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Mat Ishbia can still flop like the college scrub that he is
How do you know that Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia made being a go-hard his entire lifestyle?...

It’s not supposed to be that easy, Connor
The NHL playoffs like to revel in its celebration of depth and the unsung. Everyone gets a shift, so everyone had better do a job or more, and the puck can bounce onto anyone’s stick or off anyone’s ass to change a game, a series, a whole spring. It is not always a stage for the leading men to provi...

Playoff hockey is stupid anyway
The NHL Playoffs gets its jollies from defying logic or explanation, and reveling in its unpredictability. That doesn’t mean it’s always a free-for-all, as hockey and its fans would have you believe. But it delves into the chaos and silliness more often than its brethren, that’s for sure....

The Devils go old school
Hockey looking back on its history is not usually a good thing. The game is better now, it’s faster now, there is more skill than ever before, and the sport is better off now that it’s moved out of its bar brawl past, even if Flyers fans still base their entire existence on thinking that’s how the g...

Brian Burke is the biggest fraud in the NHL
Before we pivot later today to the NHL Playoffs, we can kick a little more dirt on the regular season, and specifically, the Pittsburgh Penguins. After missing the playoffs for the first time since before the Obama administration, the Penguins fired GM Ron Hextall — rumored to be an inside agent sen...

The Calgary Flames were undone by a gimmick
While sneaking into the bottom rung of the playoffs is something to be eschewed in the NBA given that it rarely leads anywhere, there’s still a perception in the NHL that all you have to do is “get in.” The NHL has dined out for decades on the idea that the playoffs set everything anew, and that one...

PK Subban’s LGBTQ+ comments divide hockey community
NHL headlines this season have become dominated by players refusing to wear Pride jerseys and the debate over LGBTQ+ inclusion in the sport. Although Pride is the harbinger, hockey’s toxic culture sits at the center as the sport grapples to address not only homophobia and transphobia, but issues of ...

Carson Brière and James Reimer make it clear hockey is not for everyone
When millions watched a video of NCAA hockey player Carson Brière pushing a wheelchair down a flight of stairs, it revealed something. The same can be said for James Reimer’s overt decision to not wear a Pride jersey with his San Jose Sharks teammates. For decades, hockey’s toxic culture has been li...

Fighting in hockey is taking its last breath
The debate about fighting in hockey has always been overly loud for what was actually being debated, if debate ever even took place. One side of it always tended to be pretty shrill. The natural evolution of the game to a speed and skill one has lessened fighting to a rarer and rarer occurrence on i...

The Toronto Maple Leafs load up for their first-round exit
The Atlantic Division in the NHL was already a hell gauntlet. With the Boston Bruins suddenly turning into a team of frost giants that can skate (then again, it’s probably likely frost giants could always skate, given the conditions in the Jotunheim), it’s only become more so. It’s just three teams ...

The NHL isn’t for you
Once the NHL let one through the door, it stood to reason that another would follow. After the Flyers’ Ivan Provorov refused to wear their Pride Night jerseys in warmups, and their coach John Tortorella refused to admonish him in any way (nor did the official partner of the NHL in these matters, the...

Pair of NHL brothers face off for first time, share penalty box minutes
The Joseph family had a memorable Friday night as P.O. Joseph of the Pittsburgh Penguins and brother Mathieu Joseph, playing for the Ottawa Senators, faced off for the first time as NHL players. Mom and dad were in the stands for the game for the occasion, and as only brothers can do, got put in tim...
![Ivan Provorov, John Tortorella once again show that hockey can’t move forward [Updated]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/e5c7510945e9755bf115def070b35df0.jpg)
Ivan Provorov, John Tortorella once again show that hockey can’t move forward [Updated]
This is becoming, sadly and infuriatingly, a familiar story in sports. The NHL wants you to believe that “hockey is for everyone,” except that it never seems to filter down to anyone in the game below the tagline....

The best from the start
There’s an old hockey axiom that any young defenseman needs 200 games in the NHL to come into his own. Unlike most of the sport’s theories, which are usually grizzled old horseshit that everyone has just gone along with out of terror for ever rocking the boat in any way, it holds some water. It’s a ...

We’ll never be rid of the Bruins
The Boston Bruins will never be considered anything close to a dynasty. It’s probably sobering for Bruins fans how close they are to being one, if anything can actually be sobering for Bruins fans. Had Zdeno Chara hit the other side of the post in Game 1 against the Hawks in 2013, and if Brad Marcha...

It’s going really well in Vancouver
Nothing goes right for the Vancouver Canucks. This is an immutable law of hockey and the NHL. It’s mostly comedy fodder for everyone outside of British Columbia, and probably for more sadistic jokes within. It becomes less funny when you’ve spent a decade or two listening to Canucks fans bemoan thei...

The Maple Leafs are going to try again with Matt Murray and that’s great for the rest of us
The NHL season kicks off for real tomorrow night (the two appetizer games in Prague don’t count, especially because they involved the Sharks), or as it’s known for most of the hockey covering world, “Six months of how does this affect the Leafs?” Yep, the sport’s biggest soap opera, the question of ...

P.K. Subban was just a little ahead of his time
Hockey still can’t seem to recognize its need for a rockstar. While not the biggest problem with hockey’s culture at the moment (hi there Hockey Canada), the ethos that no player can stand out or be above the team keeps the game from having vibrancy or personality. And vibrancy and personality are w...

Why does Canada get to participate in the World Juniors?
You may have forgotten about hockey’s World Juniors championships. It’s the middle of summer after all, which is supposed to be the definitive dead time for hockey. You’ll probably need a reminder that the WJCs, in their normal slot back in December/January, had to be scrapped thanks to COVID outbre...

Carl Nassib came out to help a movement push forward
When Ryan O’Callaghan decided to come out as openly gay, for him it was supposed to be the end of the world. He thought that he would lose everything. His family, his friends, his career, it would all be over with so his plan in 2011 was to kill himself after the conclusion of his NFL career. ...