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Hello. Welcome to The Hockey Show. My name is Roy Bellamy. David Dvorak of The Hockey News is to my left. Rose Arias is in the other studio busy posting thirst traps on Instagram.

What the hell was that?

Yeah. Was that a thirst trap?

That looked like a thirst trap to me.

Rose just posted a picture of herself looking beautiful, and and you just had to, like, throw her under the or are you up to something?

Hey. Listen, man. She felt like she, she felt like she looked cute, and she posted the

Felt cute. Posted the picture.

Was beautiful. Go go see.

Natural. Right?

Yeah. Natural. Natural. Not makeup. Not anything.

You were just being a dad.

That that's a hot take.

I am

a young dad. Yeah.

Yeah. That's my hot take. You're being a dad.

Yeah. Well, when you get people sliding into your DMs Oh, I don't that's your fault. Okay. Well, you deal with that. We'll deal with slapshots.

Let's start with the hot hot takes. Dave, go ahead.

Alright. Hot takes for last week. Let's see. Where am I?

You're in the hot takes section.

Hot takes.

Slapshots.

Alright. So my hot take is, Colorado Avalanche are now my pick to come out of the west after making the trade for Mackenzie Blackwood last week. Something to the left. This guy is as we see some some footage of him just making some ridiculous saves this year. This guy played out of his mind for San Jose this year.

He's actually been kind of an under the radar elite goaltender since his time in New Jersey. He never was really on a really good team. He goes to San Jose, playing excellent on a team a decent Sharks team that doesn't really defend that well. Now he goes to an Avalanche team. They can score, as we know.

Mhmm.

They can defend a lot better than the Sharks team defend, and they may be getting Gabe Landis talk back at some point. They've already got a pretty stacked roster with Ranson and then Cale Makar. I think the Avs are going to go to Stanley Cup final now.

Okay. Wow. So Edmonton's not going to repeat. Do you think Edmonton and Colorado will well, I don't think they're gonna end up in the Commons final.

Well, they could. Right? Because they're in the different divisions, I think.

Yeah.

But either way, I no. I don't think that right now, until and it's like last year. They gotta get their back end shored up. Because if they can't keep the puck out of the net, no matter how many times Sidney Crosby and Leon Draisaitl who's scoring like a maniac this year

Sidney Crosby.

Oh, Connor McDavid. Guys Sorry. Rob. It's confusing supercharged. Why are

you doing that to me?

It says that's what the NHL wants. I see Connor McDavid a lot less than I see Sydney Crosby on my TV.

That's very unfortunate.

We love Sydney Crosby.

Don't you ever say that ever again.

Lask for me.

Jeez. Rose, keep keep posting the thirst traps.

Alright. Roy, do you have a hot take for us?

I do. Now for the past couple of episodes, I've been saying that a, couple of coaches might get fired. And, that hasn't happened yet. So I might be wrong about this Yeah. As well, but I'm gonna take it a step higher with a general manager that just might be fine as well.

He might be short on time, and that is Kevin Adams in Buffalo.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, shut up. Get off the pot time.

Yeah. I mean, he's been there for 5 years. His best season was a couple years ago. They had 91 points. They were still 5th in the division.

I mean, that that's how

That's rough.

Competitive the Atlantic division is.

I mean,

that that's pretty rough. They came and get a wild card out, out of that. Now he's been there for 5 years. He's been there since COVID, June 2020. Buffalo hasn't made the playoffs in 14 seasons.

No. In 5 no seasons, he hasn't, brought them there. And No. A lot of talent

has left. Reinhart left.

Iko left. Brandon Montour left. Linus Ullmark left. And all 4 of them.

Forgot about Ullmark. Yeah.

Yeah. All 4 of them ended up being champions. Now, look at how the Ullrich situation wound up and how the Sabers completely botched that 1 as far as, his injury is concerned. Like, that's just, like, why would you wanna go there? It's not exactly and he said so.

Like, it's not a destination, like, places that have palm trees. Now he was taught you that was a shot across the bow for both Florida and Tampa. Like, you're not a good team. You're not a good team. You brought back Lindy Ruff.

Like, as much as I like the move, that hasn't worked out at all. They've progressed since that 91 point year, and it's getting worse this year.

Yeah. Well, he thought they were figuring it out. What did they lost? Like, 8 in a row right now or something?

Yeah. He's saying nothing is off the table. I'm like, they they're in sell mode just like the Rangers are in sell mode for nothing. Like, but they're in sell mode. But he's saying and I and this is a quote that he's not about to quote unquote panic.

That's a panic

move. Right?

Because there's a misunderstanding. Love hearing that.

Yeah. Well Like,

what are we rebuilding for the 6th straight year? Like, what are we what are they doing in Buffalo? Nothing. They've got some really good young stars. Taj Thompson is, like, amazing.

Yeah. But They've got some pieces there, but, yeah, like, you gotta build around it.

Yeah. He hasn't done a good job. So it's my opinion is just short time right now. Borrowed time, actually.

Borrowed time. Yeah. It wouldn't be surprising.

Yeah. The 5 year plan is not working out in Buffalo, so, that's not a good situation. The wins of the week, David.

Wins of the week. Alright. Hi, Rose. The wins of the week. My win of the week, goes to Flyers rookie, Matt Vay Michcov, and an unnamed Flyers fan.

As we see the video here, Michcoff got thrown out. He got a game of conduct late in their game earlier this week against Utah.

Yeah.

As he's walking out, some fan some Philly you know, Philly fans are awesome. Some fans, like, hey, I've got a spare water bottle for whatever reason. Why would somebody have a water bottle at the game? I don't know. Yeah.

How do you bring that in?

Maybe it was water bottle giveaway night is the only thing I can think of. But he he's out his water bottle, and he's out of Sharpie. And Michcov, this awesome rookie who's playing amazing this year, credit to him, credit to the Flyers. Torch is, getting a lot out of him. But he signs the dude's water bottle.

He's getting tossed out the game. I thought that was awesome. I think that's a win all around. I really like this rookie, and I like what he's doing in Philly.

Torts at the, presser. They brought it out to him. He had no idea.

No. No. But he laughed about it. He liked it too. So, you know, credit to Torts.

You never know what you're gonna get from Torts. I I'm glad I haven't had to cover him on a beat just as he probably scared the bejesus out of me. But yeah.

I mean, we we we've seen his, antics. We have. He was, Rangers head coach. I mean, you can ask Brooksy. Yeah.

No. Not a good situation between him and the New York Post. I'll tell

you that.

Alright. So, my win, the week, it's that time of year, around Christmas time, right, in the minors and, major junior leagues. That's the bands come in, and they throw teddy bears onto the ice.

I love

the teddy bear toss.

The teddy bear toss

is that

time of year. It's every Christmas. And in this situation, we're looking at, the Berry Colts and the Ottawa 60 sevens.

That's not very teddy bearish.

The 60 sevens had scored. And, apparently, there was, actually, what happened

was the Grinch involved in this?

Yeah. What happened was that 1 of the, 1 of the Colts players blocked 1 of the 67 players from getting What's

the I love the Grinch, like, walking around.

Yeah. He he blocked 1 of the players

from celebrating very Christmassy, guys.

He blocked 1 of the the 67 players from,

Oh my god.

Celebrating the goal, and

And chaos ensued. Ensued.

So yeah. So, again, for the audio audience, a goal was scored during the teddy bear toss, situation. The fans were tossing teddy bears onto the ice. 1 of the players get blocked from celebrating, and that caused a brawl while teddy bears were being tossed onto the ice. A line brawl while teddy bears are being tossed onto the ice.

And it is exactly what you're picturing in your head right now. I promise you.

Yes. As John Forslund says, that's hockey, baby.

Oh, god.

That that that is,

That's just 1 of those things that's just, like, disgusting and awful when you look at it on the surface, but when you add the context of hockey, it's just It's hockey, baby. Home. You know? It's perfect. I don't know.

The only thing missing was, like and probably best that we didn't see this, and maybe I shouldn't even say it. But, you know, somebody, like, taking a teddy bear and using it as a weapon and, like

Oh, that happened last week at 1 of the teddy bears'

costumes. Did.

1 of the players

it did.

1 of the away players was not happy that his team allowed the goal and then the table

Oh, yeah.

I saw that. He was, like, shooting them back into the stands. Right?

Shot the teddy bears back into

the stands. Cool.

Now keep in mind, these teddy bears are donated to children, you know, to charities and to hospitals. So this guy is tossing with his stick. He's shooting the bears back into the stands. He got I think he has suspended again.

Yeah. He did.

He got suspended again, which is rightfully deserved considering the context. Like, what are you doing, man?

Fight fight fight another man. Don't take your frustrations out on an beautiful little teddy bear.

Yeah.

It's gonna make some kid very happy.

Yeah. Don't take your don't take Yang out on the kids.

I have a win of the week.

Oh. And

mine is a jump. So instead of Kadri, he should be called Fedriyo.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah. Look at it.

Okay.

1, 2, 3.

Yeah. I just saw that last night. That is an amazing goal by, Nazan Kadri.

Alex. There you go. That's my win.

I love you're gonna love it because this kind of works with my my next video of my my, my fail of the week.

Yeah. So to describe this for the audio audience, it was lightning at flames. Nazem Kadri had taken the puck away from, 1 of the lightning players who was belly first on the ice, and he had to leap over him. And then, no. I don't think it kinda No.

That was mine.

Yeah. It didn't look like Connor McDavid. That's his, that's his fellow of the week, actually. That's David's fellow of the week. But, yeah, Nazareth Khodri hopped over, was not balanced, by the way.

No. So he had to spin, unbalanced, shot it on net, and scored for the flames. It it was a great goal. It's gonna be 1 of the goal. It probably was a goal of the week, actually.

Yeah.

It was good.

Yeah. Good on Nazem Kadri.

Alright. Fellows a week, David.

Alright. Mine, we we just saw it if you wanna roll it back. It was also against the lightning on the road in Alberta. This time, they just decided to not defend Connor McDavid. I I mean, he came from his own blue line, took a beeline straight down the middle of the ice, cut through everybody.

Vasilevskiy is probably, like, what the hell is going on? I see 4 of my guys, and suddenly I'm facing a breakaway. Yeah. Puck, blue line, McDavid, gone. Bye bye.

4 guys surrounding him, nobody touches him. Vasilevskiy barely moves as the puck is fought just kinda flicked over his blocker. I don't know. This guy is, like, the best hockey player in a generation. Maybe we should keep an eye on him.

Maybe we should defend him.

I don't know. But not a good look for Tampa. They're they're not having a very fun trip through Alberta. Doesn't look like.

No. Keep in mind where McDavid received the puck. He received the puck at the face off that it's nice. And he split 3. 3.

Like, 3 players there. So, yeah, not good defense at all. Defense optional. Defense optional. My, fail of the week comes from 1 of the suspects in the Paul Bissonette jumping.

Here he

is talking about describing Paul Bissonette.

Okay. I'll let you know that this guy and me fighting in a parking lot, you'd say, he's gonna beat the fuck of him. He's a plop nom. Lick a foul on him.

He's fucking

sure unless he got a giant tattoo. He's put like Dwayne The

Rock Johnson.

Her mouth is 50 fucking year old. Okay. Is he a white guy, black guy, Hispanic? Hispanic guy with black hair and a black beard Hispanic guy with black hair and a black beard. And he was pushing and shoving this as much as everybody else.

Okay. But that's when a bride showed up.

So that's an automatic l. The reason why that's an automatic l is you think that Paul Biznant is built like The Rock.

Well, he's a Hispanic Rock apparently.

Really made that comparison?

Well, he first, he said he was, like, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, then he said he was, like, his Hispanic guy.

Yeah. That that mean, that's kinda like saying Brett Goldstein looks Hispanic because he has appeared in Ted Lasso. Of course, he shaved it off for shrinking. But yeah. But no, man.

First of all, that's racist. Then second of all, that's stupid.

I mean, that has These guys aren't exactly, you know, cracking the atom. Right?

They were drunk at the time. Yeah.

But It seems like that's their MO is they just travel around getting drunk, starting fights, and in this case, they just started the fight with the wrong guy because there was 6 of them, and the 6 of them couldn't take down Biz.

Yeah.

And he got what was it? He took some. He he gave some more. Is that what he said?

Yeah. Of course, Biz in his career is probably used to scrums. I would imagine. Guys.

You spend a career getting punched and punching and, you know, he he has some experience, and he's also, like we've been around biz. Yeah. He's, you know I wouldn't say he's Dwayne The Rock Johnson, and he's not going out for 2 Fast 2 Furious, but I wouldn't

He's fit. Biz No. But he's not that fit.

No. Well, nobody's that fit.

He's not fitted

like that.

I feel like this is going in a downward spot. When I'm trying to say, like, Biz is, like, built. He's a tough dude. He's not The Rock, but nobody's The Rock. But Biz, I wouldn't Biz could probably flick his finger and knock me out cold.

I would not wanna mess with Biz. So these guys, I'm glad they got what was coming to them.

Keep in mind, he's in that draft case commercial. He's in the shower. So if you wanna look at how fit he is, then you could look at that commercial. Not throwing The Rock Johnson, but good for a hockey player.

Yeah.

Yeah. Rose has a fail.

Yeah. It's not a fail of the week, but And

it's not you getting pepper sprayed?

It's not a fail of the week.

Look. No. It's not a fail of the week. It's just a fail. Go.

What did I get? What am I watching?

Okay. So a woman right now is trying to close the door with her foot.

Rose She

left the window.

Nothing to do with hockey apps. Absolutely not. There's just some lady who tried to close her door. It failed, like, 3 times. It's it's hilarious.

I love that 1. The fake booty bump. Oh. And and then she's basically,

She left the window open, by the way.

Yeah. That's what I said.

That that's the other thing.

You know what? There you go. That's As much as this has nothing to do with hockey, I'm okay with Rose putting some nonsensical video and us spending 30 seconds on it. Because that that made me laugh.

That was You're very welcome.

Yeah. That that very Rose.

That's very Rose. Alright. So I'm on brand. This week in hockey, what what have you noticed?

Let's see. I've noticed that the Panthers are out west.

Yeah. Yes. They are late times.

Yeah. I've noticed that I don't enjoy West Coast games as much as I used to. No. Because now I'm riding till 2 in the morning, and then, like, today I had to wake up early. But, no, what am I noticing is, as I kind of glance through the standings right now, I'm really enjoying watching the Washington Capitals, and I'm afraid of what's going to happen when Alex Ovechkin comes back.

Oh, yeah.

Because they're already playing so well. The moves they made in the off season were great. Obviously, the move that they made at the draft getting Logan Thompson, Jacob Chitrin has been great for them. It's just, it's fun, and I I don't think we saw it coming. No.

Absolutely not. That's almost what what makes it better, and I'm sure you're more than happy to see Ovi having a much better season than than your buddy Sydney over there in Pittsburgh because they those just always kinda tied in together. But it's interesting because right now, the Capitals are leading the metro. Yes. They're ahead of the Rangers who, you know, put a point

right now. Different situation with the Rangers.

I'm not selling off the Rangers just yet just because they've got some good players and they've got an amazing goalie, but they gotta figure their shit out right now.

Keep in mind, though, the Capitals, although this is a shorter time frame for Florida when it happened to them, playing without the best player on their team Yeah. Through the injury has still played extremely well. It's exactly the same thing Florida had to go through, and once Obi returns, it's going to be That's a really good point. Yeah. It's gonna be really, really interesting in the metro.

So, there's that. So hey. It's a fun time right now in hockey, so we'll talk about the men, though. We're gonna switch to women because we are going to talk to Ian Kennedy of the hockey news.

I'm excited for this. We've been meaning to get to the PW for a while.

Yes. Yes. And I'm glad that we're gonna have him on. Ian Kennedy of the hockey News is gonna join us next to talk about the PWHL and them in the second season right now. And we're gonna take a look at how the season is going.

We're gonna talk talk about the difference differences between season 1 and season 2. Ian Kennedy is coming up next.

I'm trying out for the p w women's hockey league.

I'll be there for that. Learn how to hit. You have my support.

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The Professional Women's Hockey League has started its season. This is the 2nd year that they have been in existence, and they have names now. They have uniforms. Can you believe that?

Uniforms and everything. It's really great.

It's great. Just like Major League.

They're cool looking, though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Say it.

They did a pretty good job.

Yeah. I think so too. Ian Kennedy of the Hockey News joins us. He's the author of Ice in the Veins, women's relentless pursuit of the puck. He covers women's hockey and the PWHL in its 2nd season has names, so it has branding.

Has there been any positive increases as far as money is concerned into the league with this new branding?

I mean, the the fans are eating this stuff up right now. The merchandise, Even in season 1 when there wasn't any, they the PWHL had a very difficult time keeping things on the shelves, and they were out of stock, almost immediately. But I think it was pretty impressive when we saw the home openers over the last week, and you saw how many jerseys were actually in the stands already. That was, really remarkable to see that kind of presence right off the bat. So, it's a big thing for the league, definitely, to have those names and logos out there.

People are attaching themselves to the the identities already. We're getting lots of fun stuff coming up out of it. So, it was definitely a big step forward for the league from their, generic city names last year.

So 1 thing I wanted to ask you about in terms of I guess it it kinda falls into that rank. The attendance numbers.

I I

know they've gone up from year 1 to year 2. I believe I read that they're about averaging about a 1000 fans per game more than they were at this time last year, which is pretty impressive considering that's about, what, 20% 20% increase. I also know that there have been games where they've done, like, a larger venues, and they've gotten some really big crowds. So how excited have they been by the attendance numbers and and the way that they've been increasing year over year?

Any type of I mean, they I think they were over, they were excited from year 1. It was they exceeded all expectations right there and then, but season 2 has really got off to an exciting start with the the attendance levels. I mean, Montreal had to move into a bigger venue, and they brought just over 10,000 people to their first game. Toronto had to move to a bigger venue, that seats, you know, just over 8,000, and they're pretty much selling that out every game. So that's really exciting.

But when you look at the neutral site games, whether it's at Scotiabank, in Toronto or this season, they're gonna go out to Vancouver and Edmonton, and they've already sold out both of those venues. Quebec City's over 17,000 for their game. Seattle looks pretty full. Denver looks pretty full. It's all really positive.

The market's been there for professional women's sports for a decade right now or longer, but, hockey's just catching up. And we're seeing the the the people are ready. Fans are ready for this, not just in the 6 markets they're in, but, obviously, there's lots of talk of expansion coming as soon as next season. And, the attendance numbers in some of those games this year are really gonna be deciding factors for what markets get new teams.

Alright. So we have added attendance. We're gonna have added teams coming up soon. Aside from the branding portion of it, in a business sense, what has the league learned?

I think they're learning every single game. There's a lot of items that they're still catching up on, from social media to the broadcasting being a huge aspect that they're still trying to figure out. We saw a really early season switch from, some YouTube games to Twitch, which was not really well received by fans. But, I mean, in Canada, they've got Amazon Prime, CBC, TSN, covering pretty much every game, that there is. And in the United States, it's a little more regional, messing up in, New England, and, we've got some great coverage in in New York with MSG, but it's still they're still looking for a national broadcasting partner in the United States.

And I think that's gonna be probably dependent on expansion again because you can't have a national broadcaster that's, you know, not a national league. It's a regional league right now, and I think that they recognize the need to switch that as well.

As any of the national broadcasters, do you have a lead in whom what take the product? Would it be ESPN? Would it be TNT? Or would it be someone like, you know, like a USA?

Well, historically, ESPN plus, was the broadcaster for a lot of women's leagues in the past, including of of the previous iteration of the the PHF. So I could see ESPN being right in on that conversation, but 1 thing that we have seen a little bit of a trend is that the PWHL is following the NHL's footsteps in a lot of the business decisions, and I think that we might see, them targeting similar partnerships that the the NHL have. And so, you know, anybody's guess right now, but I'd say that ESPN plus or, ESPN in general is probably the leading tender at the moment.

You mentioned expansion before. 1 thing that kind of crossed my mind as I researched a little bit thinking about the expansion idea is that I a lot of the teams, seem to be struggling to hang on to the reserve players, which I would think would make it difficult for expansion just because are there enough players to fill a couple more teams? Now I know that might tie into the fact that the reserve players don't get the same benefits and pay that the rostered players get. But is that something that could impact expansion, do you think?

The talent pool is the number 1 thing the leagues are looking at. The they've mentioned this a number of times that they feel like they got the on ice product right. And I believe that too. I think that a lot of people, men's hockey fans in particular that watch this league are really, excited and surprised by the level of play that's there. It is elite.

The skill level is right off the charts. But, there's a huge wave of talent coming, maybe not in this 2025 draft, but the 2026 draft is just loaded. I mean, pretty much the best players from, the United States national team right now, like Carolyn Harvey that was, you know, USA Hockey Player of the Year last year, Leila Edwards, who was the world championship MVP. There's a huge group that's gonna be coming in over the next 2 years, and, that's probably what we're looking at in terms of expansion. I don't

know if they'll do

2 teams this year because of that, the talent coming in, but there's definitely, globally, enough women's hockey talent to expand this league quickly, and still keep that level of play high and some parity across the board.

Well, I've already said that the National Hockey League has done a bad job of promoting its players. I mean, lord knows I'm tired of seeing Sydney Crosby on my television. Like, they've been doing that for 20 years. Like, how can the women's hockey league how can the PWHL learn from the missteps of the NHL?

I would say that they should not follow the NHL in pretty much any way. So that's my personal opinion.

I

think that, you know, avoiding watching the NHL does and then doing the opposite might be better, but, they have the the good thing about this league is they have an incredible amount of intelligent, big personality people. I mean, we're not talking about, uneducated women here. This is a league of people with master's degrees, doctorate degrees. They are all university students that have come out of there. They're really well spoken, articulate people.

They're fun. I mean, if you look at their social media platforms, they are actual people. It's not that kind of you know, the NHL, I find that a lot of players get programmed to be these little robots and give you the same 6 word answer every single time, like pucks deep. Yeah. You know, all of that stuff.

All the cliches are there. But when you talk to these players in this league, you're getting really thoughtful, insightful answers. And I think that the marketability for that, to let fans see the players in this league as people, not just as hockey players, which is what a lot of research shows us that, fans wanna know those players better. So I think this league has a huge leg up on the NHL, in that regard, for sure. And I think they're gonna embrace that and really lean into it.

Should the players actually promote themselves? Like, players like Sarah Nurse have done a excellent job of promoting themselves.

If you look on, you know, if you go on Instagram and you type in whoever, Emma Malte, Cali Flanagan, I mean, you're gonna these might be players that some people don't know, but you're gonna see them doing fun things, and you're gonna see them engaging with fans. They're in the community all the time. Brands are really latching on. We saw Sarah Filiay just signed a exclusive deal with Upper Deck the other day to to put out unique merchandise and and specific cards for her, and, we're seeing these partnerships coming more and more. The market again is there, and the brands also see that the big personality of these players, the relatability of the players.

There's a a huge market that's being filled right now that was empty before, and it's a really exciting time not just for the players, but for businesses and brands and and hockey in general.

You mentioned the incoming class of talent and, how the influx, could really help the league. But right now, the rookie class has been doing really good as well. You mentioned Sarah Fillier and what she's been doing in New York, Dominique Petrie in Minnesota. Just wanted to get your thoughts on how great the incoming

class has

been this season. Spectacular. I mean, Fillier has just blown the roof right off the league. She's, pretty much doing it all right now. And I think that's just a testament to the the fact about women's hockey is that there's as much talent high end talent outside of this league still as there is inside the league.

I mean, you look at, the USA's national team, and there's, like, 10 players that are still in the NCAA. And every single 1 of them could step in and make an immediate impact to like Abby Murphy, who, if she declares this year, will be undoubtedly the 1st overall pick. But the league is filled with great players that have just come in, whether it's veteran Europeans like, Ronja Salva Linen or Daniela Pesceva. Along with those domestic players, whether it's Hannah Bilkah, Kayla Barnes, Daniel Cirdacne, who was who was the 2nd overall pick just behind Philly, big body, really intelligent, scored the golden goal for Canada this year. I mean, the league is continuing to get better, And anyone that watched last year and is just tuning in this year, it's really clear that there is no gap now.

4th line to first line is pretty level across the board. There's good players up and down lineups, and we're seeing really excellent professional hockey players that aren't able to stick on rosters right now in year 2, and that's just impressive.

You mentioned last year, and we know Minnesota won the championship. The way too early predictions here, what do you have?

I

look at someone like Toronto, and I see the depth that they have upfront. Once they start to click, I I think they're gonna be a really difficult team to to deal with. They've got basically 2 lines of senior national team players. Minnesota keeps finding a way to do it early on, but there's some dark horses. I mean, Ottawa last year was probably a team that had more bad luck than, anybody could have at all predicted.

Boston, the logos. No.

And an overwork goalie.

Absolutely. A 100%. I mean, you can't play 1 goaltender the entire season. I think that, she got a game and a half off or a game and a period.

That's it.

That's crazy. But I'm it's anybody. And I think that's the really interesting part about this league is Minnesota last year came into the playoffs on a horrific slump, wins it all. This year, it's it could be the same thing. The parity is, right there night in, night out where whoever was last place last year could consistently beat the 1st place team this year.

So it's really exciting. It's like every fan base, doesn't have to go through that This is our year gig. It really could be any team's year. Probably right now for the next 3 or 4 years, we're gonna see that parody.

He wrote the book, Ice in the Veins, women's, relentless pursuit of the puk of the puck, and he writes for the Hockey News. He covers women's hockey. He is Ian Kennedy. And thank you very much for joining us.

Thanks for having me, guys.

Hey, everybody. It's Mike Ryan, and I'm super excited to talk to you about Roan. This is a great company. I was introduced to them a couple of years ago. I thought everything that they made was super comfy and looked great, and now they're aboard.

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Alright. It's time for our Panthers update because that's the team we cover. Yes.

It

is. So if you, got any complaints about that, you kiss my ass. Alright. So Or you could pay

us to cover another team, I guess.

I I I guess.

The relocation would be a little pricey.

Yeah. Yeah. You can't afford me. The Florida Panthers, apparently are slated to host an outdoor game at Loan Depot Park next season.

Yeah.

And, I'm I'm kinda excited. We're we're going we're gonna do go to an outdoor game. We're going we're going to an outdoor game. Yeah, man. That's that's I mean,

I don't know if it's gonna be outdoor as well, the roof's gonna be open. It's gonna depend on how the weather is when we get there, but, this is cool, man. We we've been talking about this for a while. I don't know if I ever actually believed that it was gonna happen.

Yeah.

So to like, I I don't think I've actually kind of processed in my brain that, like, it's happening in South Florida. We're gonna go. We're gonna see the like, it's the Panthers gonna be the center of the NHL universe for a little while. Whether we don't know yet whether it's gonna be a winter classic game. We don't know if it's gonna be we'd know it's not gonna be stadium series.

That's what we've been told.

I mean, that's later in the season.

So I I'm not sure, but it's happening. That's what's really cool about it. I'm curious who the Panthers are gonna play. I've heard a couple teams thrown out, but nothing for sure yet. I'm I'm pumped, dude.

This is gonna be awesome.

Yeah. That's gonna be great. I thought I thought it was gonna be Tampa, but, hey. Listen, Gary Bettman, like, we've had definite, criticism criticisms about your tenure, but yeah.

Our goal I'm

very happy.

Our new goal. It will our our old goal was the Stanley Cup we got there. This 1, we we will have to state on that ice.

Holy shit. Okay. Alright. I got okay. We'll see.

We'll see. We will see.

We will see.

Alright. So the Panthers faced the the Seattle Kraken earlier this week. They wanted a shootout. And, before the game happened, Josh Mahurra and Brandon Monter received their rings finally.

Yes. Well deserved. Obviously, we missed the herd dog, and Montour was amazing. Yeah. A fun game.

Maybe, great for Joey Decord. Stood on his head for Seattle. Yeah. And then the Panthers, put out some fireworks up in

the shootout.

The Panthers only needed basically Alexander Barkoff,

San Ryan, and Sergey Bobrovsky.

Now Barkoff turned to court. He gave him a brain pretzel on that 1. Reinhart's he had no chance of stopping Reinhart after that happened to Barkoff. He might as well just start to the locker room.

Yeah. He's 1 of the best backhands in the league.

Barkoff has a I mean, we've seen it for years how good he is in the shootout. But right here, when he made that little fake move and you freeze the goalie mid shootout, that's that's that game over. As a goaltender, it's it's the worst, and he had no chance here on the Reinhardt shot.

And the Panthers defense has been very good. They were very good in this game, but last night in Vancouver, they lost for nothing. Yeah. And the defense kinda stifled them as far as shots are concerned, but the rest defense was not good. And that's how bay that's basically how the Canucks scored their goals.

Yeah. Hopefully, it's a 1 off as Paul Murray said after the game. We'll find out in their next game in Calgary. But, yeah, very unlike the Panthers to see him giving up that many rush opportunities.

JT Miller returned from injury after a month and got 2 assists and the first star good for him, and the fans the Panthers will face the flames tomorrow. Ryan Longberg will get his ring, and we are done for this week. We'll see you next week for the end of the year, the last episode of the year. See you then. Okay.

Goodbye.

Howdy, folks. It's Mike. And guess what? It's Miller time. The holiday season brings around lots of joy and also lots of family, lots of family gatherings at your home.

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