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00:04Well, there's a part of this where, I don't know if it's listeners or your boss,
00:11where they want you to be mad at everything, just be mad all the time.
00:16And I think when I was 20 years younger, I know, that that was sort of more my speed.
00:22And now I just never want to be mad because it's all just dumb.
00:26It's all just sports, like whatever.
00:28But I don't know.
00:29Are we about to be friends?
00:30Like, how did Lindy lose?
00:37I'm waiting.
00:38Like, how did he lose?
00:41Coach of the year, I know.
00:43We're about to be friends because he's the Sabres coach.
00:46And this is maybe like the first time you've ever heard me sort of like not poke at why Buffalo
00:53shouldn't have won something.
00:54You know, a lot of you want me to, you know, maybe not me, but get mad at announcers who
01:01aren't more friendly toward the Bills and Sabres, which I think is just like ridiculous.
01:07I don't know.
01:08I'm spinning my wheels here.
01:10Like, I don't know how he lost.
01:12Coach of the year in sports is pretty much a junk award.
01:18It should be better.
01:20It should be better.
01:21It even maybe.
01:24Can you show me this?
01:27I don't think so.
01:28It even maybe should be more like this.
01:31Like, there's sort of a let's really try this time for the first time in the history of coach of
01:37the year.
01:37Let's really actually figure out, if it's possible to do so, what the best coaching job was.
01:46How do you do that, though?
01:50Hockey, I mean, every sport.
01:53Look up coach of the year in hockey.
01:55It's hilarious.
01:56Like, it's just, who's this guy?
01:59Who's that?
02:00Wow, what happened?
02:01Last year, the winner of coach of the year was Washington's coach.
02:04And, you know, I don't know, was he, couldn't get them to the playoffs.
02:08I mean, just, it's usually kind of a joke award.
02:15But, yes, I bet on it.
02:17Do I, I want to make sure I say that, because somebody's going to remind me.
02:21I hadn't spent the money yet.
02:22I don't get it.
02:24I don't understand how Cooper wins.
02:26I don't understand it at all.
02:28Give, give me one box that he checked, that Lindy Ruff did not check.
02:35This award, in every sport, and hockey is the stupidest for this, because hockey people seem to think, I mean,
02:44I know some of them.
02:44They seem to think they can understand hockey in a way that is not possible.
02:51This is the stupidest sport for this award, because, basically, if you get the best shooting percentage and save percentage,
02:57you win.
02:58As long as we didn't think your team was going to be good, in which case, we will try to
03:03find someone else, who maybe finished second in those categories, who was the second best PDO coach, combination of those
03:09two fluke stats.
03:10And we'll vote for him, because, you know, the other team, like, Avalanche.
03:17Why did the Avalanche coach win?
03:20Weren't they the best team all year?
03:22Like, why didn't Bednar win?
03:24Anybody know?
03:26Like, why didn't he win?
03:27What did John Cooper do that was so special?
03:33I'm really at a loss.
03:36When somebody on a broadcast says, unbelievable, I roll my eyes.
03:40Because almost everything I've ever seen in sports was believable.
03:44Like, that's not one of my words.
03:46That's not in my lexicon.
03:49Unbelievable sucks, because basically just exposes you as somebody that doesn't really think that well.
03:55Unbelievable.
03:56This, though, is pretty close.
03:59Like, I don't understand how you could vote for him.
04:02You have one team that has always been good, has a Hart Trophy candidate, has a Vezina Trophy favorite, has
04:16Victor Hedman, has, I mean, need I say more?
04:22Like, one of these teams is always good, which pretty much in sports tends to disqualify a coach from winning
04:30coach of the year.
04:31And another hadn't been to the playoffs in 15 years and beat them on the path to topping them in
04:43the division.
04:44I don't know.
04:46Did everybody, did the broadcasters vote on this thing in, like, December?
04:51I, I, I really, I don't understand, can, didn't I just do sort of the Rob Schneider stand-up-and
04:58-win SNL line in the last couple of days?
05:01Like, who are the, that's Adam Sandler.
05:04Can somebody explain this to me?
05:05Because I'd like to know.
05:07I just have no idea how he got any first-place votes.
05:12How, why?
05:13Tell me.
05:16I, I, I don't need the money.
05:18It's okay.
05:18This is not a, this is not a, now, now this sucks for me because I have to keep saying
05:25that.
05:26Because I sound, it's like a, you know, I just sound like a bitter loser on a bet, I guess,
05:32to, to some people.
05:33But I, I just, I, pragmatically, I really cannot understand how anybody voted for John Cooper to win the NHL
05:39Coach of the Year Award, Jack Adams.
05:41I just, how, on what grounds?
05:44Why wouldn't you vote for the Avs guy?
05:49Or Montreal?
05:51Or, well, Pittsburgh's coach was a finalist.
05:54Or Rod Brindamore?
05:56Like, what, how did this happen?
06:02Nobody's going to tell me because nobody can explain it.
06:07What am I waiting for?
06:08Nobody knows this answer.
06:09There isn't one.
06:10It happened, though.
06:12Wow.
06:15There's the, the tweet.
06:16There's John Cooper.
06:17He's got a cigar.
06:18He's at a hospital.
06:19Like, I, I'm sure that was all just completely nothing against people, you know, serving the public in that way.
06:26But that was all just a coincidence.
06:28I, I don't get it.
06:31That's a team that was expected to finish in the top two in the division and did.
06:35Second.
06:35The Sabres have never been good.
06:41How was this?
06:43What did we do wrong?
06:44How was this the one year where that award doesn't go as expected?
06:51Actually, let me make this, I'll try to make it interesting.
06:56Who was responsible for the Sabres' success then?
07:00Is there a GM of the year award waiting to fall into Yarmo's lap or, I don't know, Kevin Adams?
07:08Darlene was a distant third in the Norris.
07:11Who did it?
07:14Anybody?
07:15Who did it?
07:18I guess it wasn't their best player or their coach.
07:22Because I got Columbus' defenseman lapping Darlene for the Norris.
07:28You know, fine.
07:29I'm not saying that was wrong.
07:30That's one.
07:31I mean, I don't watch Columbus Blue Jackets games, do you?
07:34Let's, let's be real.
07:36That's one where I can believe it.
07:38Like, I, sure.
07:40Darlene doesn't have to be the best defenseman of the year in the National Hockey League.
07:43But since when did we change the rules on coach of the year in sports?
07:50For my whole life.
07:53The supposed best coaches don't win these awards.
07:58Why?
07:59Because some other loser team got good one time.
08:06And so the people who actually are supposed to know things, who vote on this,
08:12decided that, oh, well, you know, it wasn't turnover luck.
08:16It wasn't shooting percentage.
08:18It wasn't any, it wasn't ref calls.
08:20It had to be that the coach did this, culture.
08:23It had to be this incredible coaching job.
08:26And then the guy's fired in two years.
08:27I mean, these are the people who are tasked with this.
08:30I like to see myself as one of them to a point where I care about who did a good
08:40job and not.
08:41I think it's ridiculous sometimes how these voting, these votes fall.
08:46And if I were ever in one of these rooms, and I've been in a couple and I get, you
08:52know, shouted down and kicked out.
08:54Like, I've been in a couple of these because people just don't want to hear it.
08:57It's basically you're kind of calling them out.
09:00I don't know.
09:01This to me does not make sense.
09:05Who wins a Coach of the Year award running a perennially top team that finishes second to a team that
09:17has never been good,
09:20whose coach, by the way, has won this award and even finished second three years ago.
09:27He's not a nobody, Ruff.
09:29Like, is that something that was discounted?
09:32The fact that he's maybe fourth all time in wins in NHL history?
09:36Did that work against him?
09:38Was he sort of like lifetime achievement?
09:43Did Ruff already kind of like come and go from lifetime achievement?
09:47And you've got a Tampa coach with a cigar whose Canada team lost and whose Lightning lost and who lost
09:53in the first round.
09:54And what is good coaching?
10:03I think it's incredible.
10:04I really do.
10:05And if the Sabres had been bad again, maybe this happened in the last 10 years or 15 years,
10:12and the Jack Adams award went to some other – this does not happen, though –
10:18went to some other coach who has been around a long time and has won a lot.
10:25And, you know, even though some other team leapfrogged him that was kind of unexpected,
10:31well, we know from – you know, this never happens.
10:36Certain metrics, we know how to think this through.
10:39We're not dogs.
10:41We can figure these things out.
10:43We know what good coaching comes close to looking like.
10:50I think it's astonishing.
10:52I can't believe it.
10:57I'm going to have to sell some cards.
10:58I don't know.
10:58I did not spend the money, but I'm going to have to do – I was counting on it.
11:05I thought, you know, 7-1, Lindy Ruff.
11:08I thought that was looking pretty good.
11:10And what a rug pull.
11:16I don't know what else to say.
11:18Bulldogs in the hospital.
11:20I mean, I don't know what else to say.
11:21I just – I cannot believe it.
11:26JJ is on WGR.
11:28You take it.
11:29You take it.
11:30Yeah.
11:31You know, I don't always agree with everything said on this show, but I'll say this.
11:34No one should.
11:35You cannot be more –
11:36You could –
11:37Why would anybody agree with everything?
11:39Why would anybody agree with everything?
11:40Exactly.
11:41That's the joy of it, right?
11:42You know, the thing that really hits my buttons on this is as soon as everything turned around
11:48to the positive for the Sabres this year, the entire league, the theme driven into just
11:53about everybody's head almost every day was, oh, the Sabres haven't made the playoffs since,
11:58you know, 1698, you know, and like this building theme throughout the year.
12:03And then they win the division, and you keep hearing it.
12:06And then every game in the playoffs, we're hearing, you know, they haven't won a playoff game
12:13since, you know, 2000-whatever, you know, every five minutes we're hearing this, right?
12:17And then – so the theme has been building.
12:20This decision is countercurrent to that, right?
12:23I mean, it's blatantly against the theme that the league itself was building, you know,
12:28and the coverage and all this stuff.
12:30And it's like it could not have been more concrete and driven home just about every time
12:36the Sabres touched them, you know?
12:38I don't know.
12:39That's what really hits me is like this goes countercurrent to the whole momentum of the
12:45whole, you know, coverage of the Sabres run this whole time, right?
12:48Fair enough.
12:50The playoffs don't count.
12:52Again, like sort of practically speaking here, we know this, I hope.
12:57The vote is in before the playoffs start.
13:00Yes, that was definitely a storyline.
13:07So what?
13:08Like the playoffs don't count.
13:09What needed to happen that didn't happen?
13:15I'm flabbergasted.
13:17A team that has been nowhere forever tops a perennial favorite, and that guy wins?
13:27What does it take?
13:29Did the Sabres need to beat Tampa Bay by 20 points?
13:32Did they need to beat them four straight?
13:34They went 3-0 and won.
13:35What needed to happen that didn't happen?
13:38I don't know.
13:39The Sabres won one of the best and most competitive divisions in the history of the NHL, and they
13:48beat Tampa to do it, and they had to beat them head-to-head repeatedly in March and even
13:56maybe April to pull it off.
13:58And they did that.
14:00What needed to happen that didn't happen?
14:03The playoffs are irrelevant.
14:04The vote is in before the playoffs.
14:07The playoffs are fine.
14:08The Sabres won a round.
14:10The Lightning did not.
14:11As if, you know, if that could have helped, so be it.
14:15It didn't matter to this.
14:19What was wrong?
14:20What happened?
14:22I don't understand.
14:25Did the Sabres trade for Connor Hellebuck and ride him to the Atlantic Division title
14:31where Tampa Bay had to settle for Vasilevsky?
14:35No.
14:40It's amazing.
14:41It's amazing that Cooper won.
14:45It's amazing.
14:47Oh, I know.
14:49John Cooper is good at being interviewed.
14:56Is Lindy Ruff not?
14:59Is there a meaningful difference there?
15:03Like, oh, John Cooper.
15:06He seems like a doll.
15:08I can even go up to him and talk to him right before the gold medal game.
15:13Well, they lost.
15:14Just what can somebody, I can't go back to Rob Schneider.
15:21Can somebody explain it in an intelligent way?
15:26I mean, is this, it's hockey, so maybe this will just never happen.
15:29And it's Buffalo, so maybe this especially will never happen.
15:32Is anybody, is this a story other than just like me and you?
15:38Is this a story to anybody else?
15:40Does anybody care?
15:41Is ESPN going to talk about it?
15:44Is anybody going to talk about it?
15:46Is it going to be on Pat McAfee or Barstool or one of these idiot shows like that?
15:51Is it going to be on anything that people watch?
15:55Wow.
15:56How did this happen?
15:57If it were a different sport, it would be pretty good, I think.
16:01But it's hockey and maybe it just doesn't rate.
16:05I don't know.
16:06This is just one of those days where I really can't, I don't know how to breathe.
16:13I just, it seems really confusing.
16:18It's a Buffalo thing.
16:19It's a hockey thing, which doubly makes it irrelevant to most of the world.
16:24And I, I don't know what to say about it other than like what, what actually were any,
16:30what were any reasons why you would have considered John Cooper to have had a better coaching year
16:35than Lindy Ruff?
16:36Is there one?
16:38Did there have to be five?
16:39Is there one?
16:40What is it?
16:42Did somebody get hurt on Tampa?
16:46I mean, was that a thing?
16:49Man games lost.
16:50Was that a thing?
16:51The Sabres were pretty good.
16:52If you take Kulik out, the Sabres were pretty good in that area.
16:55Like all their top guys pretty much played the whole time.
16:57Was that, oh, well, you know, the Sabres were healthy.
17:02I'm completely flabbergasted by it.
17:05I don't know.
17:08Ray is next.
17:08Hi, Ray.
17:09Hi, Mike.
17:10Let me make a comparison this way.
17:12I'll tell you right now, if whoever the New York Jets head coaches, if they make the playoffs
17:17and they win a playoff game, I know playoffs don't count, but if they get to the playoffs,
17:24he's my coach of the year because the Jets are expected to do nothing.
17:27They've been nothing for 15 years like the Sabres.
17:31I mean, Cooper gets rewarded because he should have won, and he's got an MVP candidate every year,
17:37which, you know, if he had a great year, fine.
17:38But how can you deny everybody – I like to go back to the preseason guesses and bets
17:46of where the Sabres would have finished.
17:47They came out of nowhere with no – they had some good players but not stars, you know,
17:54decent players, a Norris candidate.
17:56But, my gosh, I mean, Ruff will never win it again unless the same logic is like, okay, he's due.
18:04That's silly.
18:05It's just backwards logic.
18:07Just because somebody's due or they should have won it in the past, that does not make you qualified.
18:13And if all these percentages of Ruff was the favorite, you know, 80-some percent or whatever it was,
18:19what changed?
18:2097.
18:21Head-to-head?
18:2197.
18:22Okay, even more so.
18:23You made a great point.
18:24Head-to-head they played them when it mattered most.
18:26I know the players have to do it, but the coaches, the leader, it's stupid.
18:31It's stupid.
18:32I don't know.
18:32Thanks, Ray.
18:33Okay, 97%.
18:35Sam was the second person who I found out about this from.
18:39He's like, he was minus 3,000.
18:41Forget that we like the Sabres.
18:44When does that happen?
18:47If anybody follows awards and odds, both, there's a reason why he was minus 3,000.
18:58Because it was obvious.
19:00Like, of course he was going to win.
19:01The Heisman Trophy, Mendoza might have been, I mean, along the way, probably got even higher,
19:08but minus 3,000, minus 5,000, minus 10,000.
19:11Like, you cannot bet against that because it's just throwing money into a, you know, a fire.
19:20Yet, this time, it worked out, I don't know.
19:30So, Lindy Ruff has won this award.
19:34He's top five all-time in wins.
19:36He has reestablished himself in Buffalo as well as around the NHL as a top coach with what happened this
19:49year,
19:49which was miraculous almost.
19:51And, you know, hopefully that's enough for him.
19:54We're not friends.
19:56I mean, I just, I've got to think, you know, I get older and a lot of this stuff means
20:02less to me as I do.
20:03And I'm sure he cared, needless to say, deeply about the Sabres, you know, run and their eventual defeat and
20:10everything like that.
20:11I don't know if he cared about this award.
20:13He's won it.
20:14He finished second three years ago when coaching the Devils.
20:16Like, he's won it.
20:19So, hopefully he doesn't lose sleep, but I can't believe it.
20:22Just from a person, from a standpoint of somebody that likes to care about awards, honors, Pro Bowl appearances,
20:35I mean, I know how thin that runs.
20:37But I think that stuff should be taken at least a little bit seriously.
20:44I can't believe this wasn't taken seriously by voters.
20:48I just have no idea how they decided this way.
20:53And, you know, it's not all of the utmost seriousness, but there's a reason why it's there.
21:02Because, you know, people care about it.
21:05Sometimes there's money on the line for the players, for the coaches, for bettors.
21:09There's money on the line on it.
21:11And so, that's part of it.
21:13But really, it's about legacy.
21:17And a player's number of All-Star games, a player's number of MVPs, a coach's number of these awards,
21:25that goes on the page.
21:29It's part of your bio.
21:30You get introduced at the Hall of Fame, and this is what's said, and that all just helps it, you
21:37know, make sense.
21:38And everything like that.
21:40How does this make any sense?
21:43Well, I don't know how many different ways to say it.
21:45I think it's incredible.
21:49And, yeah, I mean, there go the new shoes for the kids, I guess.
21:53I mean, they'll just have to walk around barefoot all summer.
21:57Sorry.
21:57Sorry, kids.
22:00I should have – tomorrow I'll bring some cards in and try to sell them to you.
22:06So I can atone for this shocking defeat.
22:12803-0550.
22:13Sal Capaccio today.
22:14Matt Waldman today as well.
22:17Thanks for listening.
22:17Bulldog is off.
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