Three Yards and a Cloud of Grandpa: We Helped Scatter the Ashes of a Die-Hard Fan

We are living in the era of Peak Cremation, and fans have turned to our true American cathedral as a final resting place: the sports arena. PTFO death correspondent David Fleming reports on a cottage industry for die-hards in the afterlife — from team-branded urns and exploding golf balls to franchises that want the on-field ceremonies gone (and forgotten). And then, of course, we help a woman named Edna spread her husband's ashes... while riding a convertible, on a racetrack, flooring it into eternity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:45Pablo Torre?

  This episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out is brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8. And look, I've chased down a lot of strange stories, but nothing quite like what's inside a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. It is 100% fresh beef cooked right when you order it, with no artificial flavors, colors, fillers, or preservatives in the beef. The onions are hand-topped by someone who knows the perfect amount by memory. Two slices of cheese and a star, and two pickles side by side. So every bite gets both. And every time one's ordered, a cowbell sound rings in the kitchen. That's the grill master's cue to put a fresh patty on the grill. My move?

• 1:28Pablo Torre?

  QPC, fries and a drink after a long day of recording. That is my happy place. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Fries and a Drink, now $8 for a limited time only, only at McDonald's. For a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California. And for delivery, fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery. This episode is brought to you by Apollo.io. A lot of the stories on this show start the same way. Something that looks pretty simple turns out to be a mess, once you look under the hood. Well, it's no different in the sales world. Your team has a tool for finding prospects, a different tool for reaching out to them, and a third for keeping track of it all.

• 2:13Pablo Torre?

  On paper, that's a system. In practice, it's a salesperson spending the better part of the day copying names from one tab into another, and not much of it actually selling. Apollo.io is a platform that helps sales teams find the right buyers and reach out to them. It brings prospecting, outreach, and follow-up into one place instead of several separate tools. It's used by sales teams of all sizes, from small businesses to larger organizations, and it's built for teams who want less manual busywork and more time with buyers. If your marketing and sales teams are trying to work from the same view of the customer, it's worth a look. Sign up for free at Apollo.io. That's Apollo.io. Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

• 2:58Pablo Torre?

  I am Pablo Torre, and today, we're going to find out what this sound is.

• 3:03Speaker 02

  In January this year, I took Ron's ashes up skydiving.

• 3:08Pablo Torre?

  Right after this ad.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network.

• 3:27Pablo Torre?

  So this is going to be a local news story at first, and I promise that as with every story, we have Dave Fleming do for us. Thank you for being here, by the way.

• 3:34Speaker 04

  My pleasure.

• 3:35Pablo Torre?

  It gets big, and grandiose, and cosmic, and profound, and stupid, and smart, and all of that. But this is in the tradition of your study of fandom that began arguably on death row in Texas, our episode last year, which was singular in the genre. But this is ridiculous in its own right.

• 3:57Speaker 04

  This is part of my Goth period, I think.

• 4:00Pablo Torre?

  Yes. It's Denver. It's a couple of years ago, and it's a news story that starts like this.

• 4:09Speaker 05

  Interesting story here. Denver Sevens Christian Lopez spoke to a man who spread his friend's ashes on the Avs home ice just as the Zamboni was driving by.

• 4:24Pablo Torre?

  I'm gonna laugh in ways that I think will be redeemed at some point, but who is this guy?

• 4:31Speaker 04

  So this particular fan, his name is Ryan Clark. And this is the story about Ryan Clark and his best buddy Kyle Stark. And they were friends for more than a decade. They met at work. Kyle ended up being the best man at Ryan's wedding.

• 4:52Speaker 04

  And the main thing that they bonded over, over the years was their deep love of the Colorado Avalanche. And it involved sort of like splitting season tickets. It involved if Kyle couldn't watch a game, he would call Ryan, who would put his phone up to the TV and FaceTime the game to him. There's a stepbrothers feel here of like guys who just instantly became best friends over the Colorado Avalanche.

• 5:19Pablo Torre?

  Right, down to what feels like a climactic pratfall. Or would be pratfall.

• 5:29Pablo Torre?

  But of course, because we are a show based on journalism,

• 5:34Pablo Torre?

  you got to know Ryan yourself.

• 5:36Speaker 04

  Yes, we ended up talking to him. He had lost his laptop and he had borrowed a phone and he was on lunch break. Okay, so where are you today right now?

• 5:46Speaker 06

  Currently out in Bennett, Colorado.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  At like a job site or something?

• 5:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, we were working in the Elizabeth School District. So this is just a little bit north of that right now. At a gas station, probably.

• 6:00Speaker 04

  Do we have a limited amount of time? This whole story just started to just sort of pour out of Ryan from the front seat of his car.

• 6:09Pablo Torre?

  Right, the reception, terrible.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:12Pablo Torre?

  The sentiment, crystal clear.

• 6:16Speaker 06

  We both, we were Avalanche season ticket holders together, so thoroughbred fans through and through. Him more so than myself. I mean, this dude's coffee table in his living room was a hockey rink that resembled the Pepsi Center back when it was that, before, excuse me, All Arena.

• 6:35Speaker 06

  And just die hard. One of the best guys I know. Miss him dearly. If he had the choice whether to breathe air or watch the Avalanche play hockey, he's gonna suffocate. You know what I'm saying? He's gonna, he's gonna watch the game.

• 6:50Speaker 04

  Well, that didn't disappoint, right? That's exactly as we advertised.

• 6:53Pablo Torre?

  I just love that he's recording from like half an inch away from his face.

• 6:57Speaker 04

  Yeah. But you know what's funny is immediately the minute, the minute he mentions Kyle's name, you can, you can see the emotions start to bubble up.

• 7:04Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 7:05Speaker 04

  They had been best friends for almost a dozen years when after a seizure, Kyle died in 2021, suddenly. Even speaking years later, it's still very emotional and, and hard to, hard for Ryan to think about.

• 7:23Speaker 06

  It's hard to talk and not get emotional. So try not to do, cause I, I mean, it's, but yeah, all around great individual, very caring, very loving. Way too young, passed away at 32. So way too young.

• 7:42Pablo Torre?

  But in terms of the thing that got Ryan on the news, him spreading Kyle's ashes on the ice inside their favorite building in the world. I imagine there are some liability concerns, perhaps even criminal fears? When it comes to just what might happen to you if you try to do that?

• 8:01Speaker 04

  You're not the only one who thinks that way, right? Because Ryan and Kyle's family, they set aside bail money. So they got Kyle's ashes into a Ziploc bag. They got tickets to, to a game and they, they sort of snuck Kyle in.

• 8:19Speaker 07

  Two of the hottest teams in the national hockey league squaring off tonight. It's the Avalanche and the Leafs in Pete. Last time these two teams hooked up, it was all.

• 8:27Pablo Torre?

  Yeah. January 8th, 2022. The Avalanche are hosting the Toronto Maple Leafs.

• 8:35Pablo Torre?

  And it's, it's Operation Kyle.

• 8:41Speaker 04

  In between periods, he saw the Zamboni come out. And so he worked his way all the way down to the, the glass next to the visitors bench. Basically put one foot up on a armrest of a seat, a front row seat, the other foot teetering on the edge of the boards. A family member of Kyle's is like holding Ryan, all 340 pounds of Ryan, teetering on the boards, supporting him from, from the backside.

• 9:09Pablo Torre?

  This is not quite subtle.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  Then he gets the Ziploc bag, uh, gets it up to the top of the glass and then deposits Kyle onto the ice, uh, where their beloved avalanche play.

• 9:25Pablo Torre?

  Until the Zamboni. And I just want to make this clear. What about the machine that cleans the ice?

• 9:35Speaker 04

  If a hockey fan knows how a Zamboni works, it was kind of genius. Because it swept up Kyle and repurposed him into the ice. So now Kyle was literally a part of the entire surface in Colorado.

• 9:52Pablo Torre?

  He was integrated.

• 9:54Speaker 04

  I mean, yeah.

• 9:55Pablo Torre?

  Into the playing surface.

• 9:57Speaker 04

  I mean, honestly, from one hockey fan to another, tip of the cap to Ryan. There are diehard fans and then there are diehard fans.

• 10:06Pablo Torre?

  Yes. But what happens after this sequence of events? Like what happens to Ryan?

• 10:16Speaker 04

  Well, when a 300 pound man, uh, deposits a strange substance over the boards at a hockey arena, it's, it tends to get people's attention. Instantly an usher was kind of like, what'd you just do? What was that?

• 10:31Pablo Torre?

  I came down, um.

• 10:33Speaker 06

  And it took less than I'd say, um, I'd say not even a full minute before somebody, one of the little younger usher kids came over and was like, hey, so, uh, what was that?

• 10:45Speaker 04

  He didn't lie. He didn't run.

• 10:47Speaker 06

  That's when I explained to him what it was and who it was.

• 10:50Speaker 04

  He just kind of said, that was my best friend. He's like, uh, and I just put him on the ice. And so they escorted him out of the seats and into the arena where he was informed he wasn't going to be arrested, but he was definitely going to be banned from the arena.

• 11:08Pablo Torre?

  For how long?

• 11:08Speaker 04

  Well, indefinitely at that point, it ended up being for the rest of the season.

• 11:13Pablo Torre?

  Man. And so there is cruelty in that punishment.

• 11:18Speaker 04

  Right.

• 11:18Pablo Torre?

  I mean, it's the opposite of what, of course, you're trying to accomplish here. You're trying to stay in the building, um, with your friend.

• 11:26Speaker 04

  The cops, the usher, everybody associated with the team, and especially all the fans were kind of like, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen, but publicly you can't do this.

• 11:36Pablo Torre?

  Right. But after Ryan is escorted out of the building and he is banned for the rest of the season, and he's watching these games from home where he is forced to be, what is going through his mind?

• 11:49Speaker 04

  No regrets. I did what I needed to do.

• 11:53Speaker 06

  Every time I turn that TV on to watch a game, there he is. You know, regardless, it just when they're, when they're in that, when I see somebody smash somebody up the boards over there, I'm just like, you got a first hand, you buddy. There you go.

• 12:08Speaker 04

  Then it becomes a little bit of sadness. There's joy mixed in with sadness because it's like, when I die, well, Kyle's gone. I'm Kyle's best friend.

• 12:18Speaker 06

  I'm like sitting there going, who's gonna, who's gonna be that person that can do it for me?

• 12:24Pablo Torre?

  And the thing that makes Ryan's story, a story for us in this special way, is that it becomes very clear, Flem, as we assign you to look into this story. While Ryan Clark is still searching for his own caretaker in this regard, there are so many other Ryan Clarks.

• 12:47Speaker 04

  There is an avalanche of ashes coming

• 12:50Pablo Torre?

  As it were.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  to your favorite sports arena, your favorite field, your favorite racetrack. It's coming. This trend is happening as we speak.

• 13:16Pablo Torre?

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• 14:01Pablo Torre?

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• 14:46Pablo Torre?

  Head to dell.com/deals. That's dell.com/deals.

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• 15:36Pablo Torre?

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• 16:52Pablo Torre?

  I do want to establish, Flem, that there are other ways to celebrate your lifelong devotion to a sports team that also involve death and death rituals that aren't quite as dangerous, it seems, as spreading your ashes unilaterally in a special operation.

• 17:07Speaker 04

  Who knew there was a whole cottage industry for fans in the afterlife? You can get your face painted onto a Jets custom painted coffin, and that has grown into Jets urns. And we found a place where they will take your ashes and make them into a golf ball that you can...

• 17:30Pablo Torre?

  You can shank unto eternity.

• 17:33Speaker 04

  Not the greatest website name. I'm just gonna put that out there, too.

• 17:36Pablo Torre?

  Strong disagree. This place is great. I am on now, extraholes.com. It says, "Since the game began, golfers have long to spend eternity on the golf course. We've made that possible." You hit the ball, and spoiler alert, the ball bursts into, quote, "several pieces," releasing the ashes into the air for a short distance before settling softly onto the ground. So this is not quite the long drive competition.

• 18:04Speaker 04

  Okay, so it's...

• 18:05Pablo Torre?

  Or maybe it is, in fact, the longest drive, in a certain sense. You are, again, integrated into, into the surface. And if you're wondering, it is $350 for a dozen balls. And so, you know, there's a market, Flem. A market for this very sort of thing.

• 18:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. And the highest form of this is spreading those ashes in what have become our cathedrals, our churches, which are the sports arenas.

• 18:37Speaker 04

  There was a study in 2024 by Mutual Choice, a company that does insurance policies to cover end-of-life costs. And they did a survey of Americans, all 50 states, where they would want their ashes to be spread. 11 out of the 50 states, the number one place where people wanted to have their ashes left, were sports venues.

• 19:01Pablo Torre?

  Yes, in Alabama, the number one response was actually Talladega Super Speedway.

• 19:05Speaker 04

  That surprised me.

• 19:06Pablo Torre?

  I know, I'm like, Brian Denny is right there.

• 19:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:09Pablo Torre?

  But noted, Massachusetts, Fenway. North Dakota, the Alara Center, where University of North Dakota football team plays their games. And cremation, by the way, also didn't know this, finding this out through your research, we are living through peach cremation, Flav.

• 19:26Speaker 04

  10 years ago, 15 years ago, the ratio cremation to burial was 35 cremation, 65% burial. They're predicting that by 2030, it will be flip-flopped. It'll be 75% of Americans will be getting cremated and 25% will still want to be buried.

• 19:48Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, all of that research, of course, provided by the NFDA, which we all know is the National Funeral Directors Association.

• 19:55Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 19:56Pablo Torre?

  Which raises the question of these sports venues, right? The places that Ryan Clark, for instance, had a great interest in. How do they feel about this trend?

• 20:10Speaker 04

  They're scared to death.

• 20:12Pablo Torre?

  As it were.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  They are scared to death and they are doing everything they can to try and subvert it and to press pause.

• 20:20Pablo Torre?

  Why? What are they so afraid of?

• 20:23Speaker 04

  First of all, we should point out, right, ashes are not, they're not harmful to humans at all. There are no microorganisms in ashes, they're inert. The one thing that they can be harmful to is turf. The alkaline and the sodium levels and the pH levels are high enough that if you were to leave human remains in ashes on really good grass or turf, it could burn it out, like if you, if you over fertilize your lawn or something like that.

• 20:50Pablo Torre?

  Right, the salt burn, basically.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:53Pablo Torre?

  Which means that then the groundskeepers need to dig that stuff up. I can imagine pragmatically, this is annoying.

• 21:01Pablo Torre?

  But the venues themselves, what do they have to say about this?

• 21:04Speaker 04

  I think there's a legitimate fear, especially amongst football stadiums, that at some point, maybe even during the Super Bowl, somebody is gonna dive for a touchdown and it's gonna be a puff of grandpa's ashes come up.

• 21:17Pablo Torre?

  Three yards and a cloud of grandpa.

• 21:20Speaker 04

  Exactly. Well, now we know the title of this, this episode.

• 21:24Pablo Torre?

  We really did just name it.

• 21:25Speaker 04

  They are scared to death because they've already become overrun with requests.

• 21:31Pablo Torre?

  Right. So basically what we're saying is, sports has never been more monocultural. It is the lone big tent left in American life. We say this all the time on this show. And they are now worried about copycats. People who are in fact seeing news stories like the one we played.

• 21:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:46Pablo Torre?

  For instance, going to baseball now, in the aforementioned Fenway Park.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  A woman placed her father's ashes through netting behind home plate at Fenway Park, and then posted it on Twitter. Now, the field at Fenway, of course, is legendary and for a lot of people, it's the ultimate resting place. But putting a loved one's ashes on the field isn't allowed.

• 22:07Speaker 04

  But one woman says her dad would have been proud that she broke the rules in his honor. I reached out to half a dozen SEC schools and people wouldn't even respond. People would not be quoted off the record. They didn't want to be referenced. They didn't want to be any part of this because they don't want to encourage more people to leave grandpa at the 50-yard line.

• 22:26Pablo Torre?

  Right. Their silence spoke volumes on the college level and in the pros.

• 22:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, in the pros where I have friendships, relationships with PR staffs, with front offices. For 30 years, these people, maybe for the first time in my career, and I've done some weird-ass stories.

• 22:43Pablo Torre?

  You truly have.

• 22:44Speaker 04

  One of my closest friends in a very popular AFC, very successful AFC franchise was like, "Flem, whoa, no. I can't, I don't want to be quoted. I don't even want to be mentioned that you reached out to me." The Cowboys' PR guy, I put it really well, if not, not unpoetically, it was like, "We don't want a line of horses lined up outside of our stadium on Sundays."

• 23:09Pablo Torre?

  Right. I imagine maybe they saw this happen also in Green Bay at Lambeau, where a fan got tackled, again, trying to, trying to do the same thing.

• 23:17Speaker 07

  During a Packers-Eagles game at Lincoln Financial Field in 2005, this fan ran onto the field spreading his mother's ashes. He dropped to his knees and made the sign of the cross.

• 23:27Speaker 04

  He was arrested, fined, and the game went on.

• 23:31Pablo Torre?

  Packers PR, I imagine, not loving this either.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  They were immediately against it. The response I got back was, hey, Dave, nice to hear from you again. Thanks for checking, but we wouldn't be able to participate in this one. It's against the law in Wisconsin and it's against Lambeau Field policy.

• 23:49Pablo Torre?

  So the building policy, understood, they don't want this to happen. But citing the law in Wisconsin raises that question of, is this illegal in that state and also across the country?

• 24:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think the Packers PR overstated a little bit. And that's part of what's leading to this trend is that legally, there are no overarching laws on a federal or a state level that prohibits people from spreading ashes or human remains. But that law then defers to if it's on private property, you need to get permission. And so obviously arenas, stadiums, racetracks, baseball fields, that's private property. You need to obtain permission.

• 24:34Pablo Torre?

  Right. It's their choice to say in the face of this oncoming avalanche, no. And so in terms of when this trend really took off, do we know historically when the cremation and personalization and this whole thing really did turn to something that became a boom?

• 24:53Speaker 04

  Another fascinating wrinkle to this, right? We reached out to a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago. Her name is Dr. Shannon Lee Doughty. She's also the author of American Afterlives, which is this fascinating study of the changes in death rituals in America over the last maybe quarter century.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  My specialty is American culture and archaeology and history up to the present.

• 25:22Speaker 04

  And her theory is that it was 9/11 really began to change things.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  There were things that were happening in terms of increasing options and personalization and certainly a steady growth in the US of cremation. But 9/11 acted like, I guess you would say, an accelerant to these trends where things just rapidly changed after that, particularly a move towards cremation and the very, very personalized kind of ad hoc rituals and memorials.

• 25:54Speaker 04

  She thinks there have been more changes in American death rituals in the last 10 years than the last 100 combined.

• 26:02Pablo Torre?

  But because this is all against the rules, it does feel rebellious in a way. Is she familiar with this specific phenomenon, this dynamic?

• 26:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, she even coined the phrase.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  Wildcat scattering. There's something that attracts people to it precisely because it may not be allowed. Like, there's something transgressive about that and a transgressive ritual. It seems like if you're taking a risk to honor the person, it seems like you're honoring them, you know, a little more.

• 26:33Pablo Torre?

  You're not supposed to do this [BLEEP].

• 26:35Speaker 04

  Right, like, I love you so much, I will risk jail to spread your ashes. It's one of the strongest urges that we possess as animals. And sports, more and more, is the only place that people can turn to to fulfill that psychological need. And I think the fact that someone would choose a sports venue as their final resting place, or that they would risk to do that for someone they loved, it proves that this isn't a theory. This is happening. It's happened.

• 27:06Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, it does occur to me that we are living at a time when people are fretting about the decline of communal spaces, the secularization of America, the decline of religiosity. But the thing that no one is worried about from a market perspective and a popularity perspective is sports, and post-pandemic especially. It does feel like an arena full of people is our house of worship. It's never felt more special, actually.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  100 years ago, about a French anthropologist, sociologist named Ennio Durkheim called this feeling that we get when we're experiencing a spectacle in a group of people where everybody's in one space and going through an experience of awe or elation together. And he called that collective effervescence. And think of like bubbling up, right? And that makes people conscious of the group, of something bigger than themselves. And it is, it causes an experience of euphoria.

• 28:08Speaker 02

  And it also makes that group stronger when everybody disperses. They remember that special feeling of collective effervescence. And if they keep coming back, it can become addictive. And I think that sports events and sports stadiums, if you're not losing too badly, has that effect.

• 28:27Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, that is where I want to just push back on Dr. Doughty because I do think the resiliency of a miserable jet cowboy, fill in the blank, sports fan. The losing almost never gets in the way of their of their true love in the way that you logically might think.

• 28:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, the suffering is what proves the faith.

• 28:48Pablo Torre?

  But this is why I am frustrated to hear these venues, these cathedrals say actually to their most devoted parishioners, we don't want you to bring your loved ones in that form here. That seems to be a tremendous bummer when it comes to the rules.

• 29:11Speaker 04

  It's not going to work. It won't hold, right? This trend is it's just it's too powerful. It's too strong. It's too popular and they're just stupid to not try and figure out a happy medium or to meet their fans somewhere in between where it's like, okay, if if grandpa was a Georgia Bulldog fan, we'll figure out a way to get him sort of we'll put him in the stadium somewhere and celebrate that this is, I mean, can there be a higher form of fandom?

• 29:39Pablo Torre?

  Of tribute. What would it look like if you embraced the Ryan Clarks of the world instead of banned them?

• 29:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. Can we find someone who's doing this?

• 29:48Pablo Torre?

  Can we convince some place?

• 29:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, to just to embrace this. What is it? What would it look like if a sports venue embraced this and encouraged fans to do this? And we managed to find that exact spot down in Florida.

• 30:02Pablo Torre?

  Of course.

• 30:13Pablo Torre?

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• 30:56Pablo Torre?

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• 31:41Pablo Torre?

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• 32:26Pablo Torre?

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• 33:09Pablo Torre?

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• 33:33Pablo Torre?

  So what cathedral in Florida, phlegm, agrees with our sensibility here at Pablo Torre finds out?

• 33:41Speaker 04

  So we found Wayne Estes, who is the president and general manager of Sebring International Speedway in Sebring, Florida.

• 33:50Speaker 05

  Hello, everybody, and welcome to a packed Sebring International Raceway, the original home of Formula One here in the U.S. And of course, down through its considerable history since the 1950s, has been a mecca for sports car fans, drivers, and teams.

• 34:08Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, and this track, by the way, in Sebring, Florida, America's oldest road racing track, but all sorts of races of all kinds are held there and have been for decades upon decades.

• 34:18Speaker 04

  And accordingly, they have a very different policy toward their fans and toward their fans' ashes than, say, oh, the Colorado Avalanche. You get the phone call, and they almost always would start the same way. It would be, "I'll bet you've never had this request before," or "This is going to be a very unusual..."

• 34:38Speaker 07

  Request and almost every time someone says that to me now, I think I got a feeling this is someone who's lost a loved one and wants to distribute the ashes here.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  We need way more Wayne in the sports world. And one of the things he immediately talked about was, why wouldn't you do this?

• 34:56Speaker 07

  To me, it was it was a tremendous compliment to the venue, to the to the racetrack, to the event. And I still see it that way here at Sebring as well. It's a tremendous compliment that a place has that kind of passion, that people have that kind of passion for the event, for the for the venue. And that first time, I didn't ask anybody. I just said, Yeah, we'll we'll make that work. We'll go wherever we have to go. Where do you want to go?

• 35:24Speaker 04

  And accordingly, they have a very different policy toward their fans and toward their fans ashes than say, oh, the Colorado Avalanche.

• 35:34Speaker 07

  How do you turn somebody away that makes that request? I mean, it's just a phenomenal honor that anybody would ask that to to make that kind of a gesture at the venue where you're promoting events.

• 35:46Speaker 04

  So Wayne has had as many as three cremation ceremonies in a single weekend. And people, you know,

• 35:56Pablo Torre?

  Bit of a pileup.

• 35:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:57Pablo Torre?

  Potentially.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  And it's funny, people, some people want to go in in a turn. Some people want to go at the start finish line. Some people want to go in pit row. And and Wayne accommodates it all. We took to his attitude right away. And I stayed in touch with Wayne, you know, as the PTFO death correspondent.

• 36:17Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 36:17Speaker 04

  That's part of my job.

• 36:18Pablo Torre?

  This is your beat.

• 36:19Speaker 04

  Yep. And Wayne, God love him, reached out a couple of days later and said, You know, I was just contacted by another fan who is is hoping to spread her husband's ashes at the track. And of course, I asked if I could tag along.

• 36:34Pablo Torre?

  And of course, we assigned you to go down to Florida.

• 36:38Speaker 04

  Get to Florida, Flem.

• 36:40Pablo Torre?

  Who are you there to meet?

• 36:44Speaker 04

  So we got to meet this lovely woman named Edna Smith, who was at the track to remember her late husband, Ron, who loved all things racing, all things cars, all things mechanical. He always was very avid about air and space and cars.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  In fast cars, we probably had,

• 37:08Speaker 02

  in his lifetime of cars, he had thirty some cars. And my friends could attest to that. And they were all very unusual cars and fun, fun to drive.

• 37:18Speaker 04

  Did he have a favorite, favorite car? Favorite kind?

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. He had an E-Type Jaguar XKE. That was a nice car. That was probably his favorite that he ever had.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  So you were married to James Bond, is what you're saying?

• 37:35Speaker 02

  Or wannabe.

• 37:38Speaker 00

  So as we're watching Edna stand on the track with you, whose idea was it to scatter Ron's ashes across the track?

• 37:47Speaker 04

  She wanted to do something that honored him, celebrated his life, the things that he loved. But then also would give her a eternal connection to him, that she could watch races there, she could return to the track and always be sort of closer to him. So it was, it was Edna's idea.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  The ashes sat for a while before I, you know, thought about what I could do to, in honor of his memory, you know. And the first thing I came up was to go skydiving. So I did. In January of this year, I took Ron's ashes up skydiving. And I was really, really nervous, but it was the mission accomplished. I was just covered with his ashes all over me because the wind blew the wrong way. And it was like, oh, my heavens. But it was, yeah, it was, it was awesome, really awesome. And then I, you know, I still had half of his ashes left. So I'm thinking, you know, what else could I do?

• 38:48Speaker 02

  And my friends kind of helped me with the idea of the Sebring racetrack, you know, take his ashes over there.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  And to be clear, we are.

• 38:56Pablo Torre?

  Honored that she allowed us to be there for it.

• 38:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, it was, um, we were sort of humbled by that and we approached it that way. That we were there to observe and to not get in the way and we understood that this was a, this is a very sort of important solemn moment.

• 39:12Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, and I want to make clear too that one of my real joys on this show is to send people out into the world, you often in specific. And then finally find out what this religious profound ceremony for Edna and Ron was like. And so I have not seen this video yet. So let's hit play.

• 39:40Pablo Torre?

  Beautiful blue sky.

• 39:43Pablo Torre?

  Edna in the backseat of a convertible?

• 39:45Speaker 04

  Yep. And they let us put a GoPro behind her.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  So she's got Ron's remains in a Ziploc baggie and she's in a convertible provided by Wayne. And we are going down the main straightaway. She's reaching into the Ziploc bag and she is throwing Ron. And you can hear her giggling, right? She's giggling.

• 40:16Speaker 04

  And she's talking to him, right? She's smiling, she's giggling, she's talking to him. Every 10 seconds, a handful of Ron is going on to the straightaway at Sebring.

• 40:27Pablo Torre?

  And also everywhere else, I think.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  Ron is in the car, he's in the seats. And Ron's going all over Edna, too.

• 40:36Pablo Torre?

  Oh, yeah. Ron is omnipresent.

• 40:40Pablo Torre?

  Yes, she's emptying the Ziploc.

• 40:45Pablo Torre?

  Rarely is cremation also a joyride.

• 40:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, at one point, so then we were in a minivan in front of them as well. And they were stepping on the gas, because it's hard to be on-

• 40:58Pablo Torre?

  Her hair is blowing in the breeze, her sunglasses are on, she's grinning.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  The way she explained it was kind of like, Ron wouldn't be jealous, but he would be so happy that she chose this as a way to sort of memorialize him. This is what he loved and to see her so happy, too.

• 41:18Speaker 04

  Because you cannot get on this track and not floor it. Right? It's like we, they, they gave us access to the track and it was like, I kept going, punch it, punch it, Wayne, punch it. When she got out of the car, she patted her pants and just poofs of smoke. Her ash came up. And I love that.

• 41:36Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 41:36Speaker 04

  I just love that. You can see, you can see there are, I mean, Ron, God love him, and there ended up being handprints, fingerprints. It's funny how quickly you get connected to somebody like that when they share a moment like this. And I went out because there were still piles of ashes every so often. We all kind of went out and said goodbye to Ron.

• 42:01Speaker 04

  Now you understand why people are willing to go to jail to do this because it means...

• 42:06Pablo Torre?

  It's beautiful, man.

• 42:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, it really means something more than just going to a gravestone.

• 42:11Pablo Torre?

  Well, it's absurd and it's beautiful and it is of course deeply serious. It's, it's also lighthearted and something we can celebrate.

• 42:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:21Pablo Torre?

  As we marvel upon the, the ridiculous nature of what it means to be a human being.

• 42:28Speaker 04

  Just so, something so poetic and beautiful about this ceremony and the fact that it is a mess.

• 42:34Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 42:34Speaker 04

  That it's unpredictable, that the ashes go everywhere. When was the last time you were at a traditional funeral or a cemetery and people were giggling and laughing and talking to the deceased?

• 42:45Pablo Torre?

  It's so rare.

• 42:46Speaker 04

  And sort of, it was a celebration. And I think that's part of the changing death rituals in America. That's what people want. They want a celebration of life and boy, you just saw it there in, in living color.

• 43:00Pablo Torre?

  Yes. Ron is going to be a part of that track, a part of Edna and also definitely in the upholstery, I think, based on just the statistical distribution of what I was witnessing there in the video.

• 43:14Speaker 04

  Well, and here's the thing, Ron is also a part of your favorite correspondent, Ron. At one point, Ron blew into our camera, into our microphone cover. Ron, boy, Ron gets around.

• 43:27Pablo Torre?

  I just cannot say this enough. Thank you to Edna for letting us celebrate Ron with her.

• 43:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:33Pablo Torre?

  Because it reminds me of what we started the story with, which is Ryan. Diehard hockey fan who didn't have the same welcome mat laid out for him after he tried to do this for his loved one.

• 43:47Speaker 04

  But luckily, that was not the end of the story for Ryan and Kyle and the Colorado Avalanche.

• 44:06Pablo Torre?

  Okay, so now we're back in Colorado, Flem, with the story of Ryan Clark and his best friend, Kyle Stark. And you mentioned that this was not the end for Ryan, his banning from his favorite building for the rest of that season. So what the [bleep] happened?

• 44:22Speaker 04

  Something magical happened once Kyle became a part of Ball Arena.

• 44:29Speaker 04

  They win that game against the Leafs, 5-4 in overtime.

• 44:44Speaker 04

  Then they go on this incredible streak. They don't lose another game inside Kyle's arena for a month, which is unheard of, right? It's unheard of.

• 45:12Speaker 04

  It's unheard of in hockey, especially as they're trying to build toward the playoffs. And as a Red Wings fan, I'm watching the Avalanche going, what is going on with it? The Avalanche can't lose.

• 45:31Speaker 07

  Set his team in overtime to the Stanley Cup final.

• 45:37Pablo Torre?

  All I can think about, of course, is that Ryan can't be there. He's at home watching all of these games. He cannot witness the streak because he's been banned.

• 45:47Speaker 04

  But you know, I think in Ryan's mind, it's perfect.

• 45:51Speaker 06

  That's my boy helping him out is all I can say, you know? That was a, a, an extra body power play. So you're going, you know, you're going six on, on four as opposed to, you know, five on four. And, you know, everybody in that corner, he's grabbing their legs. Yeah, hold on bud. You're going to stay here.

• 46:13Pablo Torre?

  It is hard to deny the impact of Kyle Stark.

• 46:17Speaker 06

  It was awesome to see. It was awesome to know that he was there during that whole timeframe, that whole, that whole play out. And I'm sorry that I look away. I just try not to break down again because it's, yeah, it's, it's still fresh, even though it's been a few.

• 46:34Speaker 04

  Part of the emotion though is joy, right?

• 46:36Speaker 06

  Oh, yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Like when they dropped that banner, I wish I could have been there for that game. Cause I, they should put Kyle's name on the bottom of it, you know? Or at least, at least his initials on the cup in the corner, you know?

• 46:52Speaker 06

  Like what is this KS? Don't worry about that. Just, just hang it in that, you know? Take that layer, that layer off, put a fresh one on.

• 47:01Pablo Torre?

  Listening to Ryan, yet another person in this episode getting emotional in a car. Celebrate what his team, their team pulled off. Thanks to his best friend.

• 47:12Speaker 07

  Manson to McKinnon bouncing puck and a goal. Arturi Lekinen makes it two to one Colorado.

• 47:21Pablo Torre?

  His team won the Stanley Cup.

• 47:24Pablo Torre?

  The dream, the dream, Flem.

• 47:27Speaker 04

  Man, can they spread some Kyle in Detroit?

• 47:30Speaker 07

  Five seconds to go. Up it comes to the line.

• 47:36Pablo Torre?

  Colorado has won the Stanley Cup. And in the present tense, of course, Ryan can go back to Ball Arena.

• 47:45Speaker 04

  He was, he was only sort of kept out of the arena for the rest of that season. And then he was allowed to, to come back.

• 47:52Pablo Torre?

  You can go back to the building where his favorite team plays. And when he is there now, I imagine that all of this feels, feels different.

• 48:03Speaker 04

  Different, but in a, in a great way. And so now every time, again, you saw it with Edna, you see it with Ryan. He feels Kyle's presence there. He talks to Kyle when he's in that arena. He's got a, a place where he can sort of visit his friend forever now.

• 48:23Pablo Torre?

  And I am just left at the end of this episode, wondering about that question, which is when Kyle said.

• 48:30Speaker 06

  I'm like sitting there going, who's gonna be that person that can do it for me? When, you know?

• 48:37Pablo Torre?

  The, the biggest question posed in this episode, maybe.

• 48:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think what we've discovered is there's now a new highest form of friendship and fandom.

• 48:48Pablo Torre?

  Absolutely.

• 48:48Speaker 04

  It's like somebody willing to spread your ashes. Wildcat, spread your ashes at your favorite sports arena. But as for Ryan, it's a little bit sad, right? His person is gone. He doesn't have a person to spread his ashes. And so as the official, now lifelong PTFO death correspondent, I went ahead and volunteered. Right here, Ryan, I got you. I got you. I got, I got media credentials. I'll put you wherever you want to go. And I, I know we're joking and laughing and, but, uh, you know, at, at the end of this process, I gotta tell you, I'm a hundred percent serious. I will be there for Ryan when he needs me.

• 49:33Pablo Torre?

  Dave Fleming, I have never doubted your sincerity on these assignments. And I already, whenever it, whenever it needs to be, long into the future,

• 49:46Pablo Torre?

  I am ready.

• 49:47Speaker 04

  Well, we're gonna turn you into golf balls, Pablo, so.

• 50:00Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.

• 50:06Pablo Torre?

  And I'll talk to you next time.

• 50:27Pablo Torre?

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