"Take that Calgary Puck!" — SN960 and Calgary sports media discussion

[Sainters7]

I missed the interview and always liked Commodore here, and he's entitled to his opinion. What I didn't like with his tweets during that time wasn't so much his thoughts as the way he expressed them. It wasn't him simply saying he completely disagrees with vaccine mandates, he was repeatedly saying stuff like "Canada is embarrassing! / Canada sucks". Like why get that divisive and confrontational with it? I found it to be in poor taste, and frankly made him come off like an instigator and a bit of a rube.

I still like the dude, he's funny and entertaining. He just needs to learn to express his views at an adult level.

[Erick Estrada]

I don't think Commodore is a person you look to for his knowledge of things outside of hockey. He's a colorful guy in a sport that's known for having a lot of bland personalities. I like to hear him for his hockey talk and stories for sure but as always I'm not terribly interested in the political views of athletes.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by hixxes

So, you've made it clear that you think Boomer and Pinder are idiots, and you obviously have a low opinion of Commodore. I'm curious, why were you listening (or watching) to a show that you most certainly do not like?

I am not listening to them, someone sent me the clip. I stated that in my original post.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I don't think Commodore is a person you look to for his knowledge of things outside of hockey. He's a colorful guy in a sport that's known for having a lot of bland personalities. I like to hear him for his hockey talk and stories for sure but as always I'm not terribly interested in the political views of athletes.

Yeah, sports writ large covers the centre-right spectrum, and hollywood covers centre-left. Similar phenomena

[CroFlames]

Commodore didn't actually say anything anti-vax or anti-science. The worst he said were that the restrictions in Canada were stupid/bull####, and that the restrictions probably played a role in Johnny's decision to leave.

I think it was a dumb, especially because cross-border travel was made difficult by both countries, not just Canada - but I digress. Just because Pinder and Boomer didn't immediately flame him for the opinion doesn't make them idiots.

If you read between the lines, he probably is a bit anti-science, but he didn't actually say anything egregious.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Commodore didn't actually say anything anti-vax or anti-science. The worst he said were that the restrictions in Canada were stupid/bull####, and that the restrictions probably played a role in Johnny's decision to leave.

I think it was a dumb, especially because cross-border travel was made difficult by both countries, not just Canada - but I digress. Just because Pinder and Boomer didn't immediately flame him for the opinion doesn't make them idiots.

If you read between the lines, he probably is a bit anti-science, but he didn't actually say anything egregious.

And Pinder and Boomer chose to have the interview go further down the rails by digging more to that thread of discussion than they already did. Hell, I wouldn't be shocked if Rhett had some similar opinions and Mike.

[The Yen Man]

I struggle to find any outrage to Commie's comments. He thinks that "in his opinion", going through border restrictions, and the difference in how each country opened up as the pandemic progressed, probably had an influence on an American player choosing to play for an American team. Is that the gist of it? Such outrageous comments!

Sure, he's hinting at how he didn't like some of Canada's restrictions, but so what? That's his opinion and he's entitled to it.

[Burning Beard]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

I struggle to find any outrage to Commie's comments. He thinks that "in his opinion", going through border restrictions, and the difference in how each country opened up as the pandemic progressed, probably had an influence on an American player choosing to play for an American team. Is that the gist of it? Such outrageous comments!

Sure, he's hinting at how he didn't like some of Canada's restrictions, but so what? That's his opinion and he's entitled to it.

This exactly. Many on here are outraged over everything these days.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I don't think Commodore is a person you look to for his knowledge of things outside of hockey. He's a colorful guy in a sport that's known for having a lot of bland personalities. I like to hear him for his hockey talk and stories for sure but as always I'm not terribly interested in the political views of athletes.

Theo Fleury: please read

[Sainters7]

To circle back to what I was saying earlier, about it not being about his opinion, but the way he worded things: (just a screenshot as I was having trouble embedding it)

And this was just one of countless times he referred to Canada being a total joke/embarrassment, etc etc. Like why take it to that level? That's why he got under so many people's skin.

Also, while Canada's restrictions were certainly more than the U.S., they were pretty much on par (or even more lax) than most of the Western world. In that regard, it was the States that were the outliers, not Canada.

Again, I like the dude, gonna listen to this interview this weekend. But he really needed to pump the brakes on his wording over this period.

[Incogneto]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

No Mike is an idiot and you can clearly see it with who his friends are *cough* James Neal. He has a slanted POV to fit his ant-vaxx narrative. We didn't have lockdowns in Canada or the US we had restrictions and what restrictions became too much they couldn't handle? It was pretty lax everyone was pretty much free to do anything most of the time.

The crowds came back under the vaccine passport fully, and we had another covid breakout which not only put a restriction on crowds but the league had to shutdown including AMERICAN teams.

If they want to walk around in a plague ridden USA that's fine, but don't blame Canada for people leaving it was the same. The idiots on that podcast agreeing with him with zero pushback was hilarious.

Wow… I bet you’re a blast at parties!

[dino7c]

the show is the dude bro hour...or however many hours

if you like that kinda thing you will like it, if not don't listen. Every time I have tried it's middled aged men talking about how drunk they got

not for me

[Major Major]

OOOOF, got a solid reminder as to why I'm not a regular listener to the morning show this morning.

The guys have Jack Han on who just wrote an article about Huberdeau. Great, I thought... Good time to talk about relevant flames hockey rather than some dumb texter driven trivia shtick. Also, I like Han and dislike how over the top negative he is on Huberdeau so it's either an opportunity for me to check myself or for these guys to challenge Han on some of his assumptions.

Nope!

Russic starts it off cryptically and awkwardly saying the first sentence of the article is a little aggressive, isn't it??? Wait, what is the first line? Does the listener know? Negative. Han starts off on the defensive but I'm not even sure what he's defending. Ok, bad start... They can get it back though right?

Nope!

Russic drives things off the rails by using this as an opportunity to jump on an anti stat soap box, but Han isn't really a stat honk like a JFresh. He focuses on player styles and skills. Han is now evidently annoyed at the line of questioning, thinking he was on to talk Flames or Huberdeau. He's still on though so we can salvage this right?

Nope!

They just end the interview 5 minutes in! It seems Russic was annoyed that Han didn't follow him off the deep end on expected goals for and just packed it in.

I can think of a hundred lines of questions based on his article:

https://jhanhky.substack.com/p/whats...with-huberdeau

1. You wrote an article similar to this in the offseason and this seems to confirm what you were saying. However, do you think the jump in Huberdeau's defensive analytics suggests he's going through a transition that could eventually yield fewer points but a better overall player?

2. You say that Calgary is coached to be defense first and cited your surprise that Gaudreau responded so well offensively to Sutter. If you look at the difference between last year's flames and this year's, do you think it could be a misconception that Sutter is strictly a defensive coach but the team may just lack consistency of execution this year?

3. In your article, you site linemates as a reason JH has had success in Florida, do you see a combination that exists on the flames that could yield a better result than what has happened so far? Obviously Lucic didn't help...

4. As an elite 3 on 3 player, what do you see going on this year? Is it possible that his ineptitude in this regard this year points to a player feeling the pressure of a new market and maybe that can be extrapolated to the rest of his game or is this another systems thing?

Instead we got an awkward ending followed by several minutes of Russic complaining about stats. Even that argument in a vaccuum is already annoyingly flawed because he wants things like expected goals for to be tracked by the league to remove bias, but it would just be tracked in buildings from 32 sources like shots and hits. Way more biased than from a single source like natural stat trick. I would say the NHL, at this point, has almost no credibility as an unbiased source of anything as the total revenue whores that they evidently are.

[Moneyhands23]

Originally Posted by Major Major

OOOOF, got a solid reminder as to why I'm not a regular listener to the morning show this morning.

The guys have Jack Han on who just wrote an article about Huberdeau. Great, I thought... Good time to talk about relevant flames hockey rather than some dumb texter driven trivia shtick. Also, I like Han and dislike how over the top negative he is on Huberdeau so it's either an opportunity for me to check myself or for these guys to challenge Han on some of his assumptions.

Nope!

Russic starts it off cryptically and awkwardly saying the first sentence of the article is a little aggressive, isn't it??? Wait, what is the first line? Does the listener know? Negative. Han starts off on the defensive but I'm not even sure what he's defending. Ok, bad start... They can get it back though right?

Nope!

Russic drives things off the rails by using this as an opportunity to jump on an anti stat soap box, but Han isn't really a stat honk like a JFresh. He focuses on player styles and skills. Han is now evidently annoyed at the line of questioning, thinking he was on to talk Flames or Huberdeau. He's still on though so we can salvage this right?

Nope!

They just end the interview 5 minutes in! It seems Russic was annoyed that Han didn't follow him off the deep end on expected goals for and just packed it in.

I can think of a hundred lines of questions based on his article:

https://jhanhky.substack.com/p/whats...with-huberdeau

1. You wrote an article similar to this in the offseason and this seems to confirm what you were saying. However, do you think the jump in Huberdeau's defensive analytics suggests he's going through a transition that could eventually yield fewer points but a better overall player?

2. You say that Calgary is coached to be defense first and cited your surprise that Gaudreau responded so well offensively to Sutter. If you look at the difference between last year's flames and this year's, do you think it could be a misconception that Sutter is strictly a defensive coach but the team may just lack consistency of execution this year?

3. In your article, you site linemates as a reason JH has had success in Florida, do you see a combination that exists on the flames that could yield a better result than what has happened so far? Obviously Lucic didn't help...

4. As an elite 3 on 3 player, what do you see going on this year? Is it possible that his ineptitude in this regard this year points to a player feeling the pressure of a new market and maybe that can be extrapolated to the rest of his game or is this another systems thing?

Instead we got an awkward ending followed by several minutes of Russic complaining about stats. Even that argument in a vaccuum is already annoyingly flawed because he wants things like expected goals for to be tracked by the league to remove bias, but it would just be tracked in buildings from 32 sources like shots and hits. Way more biased than from a single source like natural stat trick. I would say the NHL, at this point, has almost no credibility as an unbiased source of anything as the total revenue whores that they evidently are.

Russic is terrible and I absolutely quit on the morning show. Fired from his job in TO and hired here for whatever reason. I can't see the current morning show lasting past next season.

[SuperMatt18]

Yeah that interview with Jack Han this morning was terrible. Didn't probe the article at all, and just hammered home his own thoughts on it.

To me that is Rusic's problem with all his guests - he doesn't want to hear what they have to say, and instead tries to dictate his own narrative through his guests. Rusic is very "Toronto" and honestly don't see him having success in this market.

I honestly think they probably could have just given the morning to Logan Gordan, Matty Rose, and maybe brought back Peter Klein and I be the three younger guys could have made something work over time.

Not too disimilar from Boomer and Walker when they had to find their way after Richards had left.

[Ashasx]

It is a good thing Rusic takes so much vacation because the morning show is much more enjoyable with literally anyone else at 960 filling in.

[CroFlames]

Gotta think with Barn Burner being popular, the morning show on AM radio will just end one day. Just like the pulled the plug on Team 1040.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

All these personalities just need to stick to what they have real life knowledge and experience in. i.e. hockey

Anything else comes off as emotionally fuelled rah-rah posts which is not the area that earned you an audience

Commodore and Theo "1 MiLlIoN cOnVoYeRs" Fleury need to travel abroad or speak to people of other countries and actually listen to their accounts of what it's like and gain some perspective. They also have the ability to relocate to the US any time they'd like to if they want complete, unhinged freedom and all the drawbacks and risks that accompany that. But they refuse to take action to create a solution for themselves and instead sit and blog their emotions around things they have no expertise in, crying that they're victims in a country with more freedoms than 98% of the planet like petulant children

At the height of covid restrictions? Sure, I'd look the other way. It was a tough time for people to adjust to. But now? My god, it just comes across as forced drama

[Goriders]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

I struggle to find any outrage to Commie's comments. He thinks that "in his opinion", going through border restrictions, and the difference in how each country opened up as the pandemic progressed, probably had an influence on an American player choosing to play for an American team. Is that the gist of it? Such outrageous comments!

Sure, he's hinting at how he didn't like some of Canada's restrictions, but so what? That's his opinion and he's entitled to it.

Canada is still a democracy. Everyone is entitled to believe whatever they like. That’s how it works.

We’re lucky compared to other countries and should fight to keep it that way.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Nm