Postgame: The Hockey Show - Top 5 Fictional Hockey Players
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Happening out here. Very important looking list. Yeah, explain this list here, Dave. Today we're going to be ranking fictional hockey players. Last week we ranked hockey movies. Today we're going in a little bit deeper. We're going to talk about fictional hockey players from movies and from TV shows. Roy and I

put a decent amount of thought into this list. I think, you know, we, we take our, our hockey and our fiction fairly seriously. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Uh, but first, uh, very seriously. Well, we're first, we're going to talk about something that's nonfiction. Yeah. Uh, actually happened. News happened in the, uh, the hockey media world that happened as a, this week. Um,

Jeff Merrick, who is actually pretty much beloved in Canada. I mean, he started all the way in the bottom of radio, just like we did. He's been part of hockey media for 30 years. In the last 13 years, he has been a part of Sportsnet. He's been a feature voice on Sportsnet. And something happened at the NHL draft. You know how these things go with these draft coverages. You know, the production truck.

They get their information about who got drafted earlier than the audience does before the actual announcement. Yeah, they get like a minute, two minutes. You know, not much time, but they get a little bit of time to get their shit together, to get their videos prepared, their graphics ready. Like, you know, that's kind of the benefit of being a rights holder. But it's also the responsibility of being a rights holder, which... Which happened to Jeff Merrick, who, you know, all the talent, they get the information beforehand as well. And apparently, Jeff Merrick was tipping these picks...

to a guy by the name of, I believe it's Marcus Seidel. Correct. He actually owns his own scouting service. So when he got that information from Jeff Merrick, he brought that to Twitter.

and pretty much said he predicted this to happen. Allegedly. This is all kind of... There's a really good article that The Athletic put out that kind of broke everything down. None of this has been independently confirmed from the league, from Merrick, from Seidel. So this is all still like...

You have to think like when the athletics and I put out a story, you know, I think what was it? Katie strain was on it and especially from Katie string So, yeah, I mean they're not gonna put this information out if they're not pretty sure on their sources and on their information but yeah, it's I Wasn't sure how to deal with this actually because this kind of crosses a few different lines like the Venn diagram on this is a little Convoluted which you know is how they're gonna be but I don't know like I

This information gets out, and that's a big part of the industry is finding out privileged information, journalists trying to source it responsibly. It seems like, and again, I don't want to say for sure. We live in that kind of a specific world. But if it is the way that it was kind of brought up to us in this article, I don't know, man. Right.

I think if you're going to be, because I feel there's an important element to disseminating certain information. Obviously, nothing that's going to get anybody in trouble. But in terms of, you know, providing that kind of a service as a journalist, there's a certain line that you have to be very careful not to cross. And I feel like in this case, and it's not like a dangerous line, but it's like, okay, look what happened here. You know, it's...

On the very, very, very light end of it, trying to do his buddy a service, trying to help his career. Like, I get that. Fine. You pay it forward. You help your friends. Paying it forward is something that Merrick's done his whole career. Yeah. But in this situation, there are two problems with this. This is an HR issue. You're sharing proprietary information as an insider to somebody outside the company. That's something that...

If you work in a media company, they show you HR videos about this. Like intellectual property and all that stuff, they show you videos about this. And if you violate that, they will fire you. The other thing about this is this is a Vegas situation. This is like sportsbooks are attached to this where people can actually put bets on who goes where in the NHL draft. And the NHL has deals with gambling companies.

So that's not going to be a good look for Sportsnet as a whole, who has to deal with the league itself as a rights holder. So those are the two situations that pretty much led to Jeff Merrick's dismissal.

Never seen anything like this. That's, I think, the other interesting part. I don't know about that. Like, Adam Schefter, Adrian Wozniowski, they go to Twitter, they tell everybody before the pick has happened, like, seconds before, because this is happening live, right? But if they're getting the information themselves, or...

we don't know where they're getting that information like we don't know if they're plugged into you know the the league itself they just have a source with every you know i'm sure that they're both you know loge and shifter are the guys but

I think that's kind of the difference in this case is in this case, they pulled back the curtain a little bit, allegedly, to see, because it's not like it was Merritt that was putting out the information himself. He was feeding it to someone else, allegedly. I just want to keep throwing that out there. Allegedly. I'm not accusing anybody of anything. We're just talking about what this story says. But it's a little bit different, I think. Yeah. And the point that you made, which is, I think, why everybody's on edge about this, is the financial, the gambling. Yeah.

That's a bigger element in sports right now than it's ever been, and it's only going to get bigger. Yeah. So that's something that they really need to be watching. They're watching social media during the draft. They know what's going on. Mm-hmm.

Man, I don't know, man. The whole thing just kind of makes me a little uneasy. Yeah, this is a slippery slope here, man, because you're messing with people's money. Yeah. You mess with people's money. Well, in uncharted areas. There's no guidebook yet for this. No. We're writing it right now. Yeah. So that's where we are with Jeff Merrick. I think that he's going to land on his feet somewhere because... Oh, he's got to. If he doesn't do it in Canada with TSN...

Or anywhere else. Could use some good hockey people down here in the States, I think. You know, you never have enough. Yeah. Yeah, he can go to Turner ESPN. Yeah. Call it a day on that one. So, good luck to Jeff. I think he'll land somewhere. So, we're going to move on to our list. All right.

Fictional hockey players. First thing I'll do is I'll give you the list that Roy and I considered. Obviously, we may have left some people off. If we did, feel free to remind us kindly, politely, as you tend to do on social media. Right, Roy? Very, very polite. Yes. On social media. I thank you for all the kind words. Yeah. And like, like, thank you. You really make my life.

real joy on Twitter or what would have what would the hell they call it now whatever anyway off to the list Steve that was that was touching yeah all right so here's the list Dean Youngblood and Derek Sutton from Youngblood mmm Reg Dong lap and Ned Barton yep

That's from Slapshot. Ned Braden. Ned Braden from Slapshot. All right, from the Mighty Ducks, we got a few. We got Charlie Conway. We got Adam Banks. We got Julie the Cat Gaffney. We got Gunnar Stahl from Team Iceland. People.

Yeah. And we got Gordon Bombay as a player. We got Xavier LaFlemme from Goon. We got Ross Ray from Goon. Stevie Weeks and Connor Banks from Mystery Alaska. We got Agent Michael Skarn from The Office because, look, he did make an NHL All-Star game. So some credit there. Crying out loud. We got Jean-Jacques-Francois-Jacques-Jean or JJ Frankie JJ from Shorzy and also Shorzy from Shorzy.

We have Bart and Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons. We've got Darren Roanoke from The Love Guru. He was amazing for The Maple Leafs. Otto Rocket from Rocket Power. Enough said. Derek Thompson from The Tooth Fairy. And finally, my personal add to this list was Doug Dorsey from The Cutting Edge. Because the dude was the captain of Team USA before he went to a figure skating career. So that's 21.

players on our list. So now Roy and I are going to give our top fives. Okay. All right. So since you gave the list. No first off the list this time. No OLI for me either. All right. Number five is Ross Ray. Ross Ray. That was supposed to be fanfare. Yeah, we're having a fanfare. The pot is not on. The pot is off. Rose?

Rose, can you turn on DanFX, please, on the board so I can hit this button? There we go. Ross Ray is number five for me. Dave? All right. I'm going with the goon. Yep. Going with the goon character, but also the goon player. So, all right. Fine. My number five is also from goon. It's Xavier LaFlemme.

Dude set the world on fire. He was an amazing player. He had to get his shit together upstairs, but hockey skill-wise, yeah, he's very good. Danny Benitez in our video booth said to me in my ear, the Bash Brothers, that would be from Mighty Ducks 2. They are not on my list. So, sorry, Danny. Number four is Lisa Simpson. Oh, my God.

Rose in my ear just screamed Justin Bieber, no. A, not fictional. B, no. No. No. God, no. No. No offense to the Biebs. No, a little offense to the Biebs. Oh, take offense. Great singer. Take offense. I'm not on this list. That's true. I'm certainly not on this list because I can't skate. No, we're going to fix that. Yeah, we're going to fix that soon, Dave. All right, my number four is from Shorzy. It's J.J. Frankie J.J.,

This guy can score on demand. He looks like an— Heavyset. Yeah, well, that's the thing. He doesn't look like much, but you put the dude in the ice, and he's magic. So give me JJ. Yeah. I'm not going to spoil things for Season 3 because I don't think you got— I have not gotten to Season 3 yet, so— Yeah, he's in a bit of a slump. Yeah, so— Still, good players can slump. Yeah, good players can slump. Number three for me is Shorzy.

I mean, look, he's a glue guy. He is a glue guy. He's the captain. All right. You're definitely going with the thumper team here. Oh, yeah. I'm going with the all-star team. Yeah. Roy's building his perfect team. I'm building an all-star team. We still don't know his first name. No, we don't. We got to find that out somehow. What does his family call him?

Sure. No, no. They call him like Waffles. Yeah, they gave him Waffles. They gave him a nickname, Waffles. Yeah. All right. That's definitely not his first name. My number three is from the Mighty Ducks. It's Adam Banks. I feel like Adam Banks, he's like the best player on the team in every movie, yet he's not the main character on the team in any movie. But he always puts up numbers. He always performs. So give me Adam Banks, number three. All right. Number two for me is one Douglas Glatt. All right.

Man, I do not want to face your team in a dark alley. Oh, yeah, man. We got the thumpers going, man. We got the fist flying in Douglett.

Very lovable. You've got a team full of character guys. Bill Zito would love your team. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I got a goaltender, so yeah, as well. All right, number two on my list is another Banks. It's Connor Banks from Mystery, Alaska. Did you see how accurate this guy is? And he's fast because they can all fly because they all learned how to walk on states or skate on feet. They came out of the room with skates on, which is very dangerous. But Connor Banks got a contract with...

He got a two-way contract with the Rangers based off of one game of pond hockey. Yeah. So. So there you go. My number one is Reggie Dunlop from Slapshots. Slapshots.

Listen, you got to play a coach there, man. Yeah. So not only did I draft a player, a veteran player, I got a coach. Leadership qualities there. So I got a bunch of thumpers, a goaltender, and a coach. I don't know where that coach is going to lead us based off the track record, but I do understand where you're coming from. He's going to give us inspiration, even though the team is folding. Veteran presence. Yes. My number one, and I don't think it's really debatable, is Dean Youngblood. What he did with the Mustangs.

He was already super skilled. And then he learned how to kick some ass. So give me Deem Youngblood. Rob. Rob Lowe. Patrick Swayze. Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves is a goalie. Yeah. Keanu Reeves is a goalie. Yeah. He's just like a great guy, right? It's like the thing with Keanu Reeves. Yeah. He's just a good dude. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I want to have a glass of scotch and talk some hockey with Keanu Reeves. Me too. Does he drink? Maybe. I don't know. Rose. Rose says definitely. Definitely.

All right. Well, that was good. Yeah, that was a good list. I think everybody would agree that our list is decent, somewhat. I mean, if we don't agree, then that's cool, too. Just, again, be polite about it. Yes, they probably won't. Okay, goodbye. A lot has changed over the years, audience. As you've been so kind in pointing out, my shirt size has changed over the years. Look, I started this show as a 19-year-old boy, and now I'm a 38-year-old dad. But

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