Hello everyone! Alan and I present to you a special edition of the AIH 20416 Podcast, with this weekday recording featuring not one, not two, but three of the AIH Superfans crew! They may take our air time, but they’ll never take our writeups!
The first of our Superfans castaways, @BigPapiPegCity, actually joined us in-studio as part of his defection. We were additionally joined by two friends via Skype, @KitKat_P and @arby_18 (okay, one friend and Ryan). Kat proceeded to scorch both Ryan and Kevin Cheveldayoff in a single breath, while Ryan came to the party with paddle in hand.
There was, brace yourselves people, Winnipeg Jets news to discuss! We first tackled the reported contract terms for Andrew Ladd, Dustin Byfuglien and Trouba, with numbers simultaneously conversation worthy and unsurprising. From this, acknowledging Byfuglien as an elite defenceman, the True North news gestapo, ownership puppet master conspiracy theories and continued anguish over organizational mixed messages all flowed quite naturally.
Let the record show that Ryan admitted Anthony Peluso can in fact both play and skate, while we recognize how Mark Stuart is what the Winnipeg Jets are about before resetting the KitKat Philadelphia Flyers clock at 22:00 minutes. We may have been outnumbered by Superfans but this was still the AIH 20416 podcast, and so we plowed through topics like Ryan O'Reilly through a Tim Hortons (allegedly): Adam Lowry, Joel Armia, the price of Drew Stafford versus Lee Stempniak, the Jets completely whiffing on their 2015-16 strategy, sending Ehlers to the IIHF World U20 Championship, and at least three obligatory Jack Goods shout outs.
This being Arctic Ice Hockey, you know the topic of tanking somehow came up. Much consternation was had over whether we're looking at a five year rebuild or two year retooling, balanced by Alan's giving of the most impassioned, optimistic Winnipeg Jets speech of his life. We long for what might have been if a proper rebuild had started five years ago, and fawn over teams engaging in active asset management.
We are warm and welcoming hosts, and so helped the Superfans feel at home by indulging their goofy segment, #AskThe Superfans. Between Jarret Stoll (hat tip to Arctic Ice Hockey He-Man, Andy Rolfe), trading Michael Hutchinson, not trusting this management group to determine what's best for Connor Hellebuyck's long-term development and riding a bike to the moon before the Winnipeg Jets have a trade to announce, it may have been the most successful questions segment in their history.
And after reminding them that we are in fact the big time (we are in Toronto, after all), Alan shared with us a special song to wrap things up and celebrate our coming together. Come and listen to what our joint enterprise accomplished!
1. Listen online here or here.
2. Visit our page on CyberEars.
3. Download the .mp3 file directly (right-click link, Save As…, etc etc).
4. Listen, subscribe and rate us on iTunes.
So tune in, let us know how we did in the Comments section below, and remember to send your questions, concerns, thoughts and haterade our way by tweeting @AIH20416 or e-mailing aih20416@gmail.com. Remember to follow Alan at @sliiiiip and myself at @PhilipAIver.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for listening!
