The Puck & Hoop Podcast

NB/ EDITOR'S NOTE: THE EDITING SOFTWARE WE UTILIZE TO PUT THIS PODCAST TOGETHER HAS DEVELOPED A GLITCH. TO THAT EXTENT THERE ARE SOME NOTICEABLE AUDIO DROPOUTS IN THIS EPISODE. I APOLOGIZE FOR ANY DISRUPTION OR DISPLEASURE THIS MAY CAUSE IN YOUR LISTENING. WE ARE EFFORTING TO GET TO THE ROOT OF THIS ISSUE TO PREVENT IT REOCCURRING IN FUTURE EPISODES. WHEN IT COMES TO THE MAPLE LEAFS IT WAS PAT...

Fate. Destiny. Pre-ordained. Kismet. Call it what you will, it's seemingly never going to be in the Leafs favour. The path was there for a long play-off run, but the florida Panthers had other ideas. And so, once again, us Leafs fans are left to look to next year. Hoping things will be different, knowing that it's unlikely to be much different than the previous 56. Good thing this is The P...

Yet somehow we managed a little over 20 minutes talking about how this 'supposedly' great Leafs team is writing a narrative that most thought impossible to even consider. Yet here it is. The Leafs are about to get swept out of the 2nd round of Stanley Cup Play-offs. Lets just leave that there and deal with it when it actually happens. Okay? Okay. So, how about those NBA play-offs? Mat Ishb...

"The situation is desperate, but not hopeless." - Fred Flintstone circa 3200 B.C. Ok not exactly how I thought this week would turn out for my Maple Leafs, but if this was meant to be easy it wouldn't be so hard. Don't think about that one for too long, just accept it. Anyway the Leafs played well enough to win and made just enough mistakes to lose. No problem right? They've...

OKAY. I know this is called THE PUCK & HOOP PODCAST... but you will have to pardon me if we - and by we I mean me, Brian - got a little carried away with the recent turn of events. To say the least. 19 years in the making the Leafs have FINALLY won a round in the play-offs. Slaying dragons, redemption, monkeys off backs, blah, blah. Whatever you want to call it, they got the job done. Now the...

"If you look back on our play-off history these are the type of games we lose... we bent but we didn't break." - Sheldon Keefe As a Leafs fan you learn never to get your hopes up. You understand that no matter how good things MAY look in the moment, calamity will most likely streak at some point. But what if it doesn't? What if there actually is something different about this col...

67. 56.19.7.6.1 If you want to know what those numbers mean ask a Leaf Fan and I'mm pretty sure they can come up with a salient explanation. Or you can just listen to Episode 21: Part 2. All shall be revealed there. Enjoy.

So we so thoroughly enjoyed doing a two-parter in our last episode we decided to comeback with another one. I'm only half-kidding. Given that both PUCK & HOOP are heading into their respective post-season's, a two-parter was a necessary thing. So part 1 is all HOOP as we take a fair bit of time to put a fork in the Raptor's season because it is DONE LIKE DINNER. We also make our pi...

Hey there Puck and Hoopers - in case you didn't know I just made that up, so we'll go with it for now - this is the 2nd half of our 20th episode of The Puck & Hoop Podcast. In this portion we serve up our thoughts on the Leafs, Habs and of course, the Raps. Oh those Raptors... just the thought of them makes me shake my head and wonder what they could have been if they had just got thei...

So here's something a teensy bit different than our usual fare here at THE PUCK & HOOP PODCAST. It's a 2-parter. Kind of in honour of reaching our milestone 20th FULL podcast episode and kind of because we just had so much territory to cover in this edition. So dive in, enjoy and then come on back for Pt2. Don'cha dare miss it!

There is a lot of talk flowing around out there right now about NBA Commissioner Adam Silver being on the short list to be the next CEO of the Disney Corp. Whether there is any merit to that talk or not, I wouldn't be surprised if Silver were to be offered the job he'd grab it with both hands. Issues are coming. And they have been for a long while. The growing enmity between players and on court o...

...well you know the rest. The Eastern Conference. Whether it's Puck or Hoop is NOT a place not for the faint of heart. Even with a couple of Superstars departing for the West, the NBA's Eastern Conference is turning into a very difficult place to ply your trade. Which will make for some interesting jockeying for position with  play-offs just around the corner. The same is true to an even GRE...

This episode has been published and can be heard everywhere your podcast is available. There are times when you see it coming. This was not one of those. The Boston Bruins are setting a torrid pace atop the NHL's Eastern Conference. And by torrid, I mean historic. When it's all said and done and the regular season gives way to play-offs, the Bruins may well have fashion the best ever season in NHL...

NBA All-Star Weekend is in the rear view mirror. Thankfully - some might say. Whatever you think of the game, the attendant festivities and all that goes with it, the NBA and the NBAPA know how to put on a show and continue to cement the NBA as the most culturally and social conscious member of the Big Four professional sports. Shout to Jully Black and the late great Marvin Gaye. Also in this epis...

SOOOO... that Brooklyn thing didn't really work out, huh? Now it's the Valley of the Sun for Kevin Durant and yet another chance to turn a great team into a Super Team. The Lakers may have found away to make themselves relevant - MAYBE. And the Raptor? Sometimes you just might have to reach back into your past to push yourself forward. Take a listen to The Puck & Hoop Podcast take on the NBA T...

MLB can't help but play a real game. The NFL wouldn't dare play a real game. The NBA? Well it's not a REAL game but it's a reasonable facsimile of one. So why can't the NHL follow suit? Take a listen and you'll hear what Keith and I think about the All-Star 'Game' and see if what we say doesn't hit home with you. Peace. B

As a child of the 70's and living close enough to my grade school that I could go home for lunch, The Flintstones were a daily staple of my lunch time activities. There was this one particular episode where Fred got hold of his Granpa's "Stone World War" Diary. Fred starts to read it to Barney and the adventure Fred relays is about a combat mission his Granpa got caught up in. Granpa Flinstone des...

Hey there. Episode 13 is here for you to sample at your leisure. But be warned - if you are a Raptor fan - we are diving into a situation that may be about to go from desperate to hopeless. The again it may not. All shall be revealed, pretty much by February 6th. Oh and the Habs are terrible and getting worse, but you wouldn't know that from the way they play Leafs. BRUCE THERE IT IS!!!

NB/In our News & Notes segment, Keith's audio suffered a little bit of interference that we just couldn't isolate. Soooo Brooklyn has a no K-D problem, Lebron is making a great case for LeGoat and we get into it about our favs the Leafs, Habs & Raptors. Enjoy Episode 12. And for the sake of argument... JORDAN is the THE GOAT. AT least for now. #RELEASETHEKRAKEN!

So one of the things I promised myself I would never do on this podcast is talk about my own meager abilities as a hoops player. But Man, I actually LIKED PLAYING DEFENSE. Shutting a great player or a great team down was something I prided myself, and the teams I played for, on. But if you have been following Puck & Hoop you know that defense in both sports has been overwhelmed by offense. Wel...

First and foremost, Season's Greetings to everybody. Here's hoping you and your Families make it through the Holiday's hale and hearty. Something not to be taken for granted - believe me on that. So we have been a little delayed in getting Episode 10 out, we actually recorded back on December 15. Now for the most part we weren't dealing with anything that was going to overtly date us, as we were t...

When your nickname contains the word GREAT, you usually are. Great that is. Look despite what some people are saying out there Alex Ovechkin is not the GREATEST goal scorer of all time. Yet. But by the time he is done, with the continuous good health that has been one of the hallmarks of his career, there is little doubt that the Great 8, actually better make that the GR800, will have wrested that...

Every once in awhile Keith and I get into, what I like to call, micro-debates. So we figured why not let you in on the chatter. This one is about something that I'm sure ALL puck-heads have an opinion on. But at the end of the day, and the end of this QuickCast, love it or hate it OT is here to stay in the NHL.

...because anyone that would say that is an ASSHAT. Full stop. However I will say this; yes Lebron has earned the right to be the pre-eminent spokesperson for The Assosciation. But steal a line from my favourite Marvel character: "With great power comes great responsibility." Meaning not every topic needs you to add the weight of your voice to it. In fact by staying away that may be even more impa...

There really are no heroes in Sport. Puck & Hoop are no different. If you want tangible proof that there are no heroes in Sport, just give Kyrie Irving a Google. But there are LEGENDS. And Borje Salming is DECIDELY that. On the ice, there are few that carved a path through the NHL like Salming did. And the ones that did, like him, are all in the Hall of Fame. Salming is not just on the short l...