The Ringer NFL Show - Pickens to Dallas, Derek Carr Retires, and Investigating All 32 NHL Team Names

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

The guys recap the biggest offseason news stories so far, including the Dallas Cowboys trading for George Pickens, Derek Carr’s shocking retirement, and more. Later, they go team by team to investigate names, logos, and mascots across the NHL. (0:00) Intro (1:30) George Pickens to the Cowboys (12:18) Derek Carr’s surprising retirement announcement (21:17) What’s going on with Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson? (29:22) Mason Taylor picks no. 46 (35:09) NHL team names Check out our 2025 Ringer Fantasy Football Rankings here! Email us! [e-mail] The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producers: Kai Grady and Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you hear the word Seattle Supersonics, what comes to mind? Maybe it's Sean Kemp, The Rain Man, or Gary Payton, the glove, or maybe an image of a tall and skinny 19-year-old rookie, Kevin Durand. For fans in Seattle, it's something else. It's tragedy. It's theft. An iconic team with an incredible fan base that packed its bags and shipped off for Oklahoma City. From Spotify and The Ringer, I'm Jordan Ritter-Con.

And in my podcast, Sonic Boom, I talk to players, politicians, owners, and fans about how Seattle lost the Sonics. You can listen to it on the Book of Basketball feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Good to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Dan Heyfitz, and I'm joined by Danny Kaling, Craigorke. And today we are going over all the things that happened since the last time we recorded an episode. We are going to have episodes every week during the season since the last time we spoke. Derek Carr has retired.

Bill Belichick's girlfriend is banned from the UNC Chapel of Campus and competing from Miss Maine. Mason Taylor for the Jets chose 46 as his number. A bunch of things happened. There's a new Pope. It's a whole thing going on. But first, we have to start. The new Pope comes in slightly after Mason Taylor chose 46. In that order.

In that order. I was going reverse chronologically. But Craig, your Steelers traded away George Pickens, the receiver, to the Dallas Cowboys. We can get into analyzing all that. But I actually want, what was your actual first reaction when you saw that the to illustrated George Pickens. Genuinely split.

It was really hard. I had to kind of compartmentalize how I felt because I'm honestly, my first reaction was I'm kind of bummed. I like George Pickens and I think he's really good. And he's good for like one or two incredible plays a game of probably the 10 best plays receivers made last year.

Pickens is probably responsible for like three of them. And I'm going to miss him. I'm going to really miss him. With that said, George Pickens for two. million dollars a year. Pickens for two million dollars a year is awesome. Picking for like 20 or 25 million dollars a year. Maybe not that awesome. It's like leasing versus owning. And it sounded like he was a real pain in the butt. There's been some stuff coming out about like we already kind of knew he was a pain

in the butt, but it sounds like Tomlin maybe didn't love him and he was really kind of a pain in the butt behind the scenes. So look, we got a third and a fifth from Dallas. Is that slightly underwhelming, maybe, yeah. But I think what Pittsburgh is doing, if I can give them that credit, because it seems like, honestly, they're pretty directionless. But it seems like they're gearing up for the 2026 draft. They have 12 picks now as it stands,

which is more picks than any team had in this year's draft. They have 12 heading into next season. The wide receiver room now is bizarre. It's D.K. Metcalfe. And then dot, dot, dot, dot. It's like Roman Wilson, who was a rookies. last year. He was hurt all year from Michigan, a third rounder. They have Calvin Austin who weighs 25 pounds less than me. And they have Robert Woods, who's three years older than me.

They're going to run the hell out of the football. Yeah. So it's like, I think it's probably wise to let him go. And yet I think he also makes sense for Dallas and is going to be good on Dallas, if that makes any sense. Yeah. This feels like one of those rare trades of a, the rare situation where the team is trading away a guy that they don't like because he's a pain in the ass. But then that guy is still going to go on and have a good career. You know what I mean? Like most of the time when a team gives up on a player, like that's kind of the end of it. We see it all the time.

Especially the Steelers. Right. And I think in this case, I'm actually really excited about what Pickens can do in Dallas. I think he's the perfect fit for them. He's the perfect compliment to C.D. Lamb. And I think Dak Prescott is established enough. And there's enough leadership in that locker room to, just kind of massage some of the issues that he might have

in terms of just being a little bit unpredictable, loose cannon. So this feels like a win-win, honestly, for both teams. We talked about Pickens being sent away as soon as the Steelers traded for DK McHaff because it was like these two guys are essentially redundant. I don't know exactly what the plan is here. So yeah, it all kind of makes sense.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I'm not surprised the Steelers got rid of George Pickens. I'm a little surprised by the timing of it just because generally speaking, like the first trade deadline of the year is the draft You have March around free agency, then there's like the draft. And then at that point, things don't happen by the draft because teams want picks for this year. It usually gets done in like August or the trade deadline.

So you don't really see a ton of trades in May like this. So that surprised me. But once they had Metcalf, Pickens' contracts up at the end of this season. So I think the Steelers are looking at it as if we didn't resign George Pickens, they would get a third round compensatory pick in like 2027. Honestly, maybe. That's a maybe. If they don't sign anyone, yeah, maybe you'd get a fourth round.

I might get a fifth. So they're like, oh, we're not going to keep them. he's a headache. Like we get, we're at least, we're getting something. And I think Dallas is looking at it. Like, yeah,

he is a really good piece. He makes a ton of sense next to C.D. Lamb. He's able to do a lot of routes. Like, they haven't, honestly, the last time they had an outside of receiver that could actually come in

any kind of serious attention. Other than C.D. was really Michael Gallup before he had that knee injury. And he's like souped up Michael Gallup. He's a guy, go down the field, make plays down the field,

why C.D. can do everything over the middle. It does make a lot of sense. I don't know if George Pickens is going to be thrilled being the number two and getting seven targets a game while CD gets 15, but we'll see. Well, that's the funny part to me about this is like

my first reaction was shit, like the Cowboys are kind of crushing it. Like Pickens next to CD makes a ton of sense. As a Giants fan, I've been very frustrated to go from making fun of the Cowboys all season for knowing where the sun is or whatever and putting curtains up in their own stadium to like, they're kind of doing a really

good job this off season and it's annoying. And I just think this is going to work and I think Dak and Pickens are going to play well. And then I was actually doing, this is a little nerdy, but I was doing a dynasty rookie draft and it was in his random league with DK&I. It's like a like a bunch of other people in fantasy. It's called Secret League.

You don't talk about, you don't talk about Secret League. That's so cool. Sorry, I just did it. That's really cool. Shut up, Craig. It's called Secret League. It's a Dynasty rookie draft and we're not allowed to talk about it. I was kidding.

We're all dying to know. Craig, jealousy. Geez. It's not jealous. I promise, D.K. Sure sounds like it. But anyway, someone offered me basically pickings for Jackson Dart.

And I was like, yeah, I'm going to take George Pickens. Are you kidding me? And I kind of just texted DK as like, what do you think? And then I started like, you're like, you're like, well. You talked yourself out of it immediately, I feel like. And D.K. I was like, this is pretty good. I don't know.

Like, I think I should do this. And then D.K. was like, I don't know. The Steve was giving up on a receiver. And I was like, oh, yeah, wait. That track record. This is Mike Tomlin giving up. The receivers is Mike Tomlin's giving up. The receivers Mike Thomas give it up on Chase Claypool, Deontay Johnson, Antonio Brown.

Like, legendary, like, what are the opposite of Hall of Fame is drop-offs from players? And I started reading more into the things about George Pickens. And there was one thing that just smacked me from last season that I'd have forgotten about, which was that George Pickens, there was a game where he drew a flag, he was doing dumb shit. And Tomlin said after the game, like, he doesn't always criticize players that much. And he was like, George needs to grow up fast. And George Pickens to the next game was almost an hour late. And I was like, you know what?

I'm not going to bet on this guy. And I didn't do the trade. And I kind of do think that's what it's about. Like, there's no question the on paper makes sense. There's no question he makes sense in the X's and O's of next to the C.D. There's no question the talent. But like, it's weird that Mike Tomlin gave up on this dude. That's all.

God, I can't imagine being an hour late for an NFL game. What a nightmare? What do you do? It's like a stress stream. I have to go play in this stadium in front of 80,000 people. What do you think he was doing? Honestly, probably like fucking hanging out in his phone. Like nothing.

Scrolling. Reading tweets about where he is. Like playing video games or something, I bet? I don't know. Yeah, I think D.K. is right. I think this is one of those trades where it makes sense for both sides. So, Steelers going forward, just a

this is getting really weird I hate to keep talking about how we're keep talking about Aaron Rogers Who is the quarterback? But it's kind of bizarre Like the owner of the Steelers Art Rooney is the only one Who keeps kind of acknowledging

The weirdest of the situation And he said In like ironically April Fool's Day Positive signs about the Aaron Rogers thing And he said again like a couple weeks ago Like I do think Aaron Rogers wants to come here And they keep talking about it And I'm like

It's May 12th like when is this going to happen? Like Air Rod, like he's doing like an old vet retirement thing. Like, I'm not going to come to OTAs. I'm going to go to the pyramids and guy, geese there or whatever. And like, but he hasn't signed yet. So he doesn't have a playbook. They don't, like, this is a little crazy that it's mid-May and they're still like, yeah,

we think he's going to come. Yeah, it's, it's, I'm pretty disappointed in just like who the Steelers are now as a franchise. They just seem completely aimless and like they've really screwed up the post-Ben Rothesberger era. Did you see that there was an erroneous report that Rogers joined some Pittsburgh golf club that I believe came out to be

not true? So everyone's like, oh, he's signing with the Steelers. Not true. You know what would be a really cool sign that he's signing with the Steelers? If he's signing with the Steelers. It's May. This isn't a thing. Teams don't just wait around for veteran quarterbacks after the draft.

Like if he would, when waiting to see if they drafted a quarterback he was threatened by why the, I don't, I don't know, what am I missing here, DK? If Rogers doesn't sign and they just get like Mason Rudolph or something or I guess they should trade for Kirk Cousins, like if they just go into the season with Mason Rudolph

and then like D.K. Metcalfe pulls his hamstring, the Steelers are like a bottom three team in the NFL. Right. Like immediately. It gets really dark, really quick. I, to answer your question, I don't know. I don't know what's holding up everything.

I imagine it's, It's ackham's razor is he just doesn't want to go to practice yet and start doing all that shit. He just wants to spend more time, you know, with self-reflection and self-discovery. If he didn't want to go to practice, you'd think he would sign and be like, I'm not coming to practice because then he could at least have a fucking playbook to study. I feel I genuinely, they probably gave him a playbook. I was going to say, he probably has to. Do you think they gave him? I don't know.

At this point, you probably would sneak into him, right? it's kind of insane to think that this guy who has such, I guess where I'm at is like, I actually don't know, maybe he genuinely doesn't know where it's like figured out by now. I actually kind of wonder if everyone expects him to sign up the Steelers and that's why he doesn't want to do it. He doesn't want to do this thing everyone kind of knows

he's going to do. Right. He wants to be unpredictable. He is an enigma after all. Yeah, so hard to figure out this guy. That was the name of his documentary, by the way, in case he didn't. Which neither have you watched. You're correct. How do you? How about this? I'll watch it when he signs with the fucking Steelers.

Get that documentary's name out of your mouth, DK.K. I actually don't think you guys I'll watch it. I'll watch it. I'll watch it. Okay. Craig, you still want Aaron Rogers?

Yeah. Desperately. I definitely want Aaron Rogers. So sad. Somebody send him that clip. He'll sign. What else? What do I want instead?

What's a better option? Nothing. You have to have better options, but it's that still sad. I want Aaron Rogers. Please, Aaron. Give him a free membership to that call. Cliff. Or Craig is a defense.

ending the Enigma documentary saying he desperately wants Aaron Rogers. It's a definition of down bad. I'm starting to get my questions about vaccines. I don't know. Oh, my God. I just got a tattoo of a lion on my forearm. We need to get you immunized against Aaron Rogers. Explain to us all the meaning behind your tattoo later.

Yeah. Sorry, it's a wolf, actually. The other crazy thing that happened since we last did a show, was Derek Carr just retired, which was weird. He was bullied into retirement. He's bullied into retirement. Shout out. So Nick Underhill, who does the site,

New Orleans. Football, which is a awesome website. And if you're Saints fan, I highly, highly recommend New Orleans. That Football. Nick Underhill just reported that Derek Carr's retiring a few days ago. And then the Saints release a,

I don't want to say it was a, not scramble, but the Saints released this unusually detailed statement about the Derek Carr retirement, which I'm going to read a lot of because it doesn't sound like other ones. This is the Saints being like our quarterback retired. In late March,

this was quoting, in late March, while ramping up his preparation for the 2020-2015 season, Derek experienced pain in his right shoulder. It was his first time throwing a football at a significant volume since recovering from both a concussion and left-hand injury sustained during play on December 8th, 2024, which is against the Giants, ironically. Derek immediately contacted the Saints medical team. Eventually medical scans determined, objectively, that Derek sustained a laboral tear and also had significant

to generative changes. Are they under oath? Medical. Why is it objectively? What a weird Derek sustained objectively objectively is saying

there's so many there's so much behind the word objectively. Basically people were insinuating and or just straight out saying that he was just like he didn't want to play for the team anymore. pretending to be hurt.

He objectively is injured, all right? Never seen that. Anyway, blah, blah, blah. They were determined Derek repetition, blah, blah, blah, blah. A bunch of people figured out. Surgery was an option jeopardizing his entire season, yet there was no guarantee Derek who would have returned to the level of strength, function, and performance, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

How old is he? He's fucking too young for these. Too old and too young for all of this. So just to recap all that. the official line, like the public stance of the team in Derrick Carr, like what we are supposed to believe is that Derrick Carr, functionally, the Saints exercised his contract for this year and paid him $40 million and agreed to pay him $40 million in March.

And two weeks later, Derrick Carr was like, oh no, I have a career-ending shoulder injury. I can't play football anymore. And then two weeks later, the vice president of the team, Mickey Lubas, who runs the team, was like, yeah, I don't really know, have any clarity on that, but it sounds bad. But I don't personally know. I already know that. Happy for you or sorry to hear that happened. And so now Derek Carr has decided that instead of sitting on injured reserve and making $40 million, he will retire and make $10. That is what we are being told to believe.

So if he was on IR and missed the entire season, he would have made the full $40 million? $40 million. Dude, this is really weird, man. This is so, okay. It would have happened if they would have released him. Well, I thought, I think Derrick R. Carr wanted to get released.

Derrick R. He wanted to be on another team. Like, this is like widely, like. Is he actually retired, is my question. I don't think. Look, I would. never, ever, ever, ever say a player is exaggerating an injury. I would never say that.

That would be, that would be borderline unprofessional. But Derek Carr's going to play again, man. HIPAA, yeah. Derek Carr's playing football again. Like, this is like, he just doesn't want to play for the Saints because everyone in New Orleans hates him. And he hates them back. And I think my read on this situation. Like, I'm not playing hurt when everyone hates me.

I, uh, that's a good way to put it. Also, they just drafted my replacement. I know. With the caveat that I don't know what I'm talking about, my read on this is that Derek Carr was pissed at Dennis Allen got fired and that Derek Carr has not wanted to be on the team and he wanted to be traded in February.

He wanted to be traded in March. And when he exercised his option in March, he was mad. And even after that, like, he still wanted to be on another team. And then they took Tyler Shuck. And I think Derek Carr still wants to be on another team. And frankly, bailed the Saints' ass out because Mickey Loomis made a crazy decision to be like bringing him back for $40 million when Derrickard played so poorly in the past is insane.

And Derek Carr and I was somehow bailing them out of the situation. But I don't really understand though. If he just misses the entire year, it's like he's basically not even on the team. Why wouldn't he collect the 40 million to rehab the entire year and then go somewhere else next year? Why retire? I agree, Craig. Why would he retire?

It doesn't make sense. But it's like, oh, he hated the Saints so bad. It's like, well, if you really hated the Saints, wouldn't you want to make them pay you 30 more million dollars while rehabbing in New Orleans somewhere? Maybe he's retiring so he can, I don't know how any of this works, to be totally clear. But maybe getting, he's letting the Saints out of the $30 million or whatever that they owe him. Then they'll let him go play for another team. Yeah. Yeah, but D.K., he objectively tore his late girl.

Right, right. We'll see. And again, maybe this, maybe we're being assholes. and like maybe Derek Carr really did. Maybe he's just sick of football. This happened. But again, it's kind of insane to think that he just discovered his shoulder didn't work. Two weeks after he got $40 million.

He wouldn't start anywhere right now, though. No. Pittsburgh. Yeah. God. No. Please, God, no. Full circle.

If there's anything worse, can we rewind the tape where Craig? What are the options do they have? What are the options? Oh, hell. A couple of years ago, we had that rule where we were like, rule number one is never, I think we can't end the phrase. Yeah, it can't get worse is bad. It can always get worse.

It can always get worse. It's a true lesson. Can you guys agree objectively? D.K., would you rather, if you're Omar Khan, the GM of the Steelers, would you rather have Aaron Rogers for one year or Derek Carr? Carr. Rogers. Rogers.

He just tore his rotator cuff. Oh, right, right. Objectively, I forgot. I think, okay, Rogers in that case then, yeah. I will say, one of it's also like he just is supposed, I don't know. Again, maybe Derek Kurt, maybe he never plays football again. But it seems like five weeks ago he really wanted to be on any of their team. So we'll see.

We should also say that Derek Carr has been injured for a while now. And he is a very beat up guy who's had a really, really tough career physically. Yeah. I mean, he's got the shit kicked out of him. And also his brother got the shit kicked out of him more than any quarterback had ever got the shit kicked out of him. He's had a really bad back injury. He's got the shoulder stuff.

I mean, there's been a lot that there's a lot going on there. Yeah. So we'll see. We'll see. Interesting. I kind of think he's going to play again. But Saints fans are thrilled, though. And going forward, Tyler Shuck, like getting rid of Derek Carr,

I mean, I think Saints fans are happy. So, I mean, I think Saints fans ironically hate Tyler Shuck already. Oh, do they? I'm upset by it. Not hate, hates the wrong word, but I would say, Sam's fans are less excited

about a serious rookie quarterback that could start for them than any one I can quite remember. Well, yeah. They still don't really, it's a hard one to talk yourself into. Yeah.

And so weirdly, I bet Tyler Shuck might actually play decently to start, but Saints fans aren't excited about it. But now they're thrilled that Derek Carr's gone. So, uh,

maybe it would be spent a route. Well, so it sounds like, isn't there going to be a, there's going to be a quarterback competition? Or was that, was that the Giants? said that. I can't remember. No, no. Russ is going to start for the Giants and they'll let

start. Oh yeah, that's right. Okay. So, yes, this was the team like saw. So there's going to be a full-on competition for Tyler Shucks, Spencer Rattler. It's a legit competition, but it's rigged. Because they want Tyler Shuck to win because Kellan Moore, the new head coach. Sure. Drafted Tyler Shuck to be his quarterback. And so Tyler really has to blow it to not win. But also, I mean, Spencer Rattler, I don't know, maybe there's an improvement over year one. But they certainly want Shuck to win. If you're a Saints fan, it's like, all right, the year of Shuck, the quarterback class sucks this year anyway. Carr's gone. If Shuck's terrible, you're probably

going to be a bottom three team in the league and you can get your guy next year. There you go. Or he's great and then works out. There you go. I like that optimism. You could have taken them. Why? I don't need him. Aaron Rogers. That's a good point. I forgot about that.

Also, the Steelers didn't have a second rounder, right? We didn't have a second rounder. Yeah, D.K. Metcalf. 2026 is our year. The draft is in Pittsburgh. The Steelers are going to have the most picks in the draft. Having the most picks in Pittsburgh is pretty sweet when the draft is there. Okay. The other important thing happening in the NFL this week, the Miss Main Pageant Update?

Is the Miss Main Pageant? Did it already happen? Is it happening right now? When is it? She came in third. It's over. It was a week long there a few days. Wasn't she in second?

So she's actually, she's regressing. Tough beef for her. Yeah. Now what else does she have to do besides run the UNC Tar Hill football program? So, yeah, the other, we have to shout out. The Pablo Tori finds out, It's unbelievable show that Pablo Tori is making. And they have incredible stuff.

But he had this report where he got 11 sources at UNC football and around. And it talked to a lot of people who've dealt with these people. Belichick, the girlfriend, everything. And he reported, among other things, things that had not been probably revealed, that Belichick's girlfriend was banned from the UNC football facility by the athletic department. Who's running the athletic department? I mean, the athletic director. Bubba Cunningham, the guy who picked UNC to make the March Madness tournament.

Yeah, the UNC athletic director would pick UNC as that, yeah. He's in charge of the selection committee for kind of a ballsy move to do that to Bill Belichick. Well, allegedly. Well, the New York Times report, the athletic reported that they either walk that back or it's not true. Right. Yeah. So, well, they're, they're, they're disputes. Yeah, I think the New York Post said the, the UNC put out a statement that said,

while Jordan Hudson is not an employee at the university or Carolina Athletics, she's welcome to the Carolina football facilities. Jordan will continue to manage all activities related to Coach Belichick's personal brand outside his responsibility for Carolina football. And then Pablo Tori wrote back on social and said, we broke the news of an important meeting where UNC higher-ups told the football program that Jordan can't be around the facility anymore. Many people around the team heard that message very clearly.

You can decide who to trust in terms of how the PR spin goes from here. And then Pablo went further. No, no. And then he said basically, we requested comment and filed dozens of FOIA requests that were not satisfied. We stand by the specific reporting on our episode, which came from the highest levels of the UNC football program. We're going to know. I mean, she's either going to be on the field or she's not. Like, she will be photographed.

Without, she has to be there. But one of the things that kind of came out that from the Pablo thing was that when they met, and there was kind of like, the whole thing was basically, why did she interrupt to stop that story? with the plane thing. Like, why did she do that? We're not talking about that. Belichick also said that was like selectively edited to make it seem like she kind of cut them off sooner than she actually did.

So maybe he'll sue them for $20 billion. Yeah, that's a good, yeah, that's going well these days. Yeah, that's a good business. That's the move I heard, yeah. That is the move. So, basically, the diving into it, one of the things they were like is, it turns out the timeline of all this of her age is wrong.

and that when they met, she actually wasn't like 21 or 22. She was 19. She was 19 when they met on the plate, which is legal. Right. But he was 69 and she was 19. So that's a thing. And then there were all these other stories that, like, she showed up with him to do the Super Bowl commercial with like Ben Affleck and everything.

And she showed up and instantly tried to put herself in the commercial. And then, like, wasn't being listened to. So then left came back in a bikers. Petey. This whole story. And then they filmed. Well, they apparently wanted to humor her because it had already been written. Yeah, film it.

And so they filmed it. And apparently the cameras may or may not have been on. And they just filmed it to get rid of her. Oh, my God. But there's a lot. The point is, the point, it's a great episode for Bobla. You should listen to it. But one of the points is like, this is just one of many things.

And there's a lot going on. But yeah. So this is becoming. More than just like an old guy dating young girl thing that you that you see all the time across every, you know, workplace. This is starting to hurt Belichick's like reputation long term, I think. Oh, yeah. I was going to use the word torch. It's torching his reputation.

You would say the bridge is on fire. Okay. Well, Craig very diplomatically, it's starting to slightly hamper Belichick. this is a flamethrower to Belichick's reputation. What do we do in here? It's not the first line in the Wikipedia by any means, but it's now like when somebody, if somebody had no idea who Bill Belichick was and was like,

tell me who Bill Belichick is, it's in the first breath of mind. Well, it's also the younger stuff now. It's the same way where it's like Paul Newman and I'm sorry to older people, but Paul Newman, Salis dressing guy. Like, that's the first thing in my head. The younger generations are like,

Bill Belichick, yeah, wasn't he the guy who met the girl? He was 50 years older then? and then she ran UNC football or whatever. Like, that's what are people going to know. Also, apparently she helped kill Hard Knocks. She's one of the reasons of the Hard Knocks thing, UNC didn't happen. Oh, that's interesting.

I don't love that. So in his book that recently came out, he refers to Jordan Hudson as his, quote, idea mill and creative muse. I, yeah. Like, what is he doing? You should have a muse. You honestly, you see that a lot.

There are a lot of, like, old, rich guys dating young, beautiful women who call them their creative muse. and I hate that. I hate it. I feel like we have to tip throw, tiptoe through the tulips a little bit on this. This is the weirdest fucking story.

This is the weirdest thing. I agree. What are we tiptoe? I mean, there's just a lot of weird parallel. Like weird, weird stuff happening here with Belichick. That's all I'll say. Are you like on the team?

It's elder abuse. Are you like one of those? No. Are you saying he's in a conservatorship or something? He was a 50-year-old man who won a Super Bowl before she was born. Like, I don't know what we're tiptoeing around. I think everyone knows the deal. Maybe we're not tiptoeing around it.

I feel like weird talking about this whole story, I guess. I mean, it's super fucking weird. That's why we're talking about it. It's fucking bizarre, DK. This is insane. What is going on? I think that I actually kind of ignored a lot of this because it was like funny. And I was like, oh, that's weird.

But, like, surely she's not actually involved. And I think I was just kind of. done to realize like, no, no, no, she really is just like with him all the, doing all this stuff. And he just, he seems incapable of like running his own life. And now it's just this person. Yeah. He's just doing his life. There's so much media attention around this now. Hopefully this prevents anything from getting crazier. But like, this could be like a subna Redstone situation where in like two years you find out that like she's this head coach of UNC or something. Like legally she is the head coach. Like technically if you look at the contract,

like you never know where this stuff could go. It's weird. We're in that territory because, like, the other thing they talked about on the episode is there are members of Belichick's family that are very concerned and upset about it and looking into her background where, like, that's a little successiony. And then the other one is that she lied on some paperwork she had to, like, work around Chapel Hill or something. She filled out the age wrong, basically to make it look like she wasn't a teenager when they met. But anyway, yeah. It's weird. Do you, are you uncomfortable?

Because you're also old or what's going on? His look there was just great. He was like, yeah, it's weird. All right. No, I truly just am, I'm flabbergasted by this whole thing. And I don't know exactly what to say. It's so bizarre. And my main point is just like what I said earlier where this is like torching Belichick's reputation.

It's bizarre. It's one of the all the time weirdest stories in sports. Like it was the weirdest situations we've seen in a while. This is why he didn't get the NFL jobs, I think. I actually think a large part of it was NFL teams that ended up dealing with her. And they were like, this is fucking weird. So there you go. All right.

TK, you were disgusted when Mason Taylor, the LSU tight end that the Jets drafted, took his number to be 46. I'll give you the floor. I just, it's a, it's like a backup fullbacks number. It's a special teamer's number. And I am going to go ahead and get out in front of this. I understand I like that Tyler Warren has number 44. These are two different things, I feel like. no, they're just not the same type of player. Mason Taylor choosing 46, a terrible harbinger for

his very short-lived career. You're wrong. You're wrong. It's cool. It's a cool move. Actually, it's the opposite. It is the opposite. It's like wearing chunky dad shoes before they got popular, you know? Like, it's ugly first and then it's cool later. I like it. What is he going to pick? 80? That's boring. 46 is interesting. Mixes things up. I'm going to know that's him when he catches the ball. Well, that's true. Who do you remember anyone number 46? Names players? That's another

point for me, you know? He is now 46. It could be him. He could redefine that number. You know what I hate, though? You know what I hate more than this? Is that a lot of these receivers because I remember when receivers started taking numbers in the teens because they didn't want to be in the 80s anymore. and now it's been so long since that happened

that all these younger receivers are taking numbers in the 80s now because they don't remember anyone who dad them and they think they invented it. That's really upsetting to me. DK., in your opinion, what is the coolest tight-end number? Ooh.

80. If you're a tight-end, if you got drafted, what number would you choose? I think 80 is the best tight-end number. I honestly don't know. Not 46. That's for sure.

I think 46 would be the exact last number I would choose. That's why it's cool. He's right. 46 is a brutal number. I don't think that it looks wrong. Kittle is 85 is pretty good. I feel like 85 has a long history of good tight ends. Also, was Vernon Davis 85 on the Niners?

Dude, I just Googled numbers. Just numbers. Numbers. Numbers. Your own numbers. Yeah, Vernon Davis was 85. Yeah. Aesthetically, it's like a cool number, I guess.

I was trying to remember. So I looked at the Hall of Fame, Craig. The Hall of Fame by number. The only Hall of Famer in history with the number 46 was a person named Lou Graza. Grosza. Who is a... Kicker? Place kicker and offensive tackle.

So I think we should rank... What? His nickname, Craig. This is the best. His nickname was the toe. He was an offensive tackle and a kicker? He was kicking with the toe thing, you know? What year are we talking here?

Really long time ago. He was, he, let's see here. The toe. Oh, yeah. The toe graza. 1946 was his rookie year. Yep, yep. He played until 67.

His Wikipedia picture is a painting. I love that his name is the toe. Let's start calling Mason Taylor the toe. The funny thing is, it really is a painting. Yeah. Oh, shit. He was in the Army. Is he the first and last tackle slash kicker?

Has anyone ever done that? Yeah. Probably. Of course he fought the Nazis in the Pacific Theater. Of course. Of course. Damn, he died in 2000. Wow.

While he was in the Army, he received a package from Paul Brown, the Ohio State Football Coach. It contained footballs and a contract for him to sign to play on a team. Brown was coaching the new All-American Football Conference. And then it became the Cleveland Browns. And then the war ended and he got $500 a month. Did you guys know that the best place kicker in college football is called the Lou Grasso Award? Oh, that's where I know his name from. That's the, yes, because that's what, I remember, like, Roberto O'Ia kept winning that thing.

He's enshrined in the Hall of Fame with number 46, Craig. Honestly, Mason Taylor, no shot. He lives up to Lou Groz's legacy. Should we call Jason Taylor the toe? That's what I already said. We should. Oh, yeah, shit. That's good idea.

Mason Toler. Oh, that's good. Groza learned place kicking from his older brother, Frank, and they practiced by trying to kick footballs over telephone wires. Oh, guys, I have bad news. They already changed his number. What? Oh, he is 85, Craig. He's 85 now.

Oh, my God. They changed his number. There's a, this is the name of the article. Jets already changed rookie's jersey number amid outrage over Rage and Hock. He was 46 for like two days. Now he's number 85. That's hilarious. We can rank this.

80 numbers. I think 80 and 85 are really high. That's cool that we actually chose organically his real number. So your bullying works. Fuck yeah. This is funny. For all the Jets fans who already know, that's going to be a funny story. Kind of stick to your guns here, Mason, you know?

Don't succumb to bullying. Craig is legit bumped. 46 is cool. It was the original. It's different. I like that. Do you think we could bully him to go back to 46. Let's try. Let's do it. Let's see if we can get it trending. I'll get Bill to mention it on the pod. Yeah, there we go. We'll go from there. So the other thing that happened while we were, while we were out was

the Utah hockey team. It was called the Utah Hockey Club. Picked their name. They picked the Utah mammoth. And we last year, when this news was announced that Utah was getting a team, we went through all the possible names because there was a team name contest, which a lot of teams do. And I believe the names that we liked that they were considering were the black diamonds, the blizzard, I think we like the outlaws, mammoth.

So it's the Utah mammoth. I like the Utah Yeti. I was hoping to get the Utah Yeti. I was a Yeti fan. That was right, because we were trying to figure out if it was going to be the Yeties or the Yeti. Because mammoth roamed Utah, I guess, like 10,000 years ago. I also learned there are a lot of bees in Utah

through this process. What? There are a lot of Bees in Utah. How much jazz? Is there a lot of jazz? No, music is illegal in Utah. Yeah, apparently, because Hive was one of the options. Why there's so many bees in Utah?

I don't know. I didn't get that far. I just learned there are a lot of them. I feel like that would have been to the natural next step. Let me Google it. I like, did you guys see the colors, the Utah Mammoth colors? I think it looks pretty good, actually. No, what are they?

It's like an icy blue, black, and white. That's good. More things should look cold than hockey. Yeah, and the logo is the mammoth head, but the mammoth looks like a mountain. It's cool. It's good. It looks good.

It's like if the Predators logo was an elephant. It's good. I like it. They're kind of like the Panthers colors a little bit, like old Panthers kind of vibes. Yeah, yeah. But it's good though. It's not bad.

It's always weird when it's just like it's not a plural word, mammoth. I don't know. It's a thing that teams do nowadays. Yeah. So I will say, though, so this inspired us. Last year, during the NBA finals, instead of covering the NBA finals, we went through all 30 team names.

Instead of covering the NBA team. Instead of acknowledging the Celtics, we're going to win the championship. We decided to go through all 30 NBA team names and just figure out why they were named, what they were named. And I think this was spawned by the revelation that the Buffalo Bills, that like a bill has nothing to do with a Buffalo. And that the Bill's logo was, like, we cover the NFL. and the Buffalo Bill is the Buffalo and that the bill was like the guy

Buffalo Bill. That was what they were and that kind of the Buffalo Williams. Yeah. And I think we went from there realizing we didn't know why any of the things were called anything. And so we did it again with hockey. And we're going to go through all 30 hockey names and we're going to see what the origin was of

all 30 hockey names and why they called them that. I was talking to Craig before the show. I did like way too much research on this. I spent like an hour and a half. Hell yeah. Deep diving into all the teams I was assigned. Which wasn't that many. Yeah.

Is the plural of mammoth, mammoths? Yeah. I think so. There's a herd of mammoths. There's a herd of mammoths. Oh, yeah, actually. That's, well, if you Google it. I think if it is no, you should kill it.

Because if you're just thinking about what the team wants it to be, do you want, like, the mammoth are coming to town or the mammoths are coming. Mammoths is kind of hard to say. Mammoths. It is. The THS is hard. but I feel like if there is a plural version of the word, you should use it.

It is mammoths, apparently, according to what? But that's a mouthful. Say mammoths. The Utah mammoths. It is hard. You need mammoths. That's like the Chicago bear. That's not scary.

A hundred guys could beat that thing. If you look down the list, like just looking at the list of all the NHL teams, like 70, 80% of them ended in an S. Well, that's used to be a trivia question. There's like very few singular ones, if any. Well, and the singular ones are like the wild. The avalanche or the wild, like words that don't have a plural version of, like, there is mammoths.

So who are you guys playing? We're playing the mammoth? We're playing the mammoth. I think you got to make it a thing. It's like the Facebook. You got to lose the ass. So how would you say it? If your favorite team was playing Utah, what would you say?

We're playing what? We're playing the mammoth. I'm not. That is how you would do it, but it sounds weird. I guess that sounds weird. We're playing mammoth. They should go back to 46. That sounds like the name of a high school.

We're playing mammoth. It does. That Monmouth College. I will say, if Mason Taylor can go from 46 to 85 or whatever, I still don't get why. Let's bully Utah into the S. They should do the Yeti. No, they should do the Yeti. We've bullied Derek Carr into retiring.

We're going to bully Mason Taylor into changing back to 46. And by God. We're going to bully Utah mammoths. Utah mammoth. Look, I can't talk. My team is the Crackin. That's sick. That's so cool, though.

I love that. All right. That's good, I guess. You don't like the Crackin? It wasn't my favorite. What did you want? We can get to that. We'll get to that.

Oh, right. Okay. All right. So we're going to go through alphabetically through all these hockey teams. We divvied them up. So, Craig, I want you to bat first here. I thought it would be appropriate for you to take the Anaheim Ducks.

I want to start by saying like, I am not a hockey fan. I don't know anything about hockey. I don't watch hockey. That's why I thought it would be really funny. It's an important caveat for all of us. I am now marrying into a Pittsburgh Penguins family. And then I grew up a fake Rangers fan where I would turn on Rangers game when they made the playoffs

and the Winter Classic and that was it. I literally called a puck a ball on Vancouver radio one time. So, you know that flat ball? It's tough. It was a tough look for me. That also inspired. The people that I was talking to, Bick Nazar is one of our, it's one of our buddies from the fantasy league. He actually brought me up to a Canucks game because of that, partially. Bick is the most degenerate trainer I've ever seen.

I have been to a hockey game. They're very fun. My closest relationship to hockey is honestly probably happy Gilmore. So that's not good. I was at hockey playoff games are the best sports environment, period. to be alive. No one's on their phone. Amazing fans. Yeah.

I also should say probably the other, the only other way I know hockey at all is the movie The Mighty Ducks, which brings us to the Anaheim who... The Los Angeles Ducks of Anaheim. Yeah, I always kind of thought, I don't know what I thought, but I didn't realize that the team literally

was founded in 1993 with Disney as the owner. I think in my head they like took over, but it was like, the team was founded and Disney owned the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, and they were directly named because of the Mighty Ducks movie being a hit. So, and this was just a massive marketing campaign.

It's crazy. The absolute low point of capitalism all the time. Like, literally, Michael Eisner, who was the head of Disney, was like, my son plays hockey,

I like hockey. This could be an awesome marketing move. The Mighty Ducks was a hit. And you know what? Advertising worked because at one point, the Mighty Ducks reportedly accounted for 80% of the NHL's merchandising revenue. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Stop. Sad. They used the logos into the new, the D2 and D3 movies, like the Mighty Ducks logos and that. It was all working out. So does Disney still own the ducks? No, they got rid of them in 2005. Why did they sell the team?

They got rid of them. They sold and then the ducks won the Stanley Cup the next year. Wow. I don't think I ever realized that Disney just owns the teams. They should make a fucking movie about that. DK next up here. Boston Bruins. Okay, we got to move on.

29 to 31 teams left. Okay, Boston Bruins. Bruins, for the record, is a old-timey term for bear. Originally, it's sometimes referred to as a Bruin. That comes from Middle English. So it's like from a fairy tale or fable history of Raynard the Fox. That's where the word Bruin comes from. Apparently they used to call bears Bruins or it was an alternate name for bears.

So that's why UCLA and Boston used Bruins. Let's see. They also have brown and yellow as their original colors. I thought you guys appreciate this. The team's original colors, uniform colors, came from the fact that the owner owned First National Stores, which was a grocery store chain. And that was like the corporate colors of First National stores. Oh, wow.

there wasn't a whole lot here on the Bruins. It's just kind of like a really old classic name. I actually kind of like it because you don't really see that word anywhere else. No, yeah, I agree. It's nice. Yeah, some of these are much less interesting than others. Yeah, we, yeah. The Bruins were one of the original six NHL teams, the Red Wings, Blackhawks, Canadians, Rangers, and Maple Leafs.

So next up, I have the Buffalo Sabres, which real quick, what do you think a saber is? What do you think that is? Sword. Sabre tooth tight. is what I think of. I thought it was a saber-toothed tiger. Because the mascots are saber-tooth tiger. It's what he said.

They named it after the sword. A lot of times, I looked up all the mascots on here, too, and the mascots are, like, really contradictory of what the team. Like, it's very strange. It's what you think the name should mean, is the mascot.

So the, yeah, Sabres Joy, in 1970, it was the children of the family that own Woolworths, another word against the store chain. They did a team naming contest, which includes, Buzzing Bees, the Flying Zeppelins, and the Mugwumps. The Mugwumps.

The Mugwumps. What is that? I thought it was in Harry Potter, a Rolled Doll. A Mugwump is someone who, like, throws the line and, like, doesn't want to have an extreme opinion. It's really weird. It was like a political thing. Why would you be a Mugwamp?

I don't fucking know. The Buffalo Mug Wumps. That was seriously considered. Okay. And then the owner just chose the one he wanted anyway, which is a theme of a lot of these, where he wanted to save work, because he liked that you could carry a weapon from a leader, and they were for offense and defense.

And then the first, so they named the team after a sword, and then the first coach they hired was named Punch. Ha! Wow. See, look, this is another great opportunity for my branding. Disney, lightsaber. Oh, that's great. Perfect opportunity.

Lightsaber. No, Craig. All right, next up here, Craig, the Calgary Flames. They were originally the Atlanta Flames, and the name came from Tom Cousons, who is the owner of the Hawks as well, owned the Atlanta Flames. And this is probably one of the cooler, more historic references where it's, it's like the opposite of just like, this sounds cool saber. The flames.

Saber is like one of like dodgeball, like the dodgeball names or whatever. Yeah. Blazers. Blazers. Blazer. Saber. The flames are named after the fire resulting from the march to the sea in the American Civil War by General William. Jeez.

To Comsy Sherman. in which Atlanta was nearly destroyed. Wait. What? It's called the March to the Sea. General Sherman captured the port of Savannah in 1864, and his forces followed a scorched earth policy, destroying military targets as well as industry, infrastructure,

and civilian property disrupting the Confederacy's economy and transportation networks. It completely debilitated the Confederacy and led to their eventual surrender. So this guy named the Atlanta team the flames? He'd be, yeah, I was going to say, So Sherman burned Atlanta. And they were like, what's named the hockey team that?

Another, as we get another northern sport coming down to the south. Well, it was to take down the Confederacy. That's, I know, no, I know he burned Atlanta. I just can't believe they named the hockey team that. Remember when your city was burned to the ground? Well, I think all the other teams already had named. All the other Atlanta teams had names. That is so.

Anyway, so then it moved to Calgary. Then it moved to Calgary four years later in 19. And then fun facts. The mascot is named Harvey the Hound. It's a dog. He's the first mascot ever in the NHL. And their rival, Calgary's rival is the Oilers. And their rival, Coach Craig McTavish once ripped the tongue out of the mouse of Harvey the hound during the game.

Because the hound was like leaning over into the bench. Was it called a bullpen? What the fuck is the area called where they're going to sit on the bench? He was leaning over into that. area. His tongue was hanging out. Into the dugout? What is that area called?

I don't know. You're such fucking morons. I don't know. And the dog was like leaning over and messing with Craig McTavish and he ripped the tongue out and then Harvey the hound later in the game came out with an

even longer tongue. Oh my God, I love Canadians. Back up tongue. Dude, researching this, the hockey tradition are just better than every other sport. Hockey is an amazing sport. I gotta get into hockey. Just the last thing I do. Oh my God. He came out with a lot. They just had an extra tongue. He came back with like a ridiculously long tongue like down to his feet. Did it like open his mouth and it like roll out? Yeah,

it's fruit roll out of his mouth. And then his eyes went wah wow, wah. Yeah. Um, wait, do we know what then? What is the dugout call? Do I just call the, do I just call a No, no, I wouldn't go to the whole show. Let me see. It's just the bench. It's just the bench. Okay.

Yeah. Players bench? I literally Googled what is a hot, what is the bench in hockey? I think that's that. Oh. Okay. Carolina Hurricanes. Okay, the Hurricanes.

This is an interesting one. Actually, I did not know this. They were originally the New England Whalers way back. Oh, yeah, maybe. In the World Hockey Association. And then they came to the NHL. were they switched over to Hartford so they were the Hartford Whalers for

a couple decades, three decades. Elite merch, the old Hartford Whalers Merch. Oh yeah, yeah, super cool. I love like their branding and everything. They still have cool hats. They were not like a super success in the NHL. They struggled commercially commercially and competitively.

There was the nickname the Forever 500s is what they called the Whalers in that era just because they kind of never did anything. And then the team relocated. to North Carolina in 97, rebranded as the Hurricanes. It was basically the owner, Pete Carmanos,

just decided to be the Hurricanes. So there wasn't really a whole lot to it. I think there is some, you know, controversy over calling the team a natural disaster that strikes that area every so often. But yeah, other than that,

I just thought the history of the Whalers was interesting. Hurricanes is a cool name, but yeah, I get that. It's cool. And then there's a hurricane, and you're like, I guess it's somewhat similar to calling the Atlanta team the flames. Well, this segues nicely into my next team, which is the Colorado Avalanche.

Yeah, there we go. Originally, they were named the Quebec Nordiques for a while for like 23 years. And they were going, they did like a team name contest. Other names considered for the Colorado Avalanche were the extreme, which is the worst name ever. That would have been like the most Wait, what year was this? Like late 90s? Yeah, mid-90s.

The extreme, the blizzards and the black bears were all up for grabs. And the guy, the owner, was going to go with the Rocky Mountain extreme. And he got Mason Taylored. The fans hated it so much. He was forced into changing the name. And he went with the avalanche. I am kind of bummed though because I think instead of Colorado, I think Rocky Mountain is a way cool.

city name. Like the Rocky Mountain something, I think is more cool than just Colorado. I think that's a great call. Kind of like Gold State. It's just like a great name. Warriors Jar. But no, I think the Rocky Mountain avalanche is kind of sick. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

The other one I... We skip the Chicago. Yeah, the Chicago Blackhawks. I just went into avalanche because of the parallels to Earth. Well, there's way more hurricanes than avalanches, right? No, there's a lot of avalanches. But like, that kill people. The scale of, yeah.

Okay, sure. I also I don't know what I'm talking about. You're pulling up stats on me here? I'm not going to pull out some avalanche data. I did watch a GoPro video the other guys, a day of someone who was in an avalanche and I'm like, that's fucking crazy. Like skiing through it? Yeah. Yeah. Because you have to, it's a whole thing. Oh my God. Anyway, Chicago Blackhawks,

one of the original six teams, Chicago had awarded an expansion franchise 1926. The owner was this coffee tycoon named Frederick McLaughlin. And McLaughlin had been a commander with the 33rd machine gun battalion of the 86th infantry division in World War I. And the 33rd battalion nicknamed themselves the Black Hawk division after Black Hawk, who was a Native American warrior in the 1800s. And so they called themselves that and then it came back from the war and he called his team

the Blackhawks. and that is viewed as generally not problematic or is it? You know what? It's funny you say that. When I started Googling Chicago Blackhawks name. Sorry, I'm being a bit of a mudwump about this. Which way do I go? Mugwum.

So I was Googling Chicago Blackhawks' name origin and I was kind of like, oh, this one's going to be fucked up. And I was like, you know, not as bad as it could have been. Right. But, you know, still not awesome. I wouldn't say it's phenomenal. but it's yeah we can leave that one there I think that's an ultimate like you don't have to be faster than the bear

just faster than your slowest most racist friends like as long as you were beating the Cleveland Indians in Washington they were a couple of miles away from the Cleveland Indians yeah exactly so yeah all right Columbus blue jackets yeah here we go Columbus the blue jackets

often simply referred to as the jackets which I don't know how I feel about that The little bit of research I did on the Blue Jackets is that this is one of the least popular names for any professional team ever. They begin play as an expansion team in 2000. They are one of only three teams in the league who have yet to appear in the conference finals. So they haven't had a lot of success either. I did not do my research and double check that that's still accurate. I went to a Rangers game.

The first Rangers game I ever went to, the Rangers played the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Blue Jackets were up 3-0 in the third period. My dad was, there's eight minutes left. And my dad was like, we're going to go home. I'm beating the traffic. And then the Rangers scored three goals in the third period, won the game in overtime in a shootout. And we weren't there.

And I hate them. All right. So the blue jackets. The blue jacket is a reference to Civil War, the Union soldiers that Ohio produced like a whole, like more than any other state at the time, Union soldiers. And they also manufactured the Union uniform jackets.

in Columbus at the time. So this is a nod to, you know, the Union War effort in the Civil War. It's also sort of a reference to blue bees, like bees, the animal. What? A blue jacket, like a yellow jacket, but a blue jacket. Their mascot is a bee named Stinger.

I think there were some people that were originally really pissed. Hold on. First up, the nickname, Justice was the second run. Was the runner up. So it was between Justice and blue jackets. All right. There's a lot going on here. And we're talking about like the Civil War and a bunch of stuff. But I just Googled the Blue Jacket Bees. Did you guys know there's blue bees?

Didn't know that. I did not know that. There's blue bees. Wow. That's crazy. Bluebees. Cuckoo wasps. Is that what they're called?

In Australia. The Blue Carpenter Bee? Are these in Columbus? No, I don't think so. I think they're kind of made it up. Yeah. Okay. Oh, they made it up.

Yeah. Got it. Anyway, people were kind of pissed in the Columbus area because when they came out with this team, they branded everything in blue. And as you know, Ohio State and Michigan are very big rivals. And so they were like, why the fuck would you make our team blue? But that was about the most interesting. I think the blue jackets, what I've seen is like usually an example of a team name that people don't really like.

I didn't even think about that. Putting a team in Columbus, Ohio, and having it be blue is probably one of the dumbest things I've never heard in my entire life. Because Michigan's go blue. That's actually insane. Yeah. I think if I was asked to list every NHL team, blue jackets would have been dead last. The Columbus Blue Jackets, you could have convinced me you made this whole thing up. Oh, Craig, I went to a trivia thing last year where it was name all of the NHL teams that have a color in it.

And I could not come up with Blue Jacket. I had never heard of that before. I feel like. You know, we'll get to all the other ones, but like, yeah. Well, speaking of the Detroit Red Wings. There we go. Founded in 1926, they were originally the Cougars, then the Falcons, and then the Red Wings in 1932. I think the name is based off like an automobile.

The wing logo was like associated with the automobile industry. But then there's also some, there's like also like a Native American part of it perhaps as well. I actually was like unsure. exactly how they landed on Red Wing officially. So I don't want to make any declarative statement. So I'm sure we'll get email. So let us know. Okay.

So we got no closer to the truth here. Well, it's something perhaps to do with either or both of those things. However, the more interesting part about the Detroit Red Wings is this tradition they have called the legend of the octopus. Are you familiar with this? No. It's epic. You don't know about this. It's epic.

No. So it's a playoff tradition where an octopus is thrown onto the assertion. surface of the ice for good luck before the game. Alive or dead? Well... Dead. I'm pretty sure it's dead. Pretty sure it's dead.

I'm almost positive. But, so this started in the 50s during the playoffs. Also, this is way more famous than the Seattle fish toss. Just going to throw that out there. Like, infinitely more famous. Just putting it out. In infinitely more famous. Okay.

Yeah. Is that right? I didn't even know that. In 1952, the owner of a fish market named Pete Kusimano, elite name, threw one from the stands on to the stand on the ice and like the eight legs are symbolic of the eight playoff wins it took at the time to win a Stanley Cup. And then he did that and they won. They won the Stanley Cup after that. So now it is a thing where you throw octopi onto the ice. And it's like a whole thing. The NFL has tried to

the NFL has tried to eliminate the tradition, but it's still going. In a 1995 game, fans through 36 octopie onto the ice. including one that weighed 38 pounds. It's pretty an elite. It's an elite tradition. It's probably one of the cooler, more nuts ones I've ever heard in sports. Right up there with like the jumping on the fire tables with Buffalo.

What do you think are like the logistics of smuggling an octopus into a crowd? If anyone is listening has smuggled an octopus into or know someone who did, email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com. I want to know the logistics of how you smuggle an octopus into a Detroit. what a red wings game. And I think they've fallen into some like agreement now where like so, so now. There's an honorary octopus octopus, like a guy will swing the octopus like near the Zamboni entrance so they can like quickly clean it up, I think.

Okay. This is just one of those things though where it's like, AI could never. You know what I mean? Never at a million years. Never a million years. Well, a funny thing of the AI is if you kind of just Google, if you just type it at a Google, like any random assortment of words and just put meaning, it'll make up a reason for that being a saying.

Oh, really? Yeah. So you can literally, I mean, you could just, I mean, literally make up like octopus, whatever, like octopus and tortoise. Okay, type in, can we do it live right now? Yeah, I'll do it right now. Okay, type in octopus, Josh Palmer, peanut butter. Josh Palmer peanut butter.

And I'm going to put it in quotes. Oh, it didn't work this time. They fixed the bug. They fucking fixed it. Fuck. They got to it. Gemini is so back. Damn.

Shit, Gemini got me. Gemini's embarrassing me in front of all my friends. Is Gemini a post-type sleeper? For somebody. Next one, Dallas Stars. This was actually sick. It was the Minnesota North Stars. And they moved to Dallas.

And they were like, drop the North. That one looked that really well. The Timberlake thing. The goddamn flag is pretty great. I always just, I don't know what I assumed. I think I assume some. something about cowboys? I also assume

Cowboys are the state flag and they were just like, damn, didn't that work out? Now, I don't understand what the logistics, the financials are of having a hockey team in Minnesota and not being able to pull that off. Why weren't they the lone stars? Dude, they should have been the lone stars. Patented or whatever.

Yeah. Well, there's a beer loan star. It was a beer named Loan Star. Right. Which is the best motto of any company. Which is? What is it? The national.

of Texas. That is awesome. All right. Next up, the Edmonton Oilers. Yeah. The original Edmonton owner, Wild Bill, Bill Hunter,

named it. And it was basically just a reference to the blue collar. Alberta was really big in oil production. Still is. In fact, I saw this,

that according to their website, the Alberta website, the province as the world's third largest oil reserves behind only Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. So there you go, the Oilers. They were originally the Alberta Oilers, then they turned into the Edmonton Oilers. Like Craig said, the Calgary team is their, the flames are their big rivals, the two teams and that.

Oil and flames is going at it. Ooh, that's good. Nice. I'm sure we were the first ones to think of that. Yeah. Yeah, there wasn't a whole lot here. The name was originally the Edmonds. in oil kings from the 1950s to 1960s.

They went from oil. Well, damn. Oil kings doesn't sound so blue collar, yeah. No. Wild Bill Hunter. Next one of the Florida Panthers, which this one's funny because the same one Craig was talking about earlier with the Anaheim ducks being just owned by Disney.

They were introduced in the same day as the expansion franchise as the Florida Panthers. And so Disney was all like... we're going to just name this team after our business. And Wayne Zenga, who was the guy who owned the Florida Panthers, was like, I bet I'm the Blockbuster guy. We're going to call him the Florida Blockbusters. Dude. He wanted to name them that.

And he wanted the colors to be the blue and yellow Blockbuster colors. You know, it's not the worst corporate name I've ever heard. Right. There's perhaps something to that. Is that quietly like at all time, what if for the history of Hollywood? Is that like an undiscussed? Would Blockbuster have made it and prevented Netflix's rise

if Wazinger just called them the fucking Florida blockbusters? They would have figured out streaming in the internet. Right. Does Hollywood move to Florida? Who knows? I just looked up to etymology of Blockbuster, by the way, and it was a huge bomb developed in World War II that could blow up an entire block.

Which is, I don't know, somehow cool, I guess. So maybe that would have been. Maybe that would have played. Who knows? Yeah. Next up. Los Angeles Kings. There's not a lot here.

The guy basically picked King because he... He just honestly was like King sounds cool. He's just like, that isn't taking yet? That's crazy. Yeah. You're like looking around like what? Yes. That would grab this?

That's like honestly kind of it. Yeah. It sounds like a fake gang in Grand Theft Auto. Yeah, like their mascots like a like a six-fifes. lion named Bailey It's kind of whatever. Do you think it's weird that the kings Like in hierarchy are officially

And un like unambiguously Higher ranked than the Golden Knights? Like that's the other team from that's the Las Vegas team They're just a higher rank like we you guys are the commanders We went with the generals So we're more badass. Does that strike you as weird? No, is that just me?

Well, you're not reacting at all. I mean, there's a hockey team named after bees. Why did they choose Golden Knights? They chose Golden Knights, honestly, for similar reasons where, well, there's a, there's like a military aspect to it. The name Knight is an homage to the Black Knights of the United States Military Academy, which is the owner's alma mater. and then because the knights were the epitome of the warrior class was how he thought of it. And then he wanted golden just because, you know, the number one precious metal. Yeah.

And he just kind of like to look at that. Number one precious metal. That's what I'm quoting him. He said the number one precious metal. That's what he said. Yeah. Also, Nevada is like, I think one of the largest producing states of gold in the U.S. Minnesota Wild.

They were founded once the North Stars left. in Minnesota in 1967. The original names, these were the six finalists to come down for the wild. Sorry, no, not 1967.

This is 1993. That's one of the North Stars left. The freeze, the northern lights, the blue ox, the white bears, the voyagers in French, not voyager.

So it would be like a French, French-fied voyagers, and wild. Those were the, that's what they could come up with. It kind of shows the worst one. Can you name? Can you name?

I think all. of them suck. Yeah, I agree. Also, why would you call them white bears? I don't know.

Apparently, there's no polar bears in Minnesota. Why would you call them the white bears then? Why is that even on the list? How does that make it the final six? Blue ox?

Blue ox. It was like Paul Bunyan? The Voyagers, I thought, and again, I'm not going to attempt to say it in a French accent, but that one I thought was the coolest.

What was the fur for? The voyagers were French and French Canadian boatmen, employed by the fur companies transporting goods and passengers. Like Revenant? What was the first one? It was kind of cool.

The first one was the freeze. I like the same. I like the same. I just need to stop with like the names I feel like. I agree. I just think in general these like singular weather pattern names.

The freeze. The freeze. Again, Batman. Make it work. Mr. Freeze. Right. Right. I have an idea where this one came from.

But the Montreal Canadians. D.K. I have a six cents here. I'm curious why they chose the Canadians. It's actually kind of interesting. So this is obviously in Montreal, in Quebec, and the original owner founded the team

sort of as a counterpart to the Anglophone team at the time, who were the Montreal Wanderers. The original owner chose the name Club Day Hockey Canadian, obviously with a French accent. I'm not going to even attempt. And it was meant to appeal to and be the team. team of the French-speaking community in Montreal at the time. And the nickname the Habs is short for Les Habitants,

obviously is the really butchered version in English. And that was obviously the French settlers and inhabitants of the area. This team is one of the most successful teams of all time in one of the original teams. In fact, they predate the NHL. Got his team name in 1909. That's pretty sick. They like rivaled the Yankees in terms of, of like total numbers of

championships, Stanley Cups. Just literally being old enough that you're like, yeah, we're like the habs, you know, the people who inhabit Canada. That's pretty good. Right. Like, you know, that's who we are. Nashville Predators,

different story than the Montreal Canadians. This one is actually kind of unbelievable. So this is, this is, the National Predators founded in 1998. But anyway, like 50 years ago, they were built, building a skyscraper in downtown Nashville, the first American National Bank building, which became UBS Tower.

While they're building it, they find a saber-tooth tiger skull, like really well-preserved. Anyway, it's like three blocks from the arena. So when they did the thing, they just were like, that should be the logo, but they didn't have the name yet. So they picked the logo because of the skull they had found three blocks away 30 years ago, and they had a contest. spoiler, the owner put his idea in the contest and then picked that. So the owner just put predators in and pick predators.

But they had the logo before they had the name, which I don't think. They have to be the only team to have ever done that. And it was a saber tooth tiger skull? It was, well, it's, yeah, saber tooth cat, smile at Don. I don't fucking know. But it's pretty sick. So the skull was in the UBS Tower building for like 50 years or actually 60 years. And then now they actually moved the skull.

So now the skull's in the arena, which is kind of, it's a pretty sick looking skull, I won't lie. And they're probably bummed that they couldn't go with sabers. Yes, that's the thing. They should change the names. What are the odds? What are the odds is that's already taken? They're not even using it for that.

The saber teeth. They should trade. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Or the saber teeth tigers? Well, I think, yeah. It should be the Nashville Sabres. It would be the Sabre tooth Tigers.

Okay. Literally one of the odds is a Buffalo Sabers team. And then you're like, oh, so they're the saber-toothed tiger mascot? No, that's a different team. They could go by the teeth. I kind of like that. You like the National teeth, but you don't like the Minnesota freeze.

No, I changed my mind. I immediately regret saying that. The best one in the history of doing this was when the New Jersey Nets. Yeah. And there's sounded like the jets. The Nashville bench. Jets and Mets. We'll get to the Jets, you guys, all right?

Oh, my God. The other one, the New Jersey Devils. So they were originally the Kansas City Scouts. Then they were the Colorado Rockies. And then they moved to Jersey. And they changed it because of the New Jersey devil. And I realized, have you guys ever heard of the New Jersey devil? I don't think so.

So it's an East Coast thing. At risk of sounding like the fish toss guy, no, I have not heard of that. So the New Jersey devil, I'm excited that you guys don't know. So I'm reading for Wikipedia. In Philadelphia and South Jersey folklore, the Jersey devil, also known as the Leeds devil, is a legendary creature said to inhabit the forests of the pine barons in South Jersey. And the creature is often described as a flying biped with hooves, but there are many variations, kind of like a bipedal kangaroo with like weaver and like creature.

Basically, it's like if a kangaroo had fucking bat wings and horns. Jesus. And it is. Oh, God. I'm looking at a picture of this thing. A blood-curdling scream. And then I was reading it basically, it's kind of like there's some, there's all these legends and stuff about it.

how it could it came. But I was kind of like, this is like clearly a kid's story. Who could have possibly been written down as like, yeah, I saw that thing. And I'm scrolling through Wikipedia. Joseph Bonaparte, elder brother of Napoleon claimed to have seen the Jersey devil while hunting on his board and town estate in 1820. Gross. He kind of blew my mind. What do you think he actually saw? Dude, I have no idea. I don't know. But among the alleged encounters are claims that

A bird. This is like 1800s. Claims the creature attacked a trolley car in Haddon, New Jersey. Police chased it, shot at something, don't know what. And then the widespread newspaper coverage created such fear throughout the Delaware Valley, the Delaware Valley that a number of schools closed. This is so much cooler than what I thought it was. Yeah.

Which is just the devils. I honestly love the New Jersey Devils branding. I think it looks cool. Like their hats and stuff are cool. Yeah. It's pretty sweet. I also learned at what point they were going to try to move the Jersey Devils to Nashville, and it's like, what are you doing?

But yeah. Pretty sweet. Were they the Red Devils at any point, or is it just the Devils? No. You think Arizona State Sun Devils? I don't know. You're thinking of the Devil Rays? Devil Rays.

Became the Rays. Imagine taking Devil out of your name. I agree. Why do that? It's sick. So devil. All right. The other one, Craig, the New York Islanders.

This one's pretty boring. There's not a lot to it. Islanders, Long Island. That's kind of it. They call them the aisles. People thought they were going to be the Long Island Ducks after the Eastern Hockey League team that played in the 50s and 60s. I got to say, just in general, the ducks really outshot their coverage. Like the duck is the animal.

I mean, we got a lot of ducks going on. Anaheim Ducks, the Oregon Ducks. I just would have never guessed that. It's for being like a peaceful animal that floats around and flies around and whatnot. And ducks could have been chickens, right? Like, you'd think we eat more duck. It's crazy that ducks are like a luxury food, right? They're just sitting around all day.

I know. It's like there's no chickens as mascots. There's no roosters duck. This is like the story of how Ben Franklin wanted the national mascot of the United States to be the turkey. It was a bad call. And they were like, the eagle. Come on. Bald Eagle?

Way better. Way more badass. Yeah, eye leaders kind of suck That's not a bad name though I like the name but yeah The Rangers So the New York Rangers story So the Rangers are also one of the original six

This one's also pretty simple The original owner of the Rangers Was this guy named Tex So people just started calling Texas Rangers That's it That's it That's it

People were like Oh Texas Rangers And he's like I like that God And they were original The original logo was like a crest with a horse and a cowboy riding a horse, waving a hockey stick. Picture that, a cowboy holding a hockey stick.

And then it lasted, they got Mason-Taylored. It lasted like a month. And they're like, why don't we just spell Rangers? And that's their logo for like 100 years. Ottawa Senators, DK. Oh, my God. It's just because Ottawa is the capital of Canada? Right.

It sucks. Originally named because Ottawa was Canada's capital. city home to the federal institutions such as the Senate. Hence, Ottawa senators. The team was originally the senators dating back all the way to 1883. But they only played in the NHL until 1934 and then they left for St. Louis. And then the city got a team back.

And they decided smartly in 92 to go with the original name. However, they changed the branding a little bit. And the branding now has sort of like a Roman feel for it. There's like a Roman soldier with a Roman helmet on it. But then their mascot is called Sparty, the Sparta cat. So there's like Spartan something. I was like trying to research, figure out why they're sort of mixing the Roman and Spartans and all that. I couldn't come up with it.

But yeah, that's about it. That's all. They have a weird Roman motif. Sparta cat looks fucking crazy. Sparta cat is horrible This is horrifying Spartacat The Spartac cat

Dude why does he have like a micup Maybe like a rough draft Before they actually unveiled the real one This is the final product This is horrific Yeah The hair is kind of off putting This is horrible

The hair is kind of off It looks like Miranda's in the city Dude, I'm rewatching it just like that right now. Oh, my God. Mind blown. I'm still finishing up the original. Dude, it's incredible.

I highly recommend sex in the city. I agree. It's fucking amazing. Holds up. It does, completely. Miranda was a cat. Does this not look like Miranda? It does look like Miranda.

Oh, my God. See if, yeah, we'll find it Steve. Anyway, yeah, that's just, what's lame? The Ottawa senators are the Washington cap. It is. What's lameer? Ottawa senators are Washington Capitals. This is the same story with the Caps.

Yeah. They're both pretty boring. Washington Capitals is like up there with the Islanders. It's like, yeah, they're, that's the capital. Yeah. That's about it. This one I don't actually know the story. Craig, Philadelphia Flyers?

Get ready to be disappointed. It is. They like cowboys. There was going to be a name contest. And then the owner's sister was like, hey, I just left dinner. You know what name popped in my head? That sounds kind of cool. Flyer.

He was like, that is cool. Let's go with that. That's it. Arguably, it is kind of cool. Yeah, he liked that it was the phonetic alliteration he enjoyed. And he's like, flyer, fast. That seems cool. You know what's funny.

I feel like that's the only way time you ever hear that word. You never hear flyer. in like any other capacity. Now, and to be honest, the other names are the team name contest that they put out, the other names are the Quakers, the Ramblers, and the Liberty Bells. The Flyers is cooler. The Flyers logo is, I think, one of the most iconic logos. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Flyers is cool. It's up there with the Red Wings. Sister knows what's up. I love that she was just like, she's just an ideas, gal. She's just like, Flyers. It came to me. It just came to me at dinner. So

She's like at dinner Her friend's like Hockey's crazy All these guys are flying around And she's like flying Flying I like that They are flying around

What year was this great? What year did they What they founded was 1967 got it Pittsburgh Penguins So Pittsburgh originally had a hockey team named the Pittsburgh Pirates Which I think they also had

A football, Baseball and hockey at one point All just named the pirates But so they had a contest and then 700 people put penguins down because that was also the nickname for Youngstown State University. Oh.

So they won't penguins. Honestly. I like penguins. Penguins is cool. Yeah, I think Penguins is a sick name. They also had a sick arena. The old Penguins arena was called the Igloo, which is pretty sick. I mostly want to use this, though, to give a shout out to Mario Lemieux, who I think has the most insane story ever.

But if you don't know hockey, you might not know it. But Mario Lemieux won three MVP's. Leveley and scored six times. And kind of like toward the end of his prime, he gets Hodgkin's disease. So like cancer in the middle of the 1993 season, and he leaves in the middle of January for radiation. Comes back in March, I'm going to read from this thing on his website. Morning of March 2nd, 1993, Mario finished his last radiation treatment, took a plane to Philadelphia, scored a goal, and an assist against the flyers. Like that day he ended treatment.

picks up where he left off. They go on a 17-game winning streak, finished with the best regular season record, and then he wins the MVP. Wow. Damn. That's unbelievable. So that's insane.

But the crazier part is then he's inducted to the Hall of Fame a few years later, and then the team is going to relocate and move out of Pittsburgh. So Mario LeBue buys the fucking team and keeps it in Pittsburgh. He raised the money to keep it, and he kept the team.

in Pittsburgh. So like he's kind of as influential an athlete as there is because like there's like the player side of it which is insane. He's like probably like the second he's like I mean it's like Gretzky's like a short list of guys but then he kept the team there which is crazy. Hell yeah. You think Penguins

is like up there as a very cool team and a very cool branding around everything but for one of the like least frightening animals ever. It's similar to the duck where it's like it's cool and branding is cool but it's like a duck.

Imagine being afraid of a penguin. A non-fraid. As you say it, I think duck, part of it you know what duck is going for it? Duck's a great word to say. I was thinking about this. I was thinking about this with the Pope.

Pope is an incredible word. Thanks. Just feels good to say, doesn't it? Duke. Say Pope. Say duck. You ever had a bad time saying the word Pope? Pope. It's incredibly satisfying to say the word Pope.

It's close to poop. There you go, Craig. Yeah. You're right on. Pope. Anyway. San Jose Sharks, T.K. All right.

1990, the Sharks held a worldwide contest. I like how they said worldwide. A worldwide contest. Everyone in the world can do this. Everybody was like, what the hell is San Jose? They're getting submissions from Papua New Guinea. Craig, do you know? I literally like, it was.

like, wait a minute. Where exactly is San Jose? I had to Google it. South Bay. Yeah. And I know that now. As of like an hour ago. All right. In alphabetical order, here were the top 15 names that they broke it down to. Blades. Breakers. Breeze.

Condors. Fog. A light wind? Flaze. Fog. Frague. Craig. Fog. The San Jose Fog. I kind of actually like that.

The more than I say. better than breeze. Like, planes go down because of fog. It's like the best thing that can happen to you. It's nothing going down because of breeze. The gold.

The golden gaiters. Golden gaiters. Golden skaters. Grizzlies. Icebreakers. Knights. Redwoods. In retrospect,

reading these names makes it very clear they're in the Bay Area. Sharks and waves. The management way was sharks. You don't get from golden gators where the fucking team was. I, well, I Google it before I read these names. I'm going to tell you, sharks is one of those.

I can't believe sharks wasn't taken. I agree. Sharks is clearly the best one on that list. Sharks is unbelievable. I'm surprised there's not more sharks. Sharks are the L.A. Kings. Think about sharks versus penguins. Sharks eat penguins.

Yeah. Sharks are way more fucking scary. Sharks are arguably one of the scariest things in the world. Put that out of a cloak card. If we were If we were ranking Sharks are arguably one of the scariest animals in the world

And I stand You can quote me on that Piphons I said One of the most One of the scariest things in the world Right Right up there with You know nuclear radiation

Sharks are arguably What are the scariest things in the world They are dude Yeah Name is something Scary or I'll wait TK I think you're onto something

I don't know, man. You ever driven through fog? Fog. Actually, like, the San Jose Breeze. Person said Breeze was definitely a mugwomen. The breakers is kind of sick. What is a breaker?

It's like the break. It's like a wave. Or if you think of it from like a mean point of view, they're breaking shit, you know? Yeah. Sharks was probably a good call. What's up with the Seattle Cracket, D.K. Yeah, the Seattle Cracking, that was like a nod to the maritime culture of the region.

Specifically with like Scandinavian maritime culture. I didn't really like it, to be honest. There was a lot of options. None of them were great. Some of the candidates that made it laid into this process were Emeralds, Metropolitan's, which is a nod to the old team from early 1900s. Sockyes, steelheads, and totems. Sockhies and steelheads are types of salmon.

I would have liked either of those, I think, more. Would you want to name your thing after a salmon? Yeah. It's like penguin. I can't believe you don't like Cracking. It's like a mythical sea monster. That's awesome. Dude, I was going to say, the point we were making about chicken is we eat chicken.

You're going to name something, a mascot after something you eat? Yeah. It's all right. It's all right. I don't like hate it. I just didn't like it. Steelhead, I think it's better to, Crackin is fucking sick.

Have you not seen the second Pirates of the Caribbean? You guys continually reference the Pirates of the Caribbean. It's not one of my favorite movie trilogies or whatever. How many movies that were there? I mean, too many, but the Cracken's sick. Yeah, Cracken is really cool. I agree. All right.

Well, that's good. One less thing. The mascot is Bowie, a sea troll, who is said to me the nephew of the Fremont Troll, which is a sculpture. This is too contrived. I mean, I'm sorry. What are we doing here?

The sea troll? Booy. A sea troll. Why is that contrived? Because it's the nephew of the Fremont troll, which is a sculpture in Fremont. It's just silly. That's where you troll the line. Well, unlike most mascots.

Unlike the Cracken. Most mascots are super cool. I mean, that, yeah. I don't know. I'm being a hater, but I just, didn't love the cracking. I mean, whatever. The senator's cat mascot.

Clearly could be worse, since you guys like it so much. It's good to hear. All right. St. Louis Blues, Craig. This one's pretty cool and pretty straightforward. Named after Blues music. The W.C. Handy song,

St. Louis Blues was like one of the first kind of popular blues songs that kind of made it into the mainstream. They named it after blues music. Their mascot is Lewis, the Blue Polar Bear. Don't know why. That's Lewis. Oh, Louis. St. Louis.

That's pretty good. That's contrived. Contrived. It's great. Dude, it makes the blue jackets from Columbus even dumber. There's already a team that has blue in the name. What are you doing?

No, I like it. St. Louis' awesome name. No, that's good. Yeah, that's pretty great. Tampa Bay Lightning, I mean, as you can imagine. You know. It was named after William Lightning.

Old Bill. Wild Bill. Well, funnily enough. I will say the most interesting part of learning about the lightning was that actually they were trying to figure who would own the team. And in 1991, Angus Montague, the 12th Duke of Manchester, announced that a company of which he was a director would raise millions of dollars to invest in the lightning. But then he was unsuccessful because he was convicted of wire fraud. So the 12th Duke of Manchester did not succeed. And then also, the Lightning played their first preseason game in September 1992 against the Minnesota North Stars.

And then later in the preseason, I cannot pronounce her name. I'm sorry, she's French. Manon, Rao. Her name, first name's Manon. I don't know, like the British baking girl champ. But Manon something became the first woman to play in an NHL game. And so she was the first woman to play in any of the major professional North American sports leagues. She was a goalie.

She played for the lightning. she stopped seven of nine shots. Which I did not know that it happened, but that's crazy. Yeah. So there you go. But yeah, lightning, there's rain in Florida. Okay. That makes sense.

Maple Leafs? Founded in 1917. They were originally the Toronto arenas, which is the company that owned the team. The Toronto St. Patrick's and then the Maple Leafs in 1927. Maple Leafs, it's honoring the Maple Leaf Regiment from World War I. Is it also on the Canadian flag?

It's also on the Canadian flag. Their mascot is Carlton the Bear. A lot of bears in hockey. A lot of bears. Yeah, yeah. I think I'm realizing the mascots are for children. Yes. And I'll get into that.

I actually have something on that with my next team. The Golden Knights? Yeah, Golden Knights. So their mascot is a, is a gilla monster? Gila. What? Heela. Gila.

Heel monster. Isn't that the one where they got the, um... It's a venomous snake. Not a snake. I don't think it's a snake. It's a lizard. It's a lizard. It's not a snake.

And it's also, I'm pretty sure it's pronounced. Venous lizard. Oh, heila. Yeah, the Gila monster. Well, the Gila monster is where, well, one, Craig, I mean, inspiration for the yellow-bellied snakes and holes. But the other legacy... Is it really?

You're talking about the yellow spotted lizards. Yes, but this is where a Zempic comes from. Is the Hila Monster. All the GLP 1 drugs are from the Hila monster. Whoa. It's a great episode. Derek Thompson did a great episode on it and played a name with a shout at Derek. But the Hila monster...

But anyway... Yeah, well, whatever. I'll shut the fuck up. Did not know what's... Craig Ginnoran. Sorry. Anyway. Teaching us about science and Craig...

I thought he was finished. I thought he was finished. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. No, no. It was too perfect. That was boring. But they get more about the bears.

Oh, that was good. No, really, continue, please. No, it's... I hope it would have to be. No, the Hilo Monster is one of those things where it's one of those animals that could go like a year without eating. And so they were like, how does it do that?

And then they found out that they could just... It was actually really easy to pull, like, the G... I don't know. But they were able to take something in the Hilo Monster, but, like, they took the part of the Hilo Monster that gives it that ability, and that is what GLP... when drugs are. It just comes from this random.

It's fascinating. That is fascinating. Now that company is worth like a trillion dollars. So anyway. The Golden Knights didn't want the mascot to be a knight because the owner felt that they were not kid-friendly, so he instead chose the Gila monster. Okay.

Famously friendly to children. Lizards. The monster. Yeah. Okay. The only venomous lizard native to the United States. The monster is more kid-friendly than knights.

Also, don't they still have a knight that they project out of the ice that slices through their opponent's logos? Yeah, it's fucking scary. Sick. Are they in Nevada? I didn't know that. Yeah, I guess so.

Yeah, I mean, their logo is like a war helmet. But, yeah, so they're founded in 2017, made the Stanley Cup in their first season, one in 2023. The team name, the Golden Knights, Knights is an homage to the Black Knights of the United States Military Academy, which is Foley's alma mater.

And then like I said earlier, he's golden because precious medals. The number one precious metal. The number one precious metal. If you had to rank them, gold is the number one. All right. D.K. Vancouver Canucks.

I don't know what a Canuck is. It's a Canadian. What's that? Isn't it? What is a Canadian? Right. It has become synonymous. It's like Yankee kind of, I guess. Yeah, yeah. And it was named after a popular hero named Johnny Canuck, which was in comic books in the 1940s, sort of like, I guess, a version of Captain America. They fought the Nazis. Classic.

A cartoon character that promoted patriotism. Vancouver landed a Pacific Coast League team in 1945, the owner, and this is great. This is so just classic. Wild West Canada. He won the team in a poker game. Owner. Man, dude, that's the best. Only Paul. I love this.

Won the rights to a franchise in a poker game. And out for a mid-summer, this is, I forget where I found this, but out for a mid-summer stroll, Hall's bookie thought of the name Canuck based on the wartime comic book Johnny Canuck. The team mascot is a lumberjack. version of Johnny Canuck. And when the team was awarded a franchise, an expansion franchise in 1970,

they kept the name Canucks. I thought it was interesting too, and this is just coming from someone who like, when we were growing up, it was like we were told not to really call Canadians Canucks. It's kind of a derogatory word, depending on sort of the context that you use it in. I think it's,

again, similar to like if a Southern person calls someone a Yankee, that's like derogatory. But anyways, according to dictionary.com, the term Canucks is perceived as insulting when used by non-Canadians or when referring specifically to French Canadians. But it is a, it's sort of like as, you know, obviously Canadians have adopted it as a complimentary term or whatever. Can you imagine if you're like, yeah, my great-grandfather owned the Vancouver Canucks and he lost him in a fucking poker game. Well, it wasn't the actual NHL team that he won. It was like a minor league team.

Still. But still. Also, their logo is an orca now. Yeah, it's anthropomorphic. How do you say that word? Anthropomorphic, killer whale, named Finn. Killer whale, another, like, that's an easy mascot. Yeah, that team name.

Seattle should have done the Seattle, yeah, killer whales. All right. Winnipeg Jets, D.K. Yeah, the original jets from the old days moved from Winnipeg to Arizona, became the coyotes. the now Winnipeg Jets moved to Winnipeg from Atlanta in 2011. The name comes from Winnipeg has been the home to the Royal Canadian Air Force Base to a Royal Canadian Air Force Base since 25. There was an article on NHL that said that the team owner just was a fan of the New York Jets.

So he named his hockey team after the NFL squad, which I don't know if that's true or not, but that is kind of a sad reason to name them the Jets. also is anything eight that's man the nickname or sorry the mascot for the jets is mickey moose mic e why wouldn't the mascot be a fucking plane don't know imagine naming your your team after planes and then not having it be a fucking plane well so the jets were aren't the jets just named that because they were near laquardia airport and then someone else was like i'm also going to name it but winnipegs no one near laiquordia he liked the jets

That's crazy. The Jets are one of those teams where if I was to go through and try and name all the NHL teams just based on memory, prior to doing this, of course, I would never in a million years be able to come up with the Winnipeg Jets. Like that just, that name just does not feel like a hockey name whatsoever. It feels like a Premier League Soccer team. Yeah. I would never have remembered that there's a team called the Jets. I'm still 20% dubious that the Columbus Blue Jackets are. are not real.

Right. And that this is an elaborate prank. We'll have to do this one year for SOC. We'll do this one year for the Premier League teams. And we'll definitely, like, write a fake one in and see if Craig the best which one that was fake. We still have, so we've done what? NBA and NHL. We haven't done baseball, yeah.

Did we do football? No. We only did NBA, right? Yeah, we used to the NBA. NHL. MLB could be funny. Oh, my God. But we got a head start with the Angels.

Yes. Oh, my, Disney. It's crazy. All right. Thank you for listening. We are going to have episodes every week all summer. And I think that's it. Yeah, right?

Cool. All right. Thank you, D.K., thank you, Craig. Thank you, Carlos. Thank you, Austin. Thank you for listening. Wait a Zengue, I'm sorry. You couldn't name the Miami Blockbusters.

I'm sorry to you on that one. Thank you, Lord. Lauren. Thank you, Elton John. Nice. I was just singing that Benny and the Jet song. Nice. I went to his concert in Pittsburgh.

And he started, he starts the concert with that. It's an incredible one to open a concert with. He's like, Betty. It's the only thing I can say. Oh, yeah, yeah. That song gets kind of annoying after a while. For like three minutes. I saw some skid about it, like how the, like, the song as it goes along,

starts to get really obnoxious. There's no way to end it. I feel that way about the Bill Withers song, Lovely Day. It just fucking goes on and on and on. Shut the fuck up, Bill. I'm like, you're ruining my lovely day with this song. If it's like on and a target and you're walking around,

like, I got to leave. I can't be there. Goodbye, everyone.