game itself on Saturday. I don't know, did I miss anything? I heard Dylan Larkin was trying really hard.

So that's one thing. Yeah. I mean, it's the All-Star game in general. The game was actually better. And it was one of the rare years for me where the game actually turned out to be better than the skills competition. Because basically the skills competition was, the skills competition was crap is here, basically. They went through and they tried a lot of things that didn't work. They messed around with the programming and something that normally carries the weekend kind of got worse.

and the game actually, the second game in general, actually, like there's actually the guys, I don't know why, but guys were actually trying a little bit. There was actually, and so the game itself was better than I expected, which I think is about as good as you can get barring. You have a guy in the game who was voted in and traded from one team to another in the league tried to ban him and everything like that.

Like I think this was about as good as an All-Star 3-03 you could get aside from the once-in-a-lifetime circumstance of that, first one with John Scott. Well, I, okay, so I did watch all of the skills competitions on Friday and I guess my big question. Well, you know, I was just sitting and having

a couple drinks, enjoy my break. Yeah. Had a couple people over. Also hockey fans. It was fun trying to explain to them what I thought was happening, but I, even myself, didn't really know. I guess that was my lasting takeaway from a lot of the programming on Friday

was what when this week heck is going on here. Like I, I, I, yeah. We've talked about this before on, on this show, right? Where then the event, especially the Friday portion is not for us, right? It's like, it's for younger fans. It's for the kids, all that good stuff. But if that's the case, and it clearly is, then why are the two big references you're making

as part of the skills competition being Miami Vice and Happy Gilmore, like two movies that what percentage of like eight year olds are even aware of those movies? It's it's it's it's so wild. I mean Miami Vice right when did it

I'm just using the internet here when did Miami? Last time Miami Vice was on TV like I ran for like the original Miami Vice ran for like 84 to 89 like I was born in 89

like that's old like the Miami Vice reference even goes like I got it because I know like oh that's Miami Vikes. But like I still didn't get it. Like it's not like it was something where it's like connected with MIDI. So is that your appeal to try to bring in the ease? Yeah, I felt like you could have made it.

Like I get the geographical reference. Yeah. But it felt like you could have probably made some sort of reference to a movie or a bit of pop culture that actually made sense for the graphic, for the demographic you're trying to target. The Miami Vice Fund, too, the thing that happened that was supposed to happen that didn't because obviously this is all scripted. Martyr whiffed he was supposed to lofted up like high glove

and Luanga was supposed to give it like the big how do you do on the yeah and because he just basically whiffed on the shot it just became

a weird here's Mitch Martyr in a suit and we didn't really do much else with it right like the happy Gilmore thing was at least

semi funny and a little bit more relevant but anyone And no, not really. I got, I had to break it. On TV, it was an absolute mess. Yeah, now I'm being kind, but that's...

Well, let's go through the mechanics over then. You were there. So a lot of this stuff's like pre-report and stuff, right? What was the logic behind formatting it so that they would start an event? Actually, like, in the case of the accuracy competition, for example, you know, McDavid hits all of his marks immediately in superhuman fashion. Yeah. And instead of building on that and being like, all right, let's see what he's going to do next.

All of a sudden, it's like, all right, and now we're going to put this over here and we're going to do two or three other events now and resume then. And then we'll follow this up later at a point of which you've probably already forgotten what happened in the first place. Like, what was the logic behind the actual reduction of it in terms of formatting that way as opposed to starting an event and finishing it and then starting a new one? ESPN and the NHL had seen metrics where viewership, and I know this is for fact of ESPN and the NHL had seen metrics where the number of the viewership drops after certain events, where after the hardest shot, after accuracy, after fast a skater, if you looked at the chart of viewership, there would be people like who would just leave after that. And so the thought concept process behind it was, well, if the event doesn't end, those people...

They can't leave. Well, they can't leave. Right. And that was the thought process. And it didn't work, right? Like, it was just so disjointed and confusing and you had really kind of no idea what was going on. I mean, my favorite part about all of this is the fact that, like, Kareil Kapprosov just chose not to do anything.

Yeah. Like, that's the best part out of all this. Like, he was supposed to be in the fastest skater, and they were going through. And Detroit, right, we spoke to Dylan Larkin, a little bit after skate back in Detroit this week. And he was like, with an error and everything like that. And we go through everyone and, like, Capersov just never goes. And basically, he just kind of decided he wasn't going to do it. And like, it's, in the whole thing was just, it was as what it was, it was so bad in person.

Here's the thing about, like, the skills competition was so bad in person. It was so, such a push to be like a TV event and everything like that. And the fact that it didn't translate it at all to real television is just even more of a, like, damning thing of, like, how much they missed the mark on it. Because in person, it was just awkward and weird. and you would go through times where it's like at one point like I hit the like someone in the press box and like hit the stopwatch

and there's like 22 minutes of not action for the people in the building who are paying way too much money to be there and are just like so it was it was a very awkward weird event well here's a thing so I think we're all resigned to the reality

that especially for the game portion on the Saturday like the motivation incentive to try really hard and actually turn it into a game situation is just not going to be there, right? And then it's understandable. No one wants to get hurt

in one of these exhibition events. Totally makes sense. Here's the thing, though. I think there's a way to do, especially the skills competition part where you tap into what this should be at the root of it, which is you have a collection

of the best athletes in the sport all in one place. Part of what makes them so good is how just obscenely competitive they are, right? Yeah. And so you get them doing stuff where they don't want to be shown up by their peers,

so then you get them tapping into that by actually being competitive. And it was interesting, I understand that this doesn't make for the live experience, of course, for the people in the building. But one of the events that I thought did kind of work for me

was the pre-recorded segment of the guys playing golf. Because you got to see, you actually got to see like Jason Robbins Robertson like earnestly um talking to like Clayton Keller and other players that were there competing with him and like he messes up his first shot and he's like oh my god I'm so embarrassed and then like he hits a second one and you can like see him kind of like the wheels turning up him like talking himself into being like all right I got a chance here like you know things are turn around for me and you see

that actual personality of his shine through you see him interacting with a peer while they're doing something competitive so he's trying and that's what this should be, right? Instead, you get some of these like breakaway challenges and stuff where it's like it's an embarrassment because you can tell that they're there just because they have to be there. So they're not even trying. It's like, all right, I can see, I could go to any local rink and see someone do this like shootout move at 10% speed with none of the skill applied. Like that's not, that doesn't sell anything. That's not showing off what the product is and what makes these players special. The golf thing is kind of irrelevant to hockey, but at least it shows that.

them in that natural element of them trying and seeing whether they can beat someone that they actually care about. I would have watched two hours of the golf thing, honestly, like, just like, because I watched it later since I was in the building. So like during what was going live, I was running around a bit. But like, I actually watched the golf thing later. And I would have watched like, you could have taken, like, you could have played three more holes. And I would have watched that content. I would watch all that content. It would have been something that I didn't need to be in person for it. It's something that I would have watched more of. Um, the out of, Like, there was two things about the pre-taped stuff that I think are important to note on this.

For me, Laxter, what they did in Vegas, actually worked because people watching at home and people in the building were able to suspend disbelief because the Bellagio Fountain is right next to T-Mobile. So the concept of like, hey, we did the hardest skater. Now we're going to just go to the fountain where we've got, I think was Zach Wrenzki, won it last year. we'll go to Zach Wrenski and these guys on the Belagio Fountain's like, you could at least suspend disbelief while watch you. Where it's like, okay, those two things are geographically next to each other. We'd we all know the Panthers play next to the Everglades, and the beach is nowhere close to that.

Like, so that was another like thing that took out of it for me where it's like, it was, it took away the, even though there was, even though people, if you thought about it, you knew it wasn't happening at the same time, it took away from the geography of it. It took away from like, okay, well, This really isn't happening. This is something where they're at the beach. I know the Panthers play nowhere near the beach.

So what are they showing me? Why am I seeing this? Like, I think there was an easier suspension of disbelief with the Vegas one. And then I think the other issue is, and this is obviously hard to get players to sign on for this. When you have Guy like Caprazov, we refuse to do anything. But, and I'm not blaming Caprazov. Actually, I think it's great. It's a great silent protest of how that has run.

But if you're talking about it. Jason Robertson, a guy you need to market, a guy you need to grow the game, a guy you need to, a guy who is basically not the mainstream white dude and you, who we should be talking more about in this sport. If you're someone who went to the game to the skills competition and all you do get to see is him in a live, in a video on TV, as opposed to seeing him actually do something that he's great at, like, it just loses a lot of the impact too in the building. We're like, okay, I'm getting short, I'm getting short shifted here basically by not getting the full all-star experience of having to actually see what all of these guys do and see all this and

everything. Like, I think the away from the rink stuff should still be part of it in the future. I think, but I think it needs to be looked at as a content in a addition to as opposed to something separate from. Like it needs to be something where it's like you shouldn't go into, when they go to Toronto next year for the, for the skills competition, there shouldn't be a setting where somehow you don't have a guy doing something because, I mean, I don't know what they'll do on the side in Toronto. They'll probably just be, that one will be more frustrating because it'll be like,

they'll do it on an outdoor rink. People will be like, wait, there's a rink right here. Why did you not just do it right in front of us? So, so it should be like, the external stuff. They should continue to do it, but you need to find a way to make it just a supplemental content piece. Right? Like the golf thing.

Put it together, do a hole, do two more holes, and put it together, put it on a streaming platform or whatever and get more people to watch it, but still let me see Robertson and Suzuki do other things in the skills competition. It just seems, yeah. I thought Robertson was genuinely, like, hilarious. Oh, no, yeah.

And it's meant to that where, like, every sort of peek behind the curtain I've seen in terms of content that showed him off the ice seems like to back that up as well, right? Like he seems like a genuine personality. But that tells you a lot about the NHL's shortcomings in this regard that how many instances do we have to point to to get more and more of that, right? Like I, you don't. Does the league actually know that Jason Robertson should be one of its most like marketable stars that they really should be putting significant resources in. into putting in the forefront in terms of like, this guy is incredibly good at hockey and also cool and a young player

and he's playing a big market and we should be like centering him in this discussion as opposed to kind of being sort of like one-off on the side. Yeah. I mean, did you see the, I love the, I don't know, did you just see the clip of, so he was, I'm not sure he was miced up or whatever, but the audio from when he went to go take the face off, there's a great clip where it's like, it goes, go into, he goes, it's when they're playing the Pacific and I think it's dry

saddle or something like that. And Robertson doesn't take face-offs, but he's out there and he's going to go take the face off and he's like, and he just starts talking to, I think it's dry-siddle basically, but I was like, this isn't really fair. I've taken one face off in three years and now I've to take it against you. Like, I did see the video of him in the locker room where like, I guess he's doing a tour and giving his rankings of all the retro reverse jerseys. Yeah. And then he gives the, he gives a thumbs up to the blue one, which is an objectively ugly jersey. And then all of a sudden it pans and to behind the camera and flat terrace ankle is basically

coercing them to give a glowing review. It's like, that's pretty funny. I'd like to see a little more than that. Yeah. I don't like the breakaway stuff was stunning for how bad it was, right? From the concept, which I can't explain to you what the rules were to how disjointed it all was, to how convoluted it was to the fact that no one was trying. Like I don't, so especially the part where like the player, like there would be a skater and he would stand at center ice basically along the boards, right?

And they would rim it off the boards. The goalie would go to simulate what they'd do in a game and they'd go play the puck behind the net, right? And then to show off the skills, they'd shoot the puck toward all the length of the ice and try to score the other net, right? Yeah. Like I enjoyed the, like UC Soros genuinely seemed to be trying really hard. And when he scored one, he was so happy. And I was like, all right, like, this is pretty cool. But everything was in such slow motion that it doesn't, like I'm saying,

it doesn't show what makes them such good athletes, right? Like at the very least, send some sort of forechecker or something to kind of rush them and see if they can like kind of evade them and shoot it quickly on it, to simulate that game setting without any of the dangers involved. Like I don't, a goalie going back slowly behind the net and then firing the puck the length of the ice, isn't that interesting? and Igor Shisterkin, the best one in the league probably at doing so, isn't even the one of the ones taking the shots?

I don't, like, what was going on? Like, who signed off on this? Yeah. I mean, that's a great drill. Like, that's a great, like, goalie, like, training drill where you're like, okay, hey, we'll dump the puck in, shoot to the net, and if you hit the net, if you don't hit the net, you have to face a breakaway. Like, that's, like, a great drill that I'm sure some coach, like,

wrote down after watching that. We'll use it. But, like, as far as it, a sure. showcase for best players in the world and everything like that. It's... Yeah. It missed the mark. Yeah.

It did. And the good news is, and the key question is, and just hopefully, they'll actually follow through with it, is allegedly, ESPN and the NHL, looked at this and said, okay, this is a disaster. We need to be better next year. Yeah. it's one of those we'll believe it when we see it is like the New Year's resolution for everyone where on January 1st you tell yourself you're going to do

all this stuff and then by January 15th you don't do any of it it's like the gym membership where it's like you sign out for it and then the reason it's like recurring and then like you get to December and you're like ah I've been charged I've been charged X amount of dollars each month for this September like

well I just yeah I mean all of it just reeked of Mickey Mouse behavior which is our biggest fear about the NHL that just like, yeah, how do you take it seriously when it presents itself in this way? And not that this event needs to be serious, but what I'm saying is like, it was a good opportunity for the league. There was very little happening in the sports world that weekend. It was a very good opportunity to people that are turning it on or looking for someone to watch. It's like, all right, this is interesting. I'm going to stick around and then maybe you get to

know some of the players involved. Then maybe in a couple of weeks you're once again in a similar spot and you're tuning into a game and you become a fan. Like that kind of stuff happens, mechanically that way. And I don't know who in their right mind would have watched that event without having any rooting interest to begin with. It would have come away from it being like, oh, I need to give the NHL a shot. Like, that is not a thought process or a calculus that happened with anyone involved. And so I don't know how you view it other than a complete failure based on that. Yeah, no, I agree. And the fact of the matter is like, it's, one thing was like, I'm sure I'll see a bunch of, like I tweeted out the viewership numbers in the United States.

Like actually the viewership was up like 30% from the All-Star game last year and everything like that. And it's, there's been such discourse over the viewership numbers of the NHL. Let's talk about those because I want to talk about broad games as well. So let's be forward beyond the All-Star. Yeah, yeah. And so like I just, we'll get to that and I'll use this to forward to move us into that. Like the whole thing is like, at one point, when they're celebrating the amount of people who watch this thing and everything like that, that's actually the event where you don't want those good viewership numbers. Like, frankly, you want the viewership numbers on this one to be like, well, we got it like, you don't have the metric, the data from a TV product perspective went the other way kind of frustratingly, where it's like you had, you had 1.9 million viewers at Adam Max.

everything like that in the United States, which is more than it had viewing the game in Vegas and all that that junk and everything like that. So it's, if anything, if anything you talk about did it turn people into wanting to watch the game, it may have actually done the opposite where you're like someone who's not a hockey fan sees this and they're like, all right, well, now I have, I guess I never need to see this. Like that's the other, like, the other fear, right? Well, I don't think anyone would have necessarily been turned off for life from it, but it certainly didn't move the needle. the direction. So at that point, what is the point of this and why is this happening? Why are we wasting everyone's time and money? It just, it's bizarre. Let's talk about the actual broadcast themselves, though, and we can talk about the viewership numbers as well. This was obviously a big topic of discussion last week in particular, as there were no real games going on. So we were

talking about some of the soft ice stuff. I think there's a really interesting conversation to be had. I know that you did a Q&A on your site as well with Liam McHU, right? The host of NHL and TNT. And that is one broadcast that I say actually probably this doesn't apply to as much, but the local ones in particular for me. The league is falling so far behind both the NBA and NFL in terms of how intelligently it highlights the cool parts of their product to make fans aware of why they should care. You know what I mean? Like when you watch an NHL game. Yeah. The product is so good right now. The players are amazing. Everyone's so fast. Everyone's so skilled. The degree of difficulty you see in terms of some of the shots and goals executed is higher than it's ever been. But it's kind of prohibitive in the sense that unless you're a huge fan that's really just like spending your entire day focusing on this stuff and watching tape and everything like I do, that's not the casual fan at home, right? You work your job, you come home, you turn on the TV, you watch your favorite. a team. The game is so fast that sometimes stuff happens and you probably either miss it or it can't appreciate why it was so cool or you just think it was like an entirely random bounce

of the puck, right? And then the job of the broadcast live as it's happening, especially during intermissions, in my opinion, should be to show all that cool stuff that happened and then break it down in a thoughtful way to show fans at home, what, like what happened, why it was notable, what the mechanics were behind it, whether it was the X's and O's or a technical thing in terms of the shot, and then kind of allow everyone at home then to really appreciate what they actually witnessed.

You know what I mean? And these broadcasts do not do any of that. And so it was really funny. Like you see Carl Coliaco's tweet about it and it's like, oh, there's too many math equations. That's what's ruining the product. And it's like, yeah, I don't think that, I don't think the broadcasters are suffering

from being too smart these days. Let's like the kindest way I can put it. I think one of the issues of broadcast things that really happened is we have, you have a lot of people in the producing standpoint. I think you have still a lot of people who are producing hockey who came into it. And when they either started producing or they forever it was, ooh, it's hockey, we have fights. Let's, let's sell the fights. Like, like in the end, and so anytime, and you just, and now that fighting is virtually, gone beyond a couple instances

here and there. I think you have people who produce the game and promoted the game who now they're like, I don't know how to fill the void without fights. I mean, and like you, and how often do you get the how often do you get the guy who's in the studio

is the guy who made his living beating the crap out of people, right? Like it's often that, it's often the enforcer in the studio, the guy who comes with the, well, this is such a hard game and played by hard men, and we need to, we need more physicality. And like, people just lament what's not there anymore

instead of celebrating what is. And it's, it's kind of sad. Like, it's, there's, there's so many little things about the, like, occasionally I'll do like the, how did that go in port for, for my side, just to self goals and everything like that. And going back and even just watching like the 10 seconds around the goal, the amount of little things that happened out of play, like, within the millisecond, And I'll be watching and I'll stop and I'll screen grab something.

I'll screen grab something else. And I'll look and I'll be like, holy crap. Like, I've screen grabbed six things within like a second and a half. Right. Like there's all of this stuff that's happening and it's so interesting. And it's going through these players' minds that quick. And we don't get any of that. Like we just, we don't we don't get the breakdown.

We don't get the like the guys, the people in the actual booth, the play by play and the analysts, like, they can only do so much in the moment. I'm actually, I'm fine with, I don't know what else they can do, honestly. Obviously, you can become a better analyst, but in general, as you say, this is so much more on the intermission, the pregame, the post game. How do we actually highlight what's impressive about this? How do we highlight the, and how do we use, how do we find these other, like, the other thing you're thinking about just how this game has been shot, like, and I'm not sure if there's a

better way yet, but we, but hockey has been shot. from basically the same camera one angle, right, since forever. Like, I mean, fun trivia that I sometimes like to tell people, like, do you know why the red line is dashed? Do you know the answer to that? No. Well, the TVs are black and white, so you could tell the difference between the red line and the bullet.

That's why the red line is dashed. And so, like, that's why the center ice line is dashed. And so we still shoot from the same camera one angle for every single thing. And you see some broadcasts play around a couple, maybe the behind the net thing and stuff like that. But we've basically been shooting this game and covering this game with basically the same concept for forever.

And we now have such better technology. Like, if you had told someone, like, if you went and said, like, to like a real, like, find me like a filmmaker who knows nothing about hockey. Like, I'd love someone to go like, should this be a project. I'm here to write this down.

I should find something. Well, they have, they have some out these. They have cool. There's some cool shots. They were especially doing a lot of this during, um, during that the, the season, the bubble season basically, right, where there was no fans in the stands and

they were playing in like the same ranks over and over again. And they, they were integrating a lot of this cool visual stuff of like the camera that was basically like at ice levels. And then they would just like show you like the slow motion replay of like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trich line, a wind timer. And you could see like the flex on his stick and exactly where he picked his spot at the top of the top quarter. And that stuff's so cool. And we still see a little bit of that, but you're right, like, for how far we've come in 20, 23 in terms of what we have, and the way

of technology, like, show some of that. But how often do you see that in a non- national TV broadcast? Very rare. Like, that's for my point, is that it's one thing when it's the playoffs and the league is there and they're like, oh, we got to do this, this, and this. But

when we need hockey to be cool on the daily basis for the for the kids, watching the regional broadcasts in Nashville or Washington or Columbus or whatever, we're not getting that stuff. It doesn't show up on those regional broadcasts, and I know part of it's probably always

going to be quote unquote budget technology or whatever, but we have the technology. The league has this, like, you have this and there's so much more you can do to make this sport cool. I mean, it's funny to me. we have like we've all seen that guy and I've made fun of that guy before and I apologize for but like we've all seen that guy who like just tax the GoPro on the back of like behind the net like for a beer league game like we sometimes get cooler angles from really slow beer league games that we do for an HL games because someone decided to tack a GoPro somewhere like there's the kind of things that we just there's the amount of things that we could be doing and that would be that we can just kind of add and would be great. And it's, yeah, we need more breakdowns. So the games are really fast, but like you watch, like, Chris Collinsworth, like,

in between plays and an NFL game. Use the Telstraiter highlights, all right, this is what this offensive lineman did, watch the way what he does here pre-snap, all of a sudden, this is where the play breaks down, or this is where the play was really blown open and what allowed them to succeed. After every commercial, at the very least, there should be an intelligent X's and those breakdown of the coolest thing that happened prior is at a commercial. And rarely it's that. Like it's very rarely or you show the replay, but you're not actually, you're either ill-equipped or unable to identify what happened. And so you don't really teach anyone at home. And I think

there's a way to do it an entertaining way where you're not talking down to people or you're not boring them with minutia that they might not care about while still celebrating what's so cool about the on-ice product, which we all agree is as cool as it's ever been. So I don't understand where the imbalance is there or why some of these broadcasts are unwilling to sort of really go down that hole. Yeah, especially the ones that I don't understand the ones that fit into the space where the quote unquote non-traditional markets. Like I would be, and I'm not giving a past anyone on this, but like it's one of those where like if you told me like this was only an issue and the quote unquote original six and we don't need to do that like fine. okay but there's other places where these teams and these these teams know that they need to be different they need to find a way to be unique and they need to find a way to grow new hockey

fans and everything like that and so the broadcast should know that too like yeah you'd like to think so but here we are talking about it all over again so all right john let's uh let's take our break here while we still can and uh when we come back we'll finish up on the other other things you're listening to the hockey ptio cast streaming on the SportsNayr Radio Network. Catch up on what happened in Vancouver Sports with Halford and Bruff in the morning. Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back here in the Hockeypedio cast with Sean Shapiro.

Sean, one final note on the broadcast that I did want to get to. I think this is why I'm so passionate about this topic. want to learn more. You know what I mean? Like I I was I was saying this to you but I'm happy to admit it here. Like I can't remember the last time I watched the broadcast it didn't involve either Ray Ferraro or Mike Johnson and actually learn something cool about what it happened and that's a shame and it's not because I know everything. I certainly do not. In fact, I was pretty late to hockey. So like a lot of these like little details about playing and stuff are like still foreign to me. I'm trying to pick up on it and I watch so much tape that I think I've come.

come a long way in that regard, but there's so much stuff from a hockey labor that I feel like I could learn throughout the course of these broadcasts. And then you read some of the work do we have on EPRink side of people who are just sitting at home breaking down tape. And you edit a lot of this stuff. So you're certainly familiar with it. And you just like, you learn about all of these little intricacies of a skating stride or something. And it's like, I feel like there's a way to incorporate this into a game broadcast without, you know, getting everything screeching to a halt and, you know, getting in the way of talking about the game. Like, there's, there's enough downtime in between plays where I feel like we could,

we could have some fun with it. Yeah, like, well, give us something, this opportunity to give the credit to our guy. Last year, last year or at EP Rinkside, I just edited his piece before we hopped on this to just, he did a breakdown of Ivan Demadov, a Russian prospect and for the 2024 draft. And I always just, I come away learning, while reading through his stuff and editing this stuff, just how various guys, when it comes to the skating strides and how a guy swivels his hips in a certain way and like all these little things that I pick up that I would just love just be some of that in the broadcast where I don't have to be the hockey nerd, or in my case, someone who literally works in the industry, to go seek it out to find it. Like I want it to be

given to me. I want their, like, I don't, like, for example, I'm not a football nerd. I don't really, my NFL consumption doesn't go be an ounce. to turn having the games on in the background on Sundays, but I still watch and I still learn more about the game because it's presented to me in a way where I can become a smarter football fan by just paying attention to the generic, just pay attention to the normal broadcast.

I don't have to, and I know the sports are different and there's different stoppages in the NFL and everything, but there still, there still has to be a happy medium. Like, as he said, it's just, it comes from a point of, I want to be able to learn if I want to learn stuff, because that's when I'm most passionate about working on things, frankly. And so I want to learn things. And that's how you create more hockey fans, too.

Like, if this is something where you have gateways for people to kind of, like, learn what's happening and actually be interested in it so much, it opens so many more opportunities that we're just not touch you on right now. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I will. Yeah. I would like to think that's what we do with this show here, right? Like, kind of, like, identify a few things that we picked up on, whether I've been watching tape or look at the numbers and there. and then review different people, they're like, oh, like, you know, the show at least helped me, like, think about the game in a different way or something, and that's what the broadcast should be

trying to get to it the end of the day. So, yeah, it is what it is. Okay, let's move on. We want to talk a bit about the Bruins because you were, we were around them quite a bit, and you wrote up a couple stories on them for a, be ring side. I'm curious for your, where you came away with from those experiences. Yeah, so I was, I've got two things in the past week. I saw it. It just worked out, well where I had been in Tampa. I was in Florida back-to-back weeks in late January

and then for the All-Star Week, and so, and it just worked out well with with the Bruins had been in Tampa when I was there. So I saw the Bruins then. I saw, then also they had a couple, they had multiple players at the All-Star Week, and so it was just a good opportunity to

dive in on the Bruins content with the team. That's the best team in the NHL right now. The Bruins are, It's just a fun, fascinating story because there's the chase for the 62 regular season wins, right? Like we always, it's the mark that the lighting set in 2018. 18, 18, 18, 18, 18. And then the same, and also the mark that the, that the, that the wings set too in the 90s. And both, and neither of those teams won the Stanley Cup.

So it's kind of this great, like, story where it's like there's this chase for this record that somehow seems cursed at the same time almost. So it's a really fun storyline to watch. And it's, to me, the most kind of, and I wrote about the two guys to me that are kind of the most interesting part of this run because we know the Marchans. We know who the, we know the Bergeranos. We know the Posternox. Like, we know those guys. And we know it's, we know what they bring. We know their story.

It's been told. it's like but to me the two pieces that have just been super fascinating have been a the coaching and obviously I have a history covering Jim Montgomery in Dallas because that's that I cover Jim Montgomery's first in the NHL before he lost his job in a very uncerable in his fashion and like with what the Bruins have been doing and how much they've just been clicking along as someone who covered Montgomery on a day-to-day basis and kind of has and knows what is shortcomings were as a head coach. We haven't even been in a spot for him to have those shortcomings with the Bruins. And I'm just still, I'm fascinated. I want to know and I want to be super clear.

And I say this, I'm not questioning Jim Montgomery changing as a person at all. I just want to be very clear. Because, because, because, yeah, yeah, yeah, because of his things. So Jim Montgomery has a, he was a college coach who could come in with when things are going well, he was jovial best friend your buddy everything like that

but then he could flip the switch to be in the bad guy he could easily flip the switch to be in the bad guy and frankly it works more with college players

it works when you've got five when you play Friday Saturday you can be the bad guy Sunday can be the bad guy Monday

you still have three days before the game and there's that and you also have pro it doesn't doesn't work the same for pro players. And it didn't really, and he had a trouble connecting with some of the star players in Dallas. And it was, you had, he would be critical of, I mean, he was there at the center of the whole, the biggest fiasco, and he wasn't in was saying. It was

Jim Lights calling out Jamie Ben and Tyler Sagan, but he was also calling them out. There was times he would call out Ben Bishop. He would, he would indirectly call up Ben Bishop, not being able to stay healthy in various ways. And so he had this kind of issue where you could see when things weren't going well, he had a hard time keeping that even keel. He had a hard time. And he would also, he would just kind of, and he would kind of push buttons that way. And he said, and I don't know, but he even said one of the most famous things I've ever heard a coach say, it was like he talked about and said on the record, rather publicly in Dallas, how he couldn't fix the culture of mediocrity. And that's a quote. I'm not making, I'm not like, I'm not like, that's what he said.

You couldn't fix the culture of mediocre. He was frustrated with how he couldn't fix it. And so the Bruins have the farthest thing from a culture of mediocrity, right? We hear we hear aside from a certain decision they made to sign a certain prospect this year. The Bruins have been the gold standard for culture. And it comes from a player perspective. And it's been built within that group. Yeah, I've got to do charine. Exactly. And so as a. As a. coach it's not you don't need to build and fix culture you just need to not get in the way so like i don't know so jim mott cover's done a great way job of not getting in the way of the bruin's culture this year and i think he's definitely deserves some credit for juggling things and figuring out the right

way but i just don't know and i really still want to know what happens when how will he handle things when the bruin lose four or five games how will he handle things when that top line goes cold and he's feeling frustrated about it. Like, I just don't know if Jim Montgomery, how Jim Montgomery has changed as a head coach in that role. He said one of the things he told me that was really interesting was he said he feels like he's a more humbled, compassionate person, obviously, after how he lost his job and he feels like he can connect with people a little bit better and understand their circumstances. So maybe, maybe that is the, maybe that's the secret elixir.

Maybe that is the thing where it's like he needed to be a little bit more understanding of other people's circumstances and maybe that's a different. Maybe it's not. Either way, I just think the true, like, grading of Jim Montgomery, and it's easy and cliche to say this, but it's just true is we're going to get to the playoffs. This team's going to win 62 games, right? Because I say this Bruins he wins 62, 63, whatever the number is, right? And then we're going to hear all these stories of, well, the lightning couldn't do it. The wings couldn't do it. Like, you're going to hear, it's going to be the storyline throughout. And that's when it's the pressure is going to be cranked up. And it's,

It's going to be, okay, who is he in that moment? And I'm just fascinated to see who he is. I'm obviously, I'm on a personal human level, I'm rooting for him to do it because I think he's, I truly think he has changed as a person from the issues that he dealt with that may him lose his job in Dallas. I just don't know how as a professional hockey coach if he's there yet. So it's just a very interesting dynamic in a space that for me is just, and I don't know if it's fascinating to everyone or not, but just for me, as someone who covered him in one spot and now has seen him in another spot, it's fascinating to get a watch. Yeah, well, you juxtapose it to the person he took over from, right? I think he entered a pretty good situation because it was a good roster now.

I think certainly no one expected them to have, be on peace for 133 points the way they are so far this season. But it was a good veteran-lane roster that was desperate for a new coach because by all accounts, Bruce Cassidy, who was a really good NHL coach in his own right, was just like he wore everyone down, right? Like, you know, just too much of a disciplinary, just too, every time I would mess up, they would feel like he would be on them. And, and that's, you know, that's certainly one way to do the job. It's also kind of reflects the reality of how difficult it is to be with one team for five, six years, however long Ruth Cassidy was coaching the Bruins, right?

At some point, the message wears thin players just sort of start tuning you out. It becomes difficult to extend that relationship. And so Jim Montgomery comes in and then all of a sudden, it's a very fresh start. especially for the players, right? Then you see the way as someone like Jake DeBrusk before he got hurt as performing and all these players who had previously been in Bruce Gassidy's doghouse

or were being used in ways that they probably felt wasn't up to par with their, what they could actually contribute to the team. All of a sudden, they get an opportunity to play bigger roles. And you see a Connor Clifton taking off as well who have been talking about the PDOC has for years here. And so it's a very interesting dynamic

in terms of like the communication with the players and managing those relationships. And it's a very, as you said, very easy thing to maintain not only right out of the game when it is fresh, but also when you have no adversity in the sense of just winning every single game you're playing basically, right? And they hadn't lost multiple games in a row up until very recently. And so it's going to, they're certainly going to bump into that. I have no time for our narrative that winning, that setting dead HL record for both regulars and points is somehow a cursed or bad thing. No, yeah, yeah. No, I'm not.

playoffs work, right, in terms of probability. But I do think there is something to like managing those obstacles and defining ways because they probably will, whether it's in round one or round two, they're going to go down to one in a series and have to play a road game or something like that, right? And now that it's going to be unique to the roster because all these players have been through that before, but in terms of managing that and sort of riding the ship, that there is something to that, I think. So I think it's a good point.

And Jim Montgomery is only NHL had. coaching playoff experience with the Blues into that 2018-19 run where the Stars where the Blues went on to the Cup and everything like that. Yeah, they lost in games seven and overtime, right? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but it was also a series where, like, he got out-coached. And he even admitted that he got out-coached in it. And it's something where in a seven-game series where you're hanging on by Ben Bishop Holt, by Ben Bishop and Matt Zuccarello basically having his arm injected and frozen so he can so he can play that night like getting out coached is

inexcusable at that point when when it within the individual margins and that's where it's going to be that's where it's going to come up more for jen muckum where the true test will be okay what will you what do you do that and i i know it's but it's it's very the other thing just to kind of keep spinning forward those other thing that's just interesting about the bruin's is like when i wrote about this today is just in linas olmark who So Linus O'Mark has always been a good NHL goalie, good tandem guy, right? Like, 90, 915, 914 type guy. I mean, Linus O'Mark is 937 save percentage guy and has like almost 30 goals saved above average right now.

And like, it's, it's, he's having like a bit of that, kind of that Andre Vasilesquia effect on Tampa, but where Tampa could play with freedom and so much they had because of what Vasileski did, where Holmark is providing that in Boston. And to be honest, at least from my perspective, I never thought of Linus Olmork as that guy. Yeah, well, so he's 26, 4 and 1, 937, 7% of he said, got a goals against under 2. I mean, by all the sort of traditional metrics,

like he's going to get a lot of Vesna votes, right? And... Well, you shouldn't win the best. I think there's a difference between me to being happy with what. he's doing and say, I want to be clear on that. That's what I was going to say. I think contextualizing for a degree of difficulty is important here because even

you mentioned like based on the public models, evolving hockey for example, which is the go to for goal save above expected, has him at 25.1 goal saved, which is like third in the league. If you look at some of the private ones like Sport Logic, has him at like 14 goals sale I expect, they're still really good and amongst like the top 10. But it's what he has to do behind that system is much different than what you see. Csaros has to do behind John Hines' system in Nashville, you know what I mean? So it's, it's, the environment is very important for this stuff and not to take

anything away from work because I think actually when he's been called upon, he's been really good. And there are times where there's a breakdown and he's come through way more often than not and certainly exceeded my expectations. But I think some applying some context, especially when you're nitpicking for like, is this guy the best goalie in the league or the second or third best should be applied in here. So, but yeah, you know what's a minute at point.

about usage, right? Like, we've never really, he's getting into kind of uncharted waters here, especially if they do make a playoff run in terms of, like, how many, the volume of games that he's going to be asked to play in the season, which he's never really done at any point in his career. Yeah, like, he's played in his career, the, as most NHL games played, right? We had the 41 games in the regular season last year and the two playoff games, but then they got yanked and then they got benched after that.

But, like, beyond that, you go from, like, I'm looking at, has pulled up his lead prospects page to give a nice plug for one of my employers. He's played 56 games combined between the age out all during the 2016-17 season. Like, you're looking at a guy, you're looking at a, he's never played this as many games. And he's going to, and that's the thing that's going to be really interesting because I think we're at a spot. I've maintained the theory that I think the, like, the health. number of games, this is just my theory, I feel like the best version of a goal, you get that best, the most you can really get out of a goalie is like 60 games total. Like I think,

I think there's some guys who, and so it becomes the spot of goal tending, in my view, when I'm talking about the NHL level, right, where the key is how do you figure out, how do you make sure you can get those 60 games spread out their right way? And that's why we've go on to this kind of tandem system, right, where we have more of the 1A, 1B, so then, and then number one in the playoff. So you can go to that. But, I mean, what's going to happen with Olmark as he continues to get more of workload he's never had, things like that?

No, no, it's just an interesting, he's an interesting character. And it's also, he's also actually a character, which is something we don't always have. Like we talked about earlier, how, like, we need to see more from Jason Robertson. and O'Mark is someone who it's good to have the starting goalie of the Boston Bruins being stolen with character because you want, we want more of that in the game.

Like, I mean, the whole, the silly little, like, we talk about little sillity things that people in hockey don't realize are great for growing the fandom. Like, the fact that O'Mark and Swayman do the big, like, hug thing after the, like, how many people, I'm sure there's people in Boston

who know nothing about the Bruins, they know nothing about the thing, but they look and they see the pictures that the goalies huggy. You're like, oh, that's cute. I'll watch the Bruins. I might actually care if the Bruins win or lose. Like, people in hockey forget about that stuff all the time.

Like, there's little things that happen in this sport that we're like, oh, well, we don't need to promote that or we don't need to do this or whatever. Like, I don't know. I'm just trying not to connect us to the early part. I blame you. Yeah, I like it. All right, Sean. Let's get out of here. I'll let you quickly promote stuff.

Yeah. You mentioned some of the pieces you were not. Just let the listeners know where they can find all that good stuff. Yeah, I've got the stuff up on EP Rewin side. I'll have a couple things up there this week still just kind of unloading the notebook from All-Star Weekend, collecting some stuff. I think Thursday I'll have my kind of bi-weekly undumbered thoughts

going there. On my site, I had a really good conversation over at shapshots on substack, shanshapiro. Substack.com. I had a really good conversation with Jake Wallman today for the Red Wings Defenseman, who obviously the Dylan Larkin conversations, the big contract,

blue and everything like that. But in the, in Detroit, obviously, there is that there's also the big, there's going to be a big contract discussion and question about Jake Walman, what he's worth, what he really is. And I had a really good conversation with Jiddyk about that himself today. So I'll have a story and that tomorrow over at Shapshuntz. And yeah. Well, looking forward to that. This is a blast as always, man.

We'll have you on again soon. Listeners, if you enjoyed what they heard, go smash that five-star button wherever you listen to the Pediocast and we'll be back tomorrow with another episode. So thank you for listening to the Hockey Ptogast as always streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.