JUST before the show began, Taylor walked into the studio and delivered the news that made the Shipping Container burst into applause. Then, the 4 Nations Face-Off ended with Canada taking down the United States in a game played in Boston. The crew begins the conversation by breaking down the game and what happened on the ice between these two teams, but it's almost impossible to avoid the off-the-ice circus of this event after some of America's political figures hijacked it. Mike, Jeremy, Jessica, and Tony dive deep into what it means to root for athletes and teams despite having different political views. Can you put everything you believe in aside in the name of rooting for your country? Plus, the crew discusses the news of Victor Wembanyama missing the rest of this season and what it means for the NBA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the breaking news that lit up the studio?
Big news was broken to me. And God, I am so jealous of Taylor who got to deliver this huge news. Chris, what was the news that you guys received that made that entire room light up?
It was baseball related. If we start there as a hint, like what could I say in the baseball realm that would get the room fired up? And I'll tell you, it's the Yankees getting rid of their beard policy.
Chapter 2: Why did the Yankees change their beard policy?
That's insane news.
And worthy of that reaction.
I think we did it. I think it was us. We were the tipping point. Tony, I think you're absolutely right. Our edition of Who Dat Is, the most recent one where we couldn't get two of the most recent Yankee signings because Paul Goldschmidt looks Dominican all of a sudden when he's clean shaven.
The Hall of Famer.
The guy's the Hall of Famer and none of us knew him. Totally unrecognizable clean shaven. So I'm glad that the Yankees, and look, America's already on the rebound. Nature is healing. The country is healing, at least in sports terms. George Steinbrenner is rolling over in his grave right now. Jess, do you have an official statement? This is worthy of an official statement from the New York Yankees.
Yeah, it's a statement from Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner. Wow. alteration of Yankees facial hair policy. In recent weeks I've spoken to a large number of former and current Yankees spanning several eras to elicit their perspectives on our long-standing facial hair and grooming policy and I appreciate their earnest and varied feedback.
These most recent conversations are an extension of ongoing internal dialogue that dates back several years. Ultimately the final decision rests with me and after great consideration we will be amending our expectations to allow our players and uniformed personnel to have well-groomed beards moving forward. It is the appropriate time to move beyond the familiar comfort of our former policy.
Well-groomed beards? Took him a while to have this conversation, eh? It took him a while to just say, hey, you can grow a beard. Who determines what's well-groomed? How many PR firms helped craft that?
The dean of my Catholic school determines what is well-groomed.
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Chapter 3: How did Canada defeat the USA in hockey?
Austin Matthews, who in the group chat I saw was referred to as Austin Badthews, who did not have the greatest tournament. I know he set some people up, and defensively he played all right, but this is a huge, huge mistake from a Selke finalist, one of the top defending forwards in the league. You cannot do this!
From... Face-off dot to face-off dot. Top of the face-off circle to the bottom of the face-off circle. That's how much room that he had. It was a full—like, they were in Rhode Island. That's how wide open they were.
It's not only Matthews skates away from McDavid in that defensive spot. He had three scoring chances minutes earlier. So Matthews had, on both ends of the ice, a chance to do what McDavid did in his first chance in overtime. He got the puck, and he stuck it home top corner.
I mean, I wasn't rooting against Team USA. I swear to God, I wasn't. However, when I heard, as I was falling asleep, I heard the game-winning goal call. I did do a, when I heard Connor McDavid had scored, I did a, and then I rolled over and fell asleep.
Mike, Jordan Bennington, let's start over time.
Yeah, he was incredible. Made three huge key saves. Went back to 2019. Yeah, he was incredible for them. But I think we all kind of had the Alonzo Mourning reaction to that goal, which is not the result we wanted, but certainly the result we deserved.
What I don't get. We're going to play this Marshan sound where he's going at the Kachuk brothers for giving them bulletin board material. Before we play the Marshan sound, did they guarantee victory? What is he talking about here? Was it the fights in the first game? I don't understand that, but he specifically says when you're running your mouth in the media.
What were their quotes? Let's let's I'll address that because I know what he's talking about. Here's Brad Marchand, who I hate immensely. This guy sucks. He's a rat. But he's look, congrats to him. He gets to be the winner on the day. Let's hear what he had to say postgame.
Sometimes when you shoot your mouth off in the media, it bites you. You can do that during the season, but when you're playing best on best, it's different. They've got a little bit ahead of themselves, but they're great players. There's not many guys in the league that play the way they do, and they're extremely effective, but when you start giving teams ammo, it can work against you as well.
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Chapter 4: What are the political implications of the Four Nations Face-Off?
wholeheartedly still stand by my statements this was awesome this was the biggest thing i would love to have won it it hurts you enjoyed it while it was cool um it's so cool it was still the best and like i can't wait for next year in the olympics now we have a great storyline they hadn't played best on best these nations in 11 years and all you had was you know a historic rivalry The U.S.
got the better of them in the World Cup of Hockey in 1996. I remember watching that as a little kid and knowing what a big moment that was. But recently, when these two nations have met in finals, it usually ends in heartbreak. In fact, Sidney Crosby has five medals to his name, five gold medals in international hockey. The United States as a whole have four in their history.
we are absolutely little brother here and it was weird it was weird in how the um look the politics of it the the media coverage of it we somehow gave canada the right to be the underdog in hockey i mean they at certain points in this tournament they had sydney crosby conor mcdavid nathan mckinnon and kale mccarr on the ice They are not the underdog.
Like, if we're doing this in video games, their overall team score is higher than the overall team score of the United States. But the United States had the vibes. They had the attitude. They were hosting the final. This was a pick-em game when it came to betting lines, and most of the action was on the United States.
But make no mistake about it, the United States is always going to be the underdog against Canada. And something weird happened, maybe politically, where that narrative switched, and you can't give the more talented team Also the right to call themselves underdog. That's weird.
Well, going into this tournament, I mean, their inspiration was Johnny Goudreau. And his death and the memorial lies in him in this tournament. That's overshadowed. The fans chanting Johnny Hockey was awesome. That was awesome.
It was a great moment. Micah Rizzioni coming out in the Johnny Goudreau hockey sweater. Yeah, that got buried. That got buried by all this ridiculousness as it made it to the— No, I don't think anybody would agree with that.
Oh, it's a great show. No, it isn't.
It's good just background television. Ridiculousness?
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Chapter 5: What is the impact of Victor Wembanyama's injury on the NBA?
Yeah, it was playoff rules. Yeah.
Which I love. Look. Top-of-the-line effort, great theater, great drama, the players caring. Matthew Kachuk's probably not going to play for a few games for the Florida Panthers. It's insane that the players that were in this tournament have to turn around now and start playing for their clubs in two days, some tomorrow.
Can we put back up the Canadian group chat? I'm wondering, with all this group chat talk, if there's USA players or Canadian players not in these group chats, and they're like, what the hell?
Yeah, there's got to be a green phone. There's got to be a green text. Like Swayman's like, why am I not in these group chats? Yeah, I like the idea of there being like maybe Kale McCarr in this group chat. Man, shout out to the NHL. They got this right. And it's not just the NHL. The players also have to show that they wanted to do this. And the players union were a driving force.
International hockey means a lot to these guys. And I know PK went viral drawing comparisons to the effort to the NBA and the NHL, but that's also one of the other storylines that was unfortunately bigger than the Johnny Goudreau thing. And I understand the Johnny Goudreau thing is for hockey puck heads that know the story. For me, that was prevalent throughout this tournament.
It wasn't what was headlining cable news. We all know that. But it happening during this kind of weird inflection point for the NBA, as I want to get to the Wemby stuff now, too, is really interesting because there were abuelitas that were watching this game last night. This was huge for the sport of hockey. I don't know if that sustained momentum. But like I said, the Panthers play tomorrow.
There's a lot of people that are going to identify with this, and it's really unfortunate that Matthew Kachuk got hurt because he has shown time and time again on grand stages that he's willing to be the superstar. He's willing to be the face of hockey, and you would love to just keep that momentum going.
But I cannot think about this NHL exhibition tournament, whatever you may call it, best on best, though, and not think about the NBA. And the NBA had a crushing blow yesterday with the Victor Wimbledon-Yama news. And this is really serious. As Heat fans know that went through the Chris Bosh thing, this is career in jeopardy type of stuff.
Now, there have been reassurances that they think he's going to be fine. They caught it. It has not spread. They caught it in the shoulder. But this is a really scary thing.
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Chapter 6: How does the NHL's international play compare to the NBA?
That's exactly right. And with Wemby, he will go on blood thinners to fix this blood clot. But that's the whole thing. You really can't play sports on blood thinners. That's why heart issues become a thing and players are immediately out of the league.
So for Wemby, at least the reporting thus far and everything that the Spurs have said indicates, like Tony said, he'll be back at the start of next season and they'll go from there. They right now were a couple of games out of a play in spot anyhow. And so they have their own first-round pick.
If you're looking at the future of the Spurs, him now missing this amount of time and getting them in the top three or four of the draft and landing Cooper Flagg inevitably. Stop that. We can't let that happen. I'm just letting you know. We can't let that happen. You don't think that's...
a possibility that they end up in the top three and land, if not Cooper Flagg and Ace Bailey or whoever is going to be right there to help catapult them with De'Aaron Fox and Victor Wemby. I mean, look, it's the Spurs. All that said, this is a scary thing. Anytime blood clots pop up, you're worried for the future of anyone's athletic career.
With Wemby being everything that he is, not just as this athletic freak who was going to win Defensive Player of the Year, who's one of the most dominant forces in the league already in year two, You also have all these guys like Anthony Edwards across the league embracing. That's the guy. Wemby's the guy that all of us are willing to look at and go.
He has everything that's needed in terms of personality, in terms of demeanor, in terms of competitiveness to be out here as the face of the NBA. So when you miss that guy for the second half of the season and a chase for a play in spot, of course, that's awful news for the league.
I'm wondering what this did to his memorabilia market, because Wemby's the hottest name in terms of cards and memorabilia. So I wonder, are things crashing? Are people buying low?
I think it's a huge blow, not just for the Spurs. However, the first name that I thought of was Chris Bosh. The second name that I thought of was David Robinson, because the Spurs were in a similar position. They had David Robinson. He got hurt. They put themselves in position to get Tim Duncan. And if they get Cooper Flagg out of this whole thing, that's incredible for the franchise.
I don't like it one bit. I don't like it one bit.
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