The Punchline

This episode, first aired in 2019, brings you the story of John Scott, the professional hockey player that every fan loved to hate. A tough guy. A brawler. A goon. But when an impish pundit named Puck Daddy called on fans to vote for Scott to play alongside the world’s greatest players in the NHL All-Star Game, Scott found himself facing off against fans, commentators, and the powers that be. Was this the realization of Scott’s childhood dreams? Or a nightmarish prank gone too far? Today on Radiolab, a goof on a goon turns into a parable of the agony and the ecstasy of the internet, and democracy in the age of Boaty McBoatface. Special thanks to Larry Lynch and Morgan Springer. Check out John Scott's "Dropping the Gloves" podcast (https://www.droppingthegloves.com/) and his book (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-Guy-Like-Me/John-Scott/9781501159657) "A Guy Like Me". EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif NasserProduced by - Matt Kielty Original music and sound design contributed by -John Dryden, Thee Oh Sees, Weedeater and Bongzilla. Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Latif. This is Radiolab. Today, I'm going to resurface a story with an interview that was one of, if not the hardest gets of my career. It took me two years of pestering. I regularly pestered the guy's PR people, then his agent, his book agent, even him directly. I got multiple no's at multiple points. And you're probably thinking, who is this guy? Is it the president? Is it a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer? No, it was this humble, unassuming Canadian guy you've probably never even heard of. But I had just fallen for his story so hard.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  I knew I had to tell it. So when I finally did get that yes, when I finally did interview him, the only time he offered to talk to me was when he was at home on dad duty and you could hear his kid banging on a piano in the background. And I was like, oh, this audio is terrible. Like, I can't do this. I could barely hear him. He wasn't paying attention. It just felt like one of those moments where the whole thing was going to fall apart. But then something magical happened. You'll hear it in the episode. It's this moment between him and his daughter

• 1:30Speaker 00

  that felt so intimate, so tender, that it just convinced me, like, oh, this story's going to be even better than I thought. I hope you enjoy. It's an episode from 2019, The Punch Line.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. Okay. All right.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  You're listening to Radiolab.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Radiolab.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  From...

• 1:56Speaker 01

  WNYC.

• 1:58Speaker 03

  See? Rewind.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Oh my god. So this, I had-

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Hey, I'm Chad. I'm Ron. I'm Robert Krowitz. This is Radiolab. And we have another story for you, another adventure, courtesy of who else? Well, reporter Latif Nasser.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  So, the way I first learned about this story is that I saw that there was this article trending in this online publication called The Players Tribune, which is like a kind of athletes magazine.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Which, of course, you subscribe to.

• 2:31Speaker 00

  Which, of course, I subscribe to because I'm the scrawniest. I'm the least athletic. I'm the only scrawny couch potato, basically. But, anyway, the thing that jumped out to me about this article is that it's a sports story, but it's actually so much more. Like, it's a story about voting, it's a story about cyberbullying, it's a story about, you know, sticking it to the establishment. It's a sports story, but it's like, it's one that feels like it could only have happened at this very specific moment that we're living in right now.

• 3:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I don't know if we can always paint sports as a microcosm of society, but in this case, it's undeniable that it was.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  So the whole story starts with this guy, Greg Wyszynski.

• 3:21Speaker 05

  What are you guys talking about today?

• 3:23Speaker 04

  Hockey stuff.

• 3:24Speaker 05

  Oh, sweet.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  Greg is a hockey journalist-

• 3:26Speaker 04

  Senior NHL writer for ESPN.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  Known to his legions of fans as Puck Daddy. Is that a self-given name?

• 3:35Speaker 04

  No.

• 3:36Speaker 00

  He got it from his editor when he first started blogging about hockey.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  The other option at the time was Zamboni Pony.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 3:42Speaker 04

  Which would have been a horrible name, and I very much avoided an entire, you know, 10-year run of people calling me The Pony.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  That's true. Right. But now-

• 3:52Speaker 04

  I have my- I have my notes. I'm ready to roll now.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  Okay, well, let's just jump in then.

• 3:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, so. We are live. Happy. This story really begins on the podcast that I did with a gentleman by the name of Jeff Merrick.

• 4:05Speaker 06

  In the wrong industry, bud.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  Basically, a couple of hockey writers.

• 4:08Speaker 04

  Just shooting the breeze on hockey. Well, you know what industry we're in? We're in the hockey industry. And as you know, the hockey hockey industry is about making money, making new fans, turning heads.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  Okay, so this is, uh, November 2015, uh, just a few months before the NHL's, you know, big mid-season spectacle.

• 4:27Speaker 07

  Welcome to Amalie Arena.

• 4:30Speaker 04

  The All-Star Game.

• 4:30Speaker 07

  NHL All-Star Game.

• 4:33Speaker 04

  There is a sense that I have about this game that that's that's worrisome and and and.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  So this year, yet again, the NHL.

• 4:43Speaker 04

  For the 100th time in the last 15 years.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  Was changing the format of the All-Star Game.

• 4:47Speaker 07

  This year, the Honda NHL All-Star Game features a three-on-three tournament consisting of four different teams, one from each division.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Hockey's typically five-on-five. Three-on-three, however, is supposed to be like, you know, way more action, a lot more scoring, a lot more fun. But for Greg and Jeff.

• 5:04Speaker 06

  Here's where I'm at.

• 5:05Speaker 00

  Who are, you know, these hockey purists. They're like, yet again, the NHL is just changing things up to get more eyeballs on this game that by this point has just become.

• 5:14Speaker 04

  A watered-down, half-speed.

• 5:17Speaker 00

  Joke of a game.

• 5:19Speaker 06

  It's not a game. It makes a mockery of it, but disgusting it.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  So the two of them, as many diehard hockey traditionalists do, go off on the NHL. And eventually that leads them to talk about the other, what they see as the other really dumb thing about that year's All-Star Game.

• 5:35Speaker 06

  Fan voting.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Fan voting has long been a part of the game.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  As a kid, there was nothing else better than grabbing the little punch card at a game and knocking out the little circles and and trying to grab like 30 of them to make sure that, you know, Kirk Muller gets a spot in the All-Star Game or whatever.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  But over the years, the NHL had started reducing the number of players that could get voted in. One year, they were even accused of of turning off the vote when they didn't like where it was headed. And anyway, this year, the NHL had limited the vote so much that the fans could only vote in four players, a captain for each division, the Pacific, the Central, the Atlantic, the Metropolitan. But four players, all you could vote in.

• 6:16Speaker 04

  That just seems to run counter to what the All-Star Game history tradition should be to what we really want with this All-Star Game, which is fan engagement at the end.

• 6:26Speaker 06

  I just hope that everyone that's somehow a collective, and maybe we can lead the charge here on this one.

• 6:32Speaker 00

  And at that point, they started thinking, what if we use the little voting power that we do have to mess with the All-Star Game?

• 6:40Speaker 06

  We need someone in there who normally would not be in this game.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  Like as a joke, we should vote somebody in who just does not belong.

• 6:49Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  And Greg's like,

• 6:51Speaker 04

  I like that thought.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  Okay. But who?

• 6:55Speaker 04

  Who would fit the bill there?

• 6:56Speaker 00

  And as Greg was thinking about it, he thought, you know what would be funny? You know what would really mess with the NHL is if we vote in a player.

• 7:04Speaker 04

  A player who couldn't really keep up.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Couldn't really shoot, couldn't really handle the puck.

• 7:08Speaker 04

  The slow guy with the bad hands.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  Couldn't do anything.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  Let's really, you know, drop a stink bomb in the room.

• 7:15Speaker 00

  And then

• 7:18Speaker 00

  it hit him.

• 7:19Speaker 04

  The perfect guy.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  A Goliath of the league.

• 7:23Speaker 04

  John Scott.

• 7:24Speaker 06

  Oh my God, John Scott, All-Star.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  So John Scott

• 7:33Speaker 00

  was a behemoth.

• 7:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, he cracks the ice. He was the guy that would only play between like five and eight minutes a night.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Couldn't really shoot. Couldn't really skate.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  And on top of that, when John Scott was on the ice.

• 7:56Speaker 00

  The only thing he was good at

• 7:59Speaker 00

  was knocking other people senseless.

• 8:06Speaker 00

  In hockey terms,

• 8:09Speaker 00

  John Scott was what you would call an old fashioned goon.

• 8:17Speaker 06

  Yes. Oh my God, that's the one. He's the one. He's the guy.

• 8:19Speaker 04

  From that point on, there was no other answer to the question. Like that was the guy that it would have to be.

• 8:27Speaker 06

  John Scott is the one.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  And what started there as a tiny joke between two guys on a podcast would end up twisting the fate and fortune of one of the most feared, loathed, punishing players in the national hockey.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  You be quiet.

• 8:52Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  Changed some things for his family, too.

• 8:54Speaker 08

  Be soft. Hello?

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Hey, okay, I'm calling you from my cellphone. How's this?

• 9:00Speaker 08

  Oh, much better.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  So, this is John.

• 9:03Speaker 08

  Yeah, we're good. Morgan gave me the thumbs up.

• 9:05Speaker 00

  All right, great. He knows. Okay, so-

• 9:07Speaker 08

  Oh yeah, my, my daughter's here too, so if there's like sounds, it's just my daughter cruising around.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  No, that's cute. I love it.

• 9:12Speaker 08

  Okay, good.

• 9:13Speaker 00

  Okay, so I think to really understand what it was like for John to be on the other end of this, to be like, you know, like the butt of a joke, you need to understand what hockey meant to John, like what it meant for him to be playing in the NHL.

• 9:27Speaker 08

  Like, everyone has their dreams. Like, when you're a kid, especially in the States, it's football, baseball. In Canada, when you ask a seven, eight-year-old, we, we do those projects in class, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And I think 90% of the boys are like, "I'm gonna be in the NHL." And I always said that. My parents have all that stuff all over the walls and stuff. But yeah, I always dreamed of playing the NHL. I think everybody, that was their big dream, so, yeah.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  So John has this classic Canadian hockey kid story.

• 9:53Speaker 08

  Put on skates when I was three. My dad built the rink in the backyard.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  Played all the time.

• 9:57Speaker 08

  Every single day, morning, noon, and night. And you would just go to sleep in your gear and wake up and just jump right on the ice. Skate until seven or eight at night, and you would just jump in bed, go to sleep. You just kept it on to save time, so.

• 10:09Speaker 00

  But the thing about John was that even as a kid-

• 10:13Speaker 08

  I was a monster. I, I came out of the womb 24, 25, 24 and a half inches long, and I was 11 pounds, 12 pounds. I was huge. School pitchers was a joke. Everyone thought I was like a teacher's assistant when I hit like grade seven, eight, nine, because I was so tall. And, um, when you're young and you're that tall, you have zero, zero coordination.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  And so John was never the top guy in his team.

• 10:37Speaker 08

  Never the fastest, never the most skilled, never, you know, the best at anything. I just kind of, sorry, my daughter just started playing the piano beside us.

• 10:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:46Speaker 07

  Is he okay with the?

• 10:47Speaker 08

  Are you okay with the piano, Latif?

• 10:49Speaker 07

  There's like a lot of.

• 10:50Speaker 08

  I'll get her off.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah, that would be great. Sorry.

• 10:53Speaker 08

  It's cute for a little bit.

• 10:54Speaker 07

  That last question was.

• 10:56Speaker 08

  All right, we're good.

• 10:58Speaker 00

  Thanks.

• 11:00Speaker 07

  It can hold too much texture.

• 11:01Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  So you.

• 11:06Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  Well, there's something you said that you, uh.

• 11:12Speaker 08

  Here, let me, let me put her to bed. One second. Sorry, Latif.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Cool. Yeah, no, no, no. Take your time. Take, totally. Take your time.

• 11:18Speaker 08

  I'll, I'll keep you on the phone. It'll take two seconds, but even if she cries up there a little, it should be fine.

• 11:22Speaker 07

  Follow you, is that okay?

• 11:23Speaker 08

  Yeah, follow me. She's just sitting a little sorely.

• 11:27Speaker 08

  Good questions, though, Latif. You're from Mississauga?

• 11:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm from Mississauga.

• 11:32Speaker 08

  So you're in Boston, New York now, or?

• 11:35Speaker 00

  No, so, so, yeah, I'm calling you from Boston. My cellphone is Boston. I, my job is in New York, but I actually live in LA.

• 11:41Speaker 08

  Oh, wow. You're just like all over the map.

• 11:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm kind, well, not, I mean, I feel like compared to you, you've been all over the map for real.

• 11:50Speaker 08

  All right, let me put her in here. You go nene. All right, now she's done. Perfect.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  Oh my God, what kind of kid do you have? You can put her down so easily?

• 12:02Speaker 08

  Um, she's like the best kid ever. It's great. I don't know how we lucked out with her, but she was our number five and we needed that because if she was anything but perfect, we would have been in trouble. All right, we're back. All right, let's, let's get back.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  Okay, we're back, we're back, we're back. Okay. Okay, so to jump back in, uh, John plays throughout his school years. By the time he's getting close to college, a lot of his friends are getting, you know, offers, scholarships to different, you know, big time schools. University of Minnesota, Boston College, places like that. For John, there was just no interest. Like, coaches thought he was too big to play, wouldn't be able to keep up out there on the ice. But eventually, he did get one offer to play for a mid-level university, Michigan Tech.

• 12:46Speaker 08

  And I just figured I would, in all honesty, I would finish college and get a job. That would be it. I would have gotten an education for free and, you know, I'd play hockey with the guys on the weekends, but that was, that would be the end of hockey.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  But then a couple of things happened. First.

• 13:00Speaker 05

  At school, I kind of always noticed him.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  He met Danielle.

• 13:04Speaker 05

  Because he was about two feet taller than anybody else on campus.

• 13:08Speaker 00

  They were both engineering students, started dating senior year.

• 13:10Speaker 05

  You know, we kind of hit things off and. The rest was history.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  And the other thing that happened was-

• 13:17Speaker 08

  I got this opportunity to go play for the Houston Arrows, Minnesota's farm team.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  A minor league team.

• 13:22Speaker 08

  It wasn't crazy money. It was 30,000 or 35,000.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  He talked to Danielle about it.

• 13:28Speaker 05

  He was like, well, let me give this hockey thing like a go.

• 13:32Speaker 00

  Like this is the only chance I'm going to get to be able to say I played pro.

• 13:35Speaker 05

  And the way that I kind of looked at it was, oh, okay. It's just like a little head start. And then once I graduate, like we'll both get our jobs, like our real jobs and move on with our lives.

• 13:53Speaker 00

  So John moved down to Houston.

• 13:55Speaker 08

  I didn't have any expectations. I just worked my tail off. I was a bad skater. I worked at skating. I was a bad passer. I would work at passing after practice, but-

• 14:03Speaker 00

  He says no matter what he did, he would not get any playing time.

• 14:07Speaker 08

  I was always a step or two behind. I was, I think, the ninth defenseman on the roster and you only dress six for a game. So I never played the first, I think, month of the season.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  But while John was in Houston, he noticed that there were these other big guys on the team and they were getting playing time.

• 14:26Speaker 08

  They, they kind of took me under their wings and they said, hey, listen.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  If you really want to get noticed down here, if you really want to go to the NHL, you should learn how to fight.

• 14:36Speaker 08

  It worked perfectly because that's what happened.

• 14:41Speaker 08

  So for those of you who don't follow hockey too much, I have guys on my team-

• 14:48Speaker 08

  who make 10 million, nine million, eight million dollars and they are paid to score and they are paid to perform and play well.

• 14:57Speaker 08

  But there are also guys out there- They are the ugly children of the NHL. Who their job is to- They are instigators, aggravators. Pester, annoy, and we call them the rats, the pests.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  And you can hear these guys, like when they're mic'd up.

• 15:10Speaker 07

  How are you even here? Like 10 guys hurt right now?

• 15:12Speaker 00

  Running their mouths.

• 15:14Speaker 07

  What are you, what are you doing out here?

• 15:15Speaker 08

  They try to get under the star player's skin.

• 15:17Speaker 07

  Ugly sky in the league. Ugly.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  They'll jab and poke at these star players, but sometimes-

• 15:24Speaker 00

  they'll use their stick to hack at them or they'll check them into the board.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  Like they'll try and really hurt them.

• 15:31Speaker 07

  What is that? I mean, the puck is nowhere-

• 15:34Speaker 00

  So in order to deal with pests, you got people like John, who are called enforcers.

• 15:41Speaker 08

  So basically, my job is to make sure those pests don't pester my top guys. And so when we would go into a game, I would know exactly who to pinpoint because, you know, you do your scouting and I would go up to those guys and I would say, hey, listen, if you're gonna do that, I'm gonna put my fist through your face. And more often than not, just the fear of the retribution if they did something would, would stop them.

• 16:09Speaker 08

  But if they did do something, my job was to beat them up. And I was a heck of a fighter when I made the NHL.

• 16:22Speaker 00

  So John would take care of the pests?

• 16:24Speaker 08

  They wouldn't fight.

• 16:27Speaker 08

  I would usually grab their tough guy.

• 16:31Speaker 08

  And beat him up.

• 16:34Speaker 08

  If we were playing flat and we didn't have energy.

• 16:39Speaker 08

  I would go out and try to fight to get my guys going.

• 16:43Speaker 08

  Or if it was a really bad hit, I would just grab that guy and I would beat his doors off.

• 16:53Speaker 08

  It's funny, throughout my career, I really hated fighting. There was days where I wouldn't sleep at night just because I knew I was going to get into a fight. But you just do your job. And I, I think I did my job well.

• 17:04Speaker 00

  Well enough that John was able to make a career in the NHL.

• 17:07Speaker 08

  It's everything you dream of as a kid.

• 17:11Speaker 05

  It was kind of like a leap of faith and it worked out great.

• 17:14Speaker 00

  So by this point, Danielle and John had gotten married.

• 17:17Speaker 05

  You know, we had bought our first house.

• 17:19Speaker 00

  Soon after had their first two kids.

• 17:21Speaker 05

  It was just so beyond anything we, or I ever expected.

• 17:25Speaker 00

  Well, tell me, tell me all the names of all the teams that you played for.

• 17:29Speaker 08

  Oh my gosh, I'm embarrassed.

• 17:32Speaker 00

  So in 2008, John started playing in the NHL for the Minnesota Wild. After that, he played for Chicago and New York and Buffalo and San Jose. And, and throughout his whole career as an enforcer, uh, there was this shift going on in professional hockey.

• 17:52Speaker 00

  A lot of the hockey establishment and the media, execs in the league were pushing for the game to be more high scoring.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  To be more about skill and speed.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  And a lot of people started coming out and saying there should not be a place in this league for fighting.

• 18:08Speaker 08

  I was the easy target.

• 18:09Speaker 09

  This guy is a goon. If you haven't seen the movie, you don't have to bother. This is a goon.

• 18:14Speaker 08

  They went after me and they said, listen, we don't need guys like this in a league.

• 18:18Speaker 09

  There's no room for it in the game. There's no room for guys in the game.

• 18:21Speaker 08

  Their sole purpose is to punch people.

• 18:23Speaker 09

  I believe the players that play in this league should be able to skate and pass and not simply ignite a fight.

• 18:29Speaker 08

  We're going to eliminate players like this.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  Which is one of the reasons why.

• 18:34Speaker 06

  Oh my God, John Scott All-Star.

• 18:36Speaker 00

  For guys like Greg Washinsky and Jeff Merrick, voting John Scott into the All-Star game was not just a hilarious joke about a big guy who couldn't skate, but it was also a big fat middle finger to the hockey establishment.

• 18:50Speaker 08

  Um, so I'll just do the whole, the, the big points.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  Do it, do it.

• 18:54Speaker 08

  I was, we were on the road and we were on the bus heading to a game or a pregame skate.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  It was December 2015. John was playing for the Arizona Coyotes.

• 19:04Speaker 08

  And a guy on my team, Anders Lindbeck, our goalie, he was sitting beside me and he's like, hey, you're, you know, you're in, it was like 56th place or something, you know, of, of the fan voting. And I was like, oh, you know, that's great. People think it's a joke. They're going to vote for me a little bit. And it was, it was nothing serious. So that's, that's how I first heard of it on the bus. So we go to the, we go to the rink, we do our skate. Literally after the skate, he checks his phone again and he's like, holy cow, man. You're like top 25. It happened that fast. And then the next day I was top five. And then like the day after that I was number one.

• 19:40Speaker 07

  There's a surprise leader in fan voting for the upcoming NHL All-Star game and his name is, yeah, John Scott. Seriously.

• 19:48Speaker 08

  It was like a.

• 19:49Speaker 07

  John Scott, the enforcer for the.

• 19:51Speaker 08

  Mega story.

• 19:51Speaker 10

  Arizona's John Scott is leading the NHL.

• 19:54Speaker 08

  It was unbelievable how quickly it grew.

• 19:56Speaker 11

  John Scott, number one.

• 19:58Speaker 03

  The number one vote getter among all players in the NHL.

• 20:01Speaker 00

  Which meant that John would be a.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  All-Star game captain.

• 20:04Speaker 00

  Team captain at the All-Star game.

• 20:06Speaker 03

  Let that sink in for a second.

• 20:08Speaker 00

  And for the fans who were voting for John, there was definitely a bit of like, oh, you shrunk the number of players we can vote in.

• 20:14Speaker 11

  Oh yeah?

• 20:14Speaker 07

  Oh really?

• 20:15Speaker 11

  Well, we're going to make our votes count then.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  Here's Johnny. But I think for a majority of voters voting for John.

• 20:22Speaker 08

  Let's be honest.

• 20:22Speaker 00

  It was just really simple.

• 20:24Speaker 08

  The reason John Scott's leading the voting is because it's funny.

• 20:28Speaker 07

  John Scott is not an All-Star.

• 20:30Speaker 05

  He has one goal over eight games. He barely plays.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  Like in this three-on-three format where there was supposed to be a bunch of speed and skill, wouldn't it be funny to see this big?

• 20:40Speaker 07

  Arizona Coyotes goon.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  Ogre.

• 20:42Speaker 07

  Fighter with no skills. Objectively bad at hockey.

• 20:47Speaker 09

  I don't know what he's doing in the league.

• 20:48Speaker 00

  Make a fool of himself.

• 20:49Speaker 08

  Oh, I hated it. This isn't funny anymore. I get it. Like, I'm this terrible player who you guys think it would be fun to watch me, you know, fail in this game, but I just figured it would end on its own, honestly. I thought it would last a few days and people would get, you know, their enough of it and it would go away, but it just didn't.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  And as for the NHL?

• 21:09Speaker 04

  They were pissed. I mean, to put it frankly, I definitely got the sense from some of the people that I speak to on a regular basis at the NHL that they were really angry that this was happening.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  And why? Like, can you get any more specific about like why this would have been an embarrassment to them? Like, what is it exactly that they were so sensitive about?

• 21:29Speaker 04

  They were sensitive about the fact that the All-Star game is something that a lot of old-time hockey people, and there's a lot of old-time hockey people that run the National Hockey League, see as something prestigious, one of the ultimate honors for a player. And so this was not something they wanted to happen. And it was happening, and they didn't really know what to do about it because they didn't have any fail safes in place to prevent it from happening.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  After one day of John sitting atop the All-Star vote.

• 21:57Speaker 05

  We're just like laying in bed. The kids are sleeping.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  John gets a text message. He gets up out of bed, goes over to his phone, starts reading it, and he's just standing there for like, for like a while.

• 22:08Speaker 05

  Selfishly, I'm just want to go to bed, but then, you know, I can tell some things just got him stewing over there. And it was his PR guy from the Coyotes.

• 22:17Speaker 08

  They, they thought it'd be a good idea to release a statement, and they wrote up this statement for me. And it basically said, "Thank you for the support. I don't want your votes. Please vote for other guys on my team."

• 22:28Speaker 00

  Basically, his own team is saying?

• 22:31Speaker 08

  Step away from the All-Star game.

• 22:33Speaker 05

  I saw him like respond, "Yeah, that statement's fine," and then delete it, and then just sit there and look at it. And I just remember asking like, "Do you, would you want to go?" And he's just like?

• 22:44Speaker 08

  Well, yeah, I think, because as a kid, I watched all the All-Star games. It was so fun to watch and I would dream to be in it. So, yeah.

• 22:52Speaker 05

  And I'm like, well. They want you to release a statement, release a statement, but make sure that it's true.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  And so John ends up writing a statement that reads, quote, "It's nice to be thought of by all of the fans, and for that I am truly flattered and grateful. And while I would love to experience an All-Star game, I think a few of my teammates are a bit more deserving of a vote." And so it's sort of like, I would go if I get voted, but there's other people who deserve it more.

• 23:19Speaker 08

  I said, "Yeah, sure, send it out." I wasn't totally on board with it, but I just wanted to appease the higher-ups to hopefully help them.

• 23:27Speaker 00

  But even after that, it was still John's got number one vote getter.

• 23:31Speaker 08

  Oh, by far, yeah. It's funny, they stopped showing how many votes the players were getting. They took that option off the website because I think I was ahead by so many.

• 23:40Speaker 00

  It's like you broke the website.

• 23:41Speaker 08

  Yeah, and so they took that away and then the NHL, they really tried to strong-arm me.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah? What happened there?

• 23:48Speaker 08

  Um, so I was in my bedroom in Arizona and they called and it was one of the higher-ups in the NHL and he just, you know, wanted to know how I was feeling. It was getting really close to the end of the voting. I just said, "Yeah, I, you know, I want to go to the game. I think it'll be fun. I think it'll be good for everybody involved." And he's like, "Really? Are you sure? Like, um, you think you'll be able to keep up? You think you're good enough? Like, you're not exactly a skill guy, John." And they started that way and I just kind of brushed it off, you know, I was like, "Yeah, I can skate pretty well. I'm a good decent hockey player." And he goes, "Well, you know, what do you, have you talked to your dad? What do you think?" First he goes, "Is your dad alive?" And I was like, "Yeah, he's alive." Like, "What do you think he's gonna think about this situation? You know, you think you're, you know, gonna make him proud?"

• 24:31Speaker 08

  And I was like, "What? Like, um, I don't think that has anything to do with this." And I kind of brushed that off. And at this time, I'm getting a little angry because I'm just like, "Man, like, let's, let me flip and play." And then he's like, "Well, what do you think your kids are gonna think when they look back on this? Do you think they're gonna be proud of their dad who went into the All-Star game this way?" And as soon as he brought my kids into the equation,

• 24:55Speaker 08

  I just like lost it.

• 24:59Speaker 08

  And I kind of snapped back at him like, you're being a real bleep and bleep and bleep and bleep. And we were back and forth and he started cussing at me. And then like, I finally like snapped back into my holy cow. I'm like yelling at one of the head guys in the NHL. I should like dial it back. And I apologized like, sorry, like, you know, you pushed the wrong button. Like, let's talk tomorrow. I'll let you know if I'm gonna go or not. I left it like that.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  So John slept on it. Woke up the next day.

• 25:27Speaker 08

  Called the dude the next morning and I said, I'm going.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  After the break, we'll see you at the game. Maybe we will. Yeah, maybe. Maybe not. I. Maybe not. Yeah.

• 25:46Speaker 12

  Radiolab is supported by Capital One. With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com slash bank guy. Capital One, N A, Member FDIC.

• 26:11Speaker 13

  After some actual fake polls came to light, pollsters are in the hot seat. But they say, don't be too quick to dismiss the entire industry.

• 26:20Speaker 14

  People want to raise taxes on the rich. I can tell you that definitively because we know it from polling. And if we lose trust in polls, we have no way to understand what Americans want to be done.

• 26:33Speaker 13

  On this week's On The Media from WNYC. Find On The Media wherever you get your podcasts.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Three, two, one. Chad. Robert. Radiolab. Back to hockey. And reporter Latif Nasr.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  Okay, so about two weeks before the All-Star game, John is just getting ready for practice and the GM of his team comes up to him.

• 26:56Speaker 08

  Been talking to me all the time throughout this All-Star stuff. And I thought it was just going to be another conversation about that. And he pulls me into the stick room and he's like, yeah, I just traded you to Montreal.

• 27:11Speaker 08

  And I was like, are you effing kidding me? What? And he's like, yeah, it was a hockey move. Uh, we, you know, we, we needed a little defensive help and, uh, we traded you to Montreal for this guy. And I said, this is an effing joke. Are you kidding me? And he said, sorry. You know, the deal's been done. I was like, okay. Whatever. Super shady to be traded right after I am finally in the All-Star game. It's like, you know? If it smells like a, you know, walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it's, it's fishy.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  We called John's former team and the NHL about this. Neither wanted to talk. Nonetheless, what happened next is that a short while later, John is in the locker room.

• 27:48Speaker 08

  Gathering my things, trying to say goodbye to the guys, and he pulls me aside again.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  And the GM tells him, actually, Montreal, the team we just traded you to? They're now gonna demote you.

• 27:57Speaker 08

  They're sending you to St. John's, Newfoundland, their farm team.

• 28:00Speaker 00

  You're in the minor leagues now.

• 28:03Speaker 08

  Go see the trainer, get your stuff ready. You're leaving today.

• 28:08Speaker 00

  According to the terms of the trade, he had to be on the plane that same day.

• 28:13Speaker 08

  And that's when I was just like, I was done. I was like, okay, done. See ya. And I just checked out. I went like, found somewhere in the rink. I called my wife.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  Who, by the way, was nine months pregnant with twins.

• 28:24Speaker 05

  I get the phone call from John. In those situations, he's kind of a man of like few words.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Tells her, we're in the minors now.

• 28:31Speaker 05

  And I'm like, all right, we'll be fine. Play and see. Where's the minor team? Like, how do I get there? You know? And he's like, yeah, it's literally on the other side of the world.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  It is North America's easternmost city.

• 28:42Speaker 05

  Like, you could not go further from where I'm at right now and still be on this continent.

• 28:48Speaker 08

  And I said, sorry, I gotta go. Can you please handle all of this? Take my two kids, take the two kids in your belly, take all my stuff. Pack it up. Like, I have to leave. It's so bizarre to have to say that to her and like, there's nothing I could have done. You just say, I'm sorry, I have to go.

• 29:05Speaker 05

  And I was just thinking to myself, um, okay, you know, like, just trying to hold on to hope. Like, we can make this work. Let's see where it's at. And I'm like, looking at flights. And like, I pull up Kayak and I'm seeing like the flights. And it's like 16 hours of travel, 14 hours of travel, 18 hours of travel. And like the prices for like a ticket is like $1,600. It like, it set in.

• 29:33Speaker 05

  It really all hit me at that moment and I just like sobbed.

• 29:41Speaker 08

  I composed myself, got my gear, told the GM to go, you know, wherever. And I jumped in the car, packed up my shit and went to St. John's.

• 29:55Speaker 07

  You want to talk about John Scott, so we needn't have the debate.

• 29:58Speaker 08

  No, I guess not.

• 29:59Speaker 07

  The floor is yours.

• 30:00Speaker 08

  Quiet.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  Canadian legend, Don Cherry, on the hit TV show Hockey Night in Canada.

• 30:05Speaker 15

  Anyhow, you jerks that put him up for to be in the All-Star game. What you've done, you've taken this kid who was doing pretty good, played six minutes, played 12 minutes, didn't matter, he's in Arizona, NHL contract. What you did was you took and put him in the minors now. Lots of fun, eh? I bet you're very proud of yourself because the NHL this year is going to be terrific. And you're going, you tried to ruin it all and you ruined this kid. He's in the minors, never to come back. I bet you should be ashamed of yourself. You should be ashamed of yourself. That's it.

• 30:40Speaker 04

  I saw this news hit and my first reaction was you have got to be kidding me.

• 30:45Speaker 00

  Again, Greg Waschinsky, who started the John Scott for All-Star campaign.

• 30:50Speaker 04

  It was weird. Oh, man, did they just make this problem go away?

• 30:53Speaker 00

  But was there part of you who was like, oh, my God, like I, I started this. This is on me.

• 30:59Speaker 04

  No, because at that point, you know, there had been criticism of us for having this campaign and obviously when John Scott came out.

• 31:08Speaker 08

  I was like, you guys ruined my career. This sucks.

• 31:10Speaker 04

  And sort of poo-pooed it off the bat. Made you feel like maybe you've done something kind of bad to a dude. But the campaign had kind of taken on a life of its own. And at that point, John Scott said he wanted to be an All-Star, wanted to represent a certain type of player.

• 31:26Speaker 08

  My role is like almost extinct. I'm like the last of my kind out here and like it would be cool to go out with a bang.

• 31:32Speaker 04

  All of his friends were saying you should do it. He wanted to do it because people were telling him not to do it.

• 31:37Speaker 00

  And I don't mean it necessarily that it, you know, that it's your fault or anything, but in a way that like you, you just, and not that you could have foreseen it, but like you started the train. Was there a part of you that was like, oh, my God, like if I hadn't said that one thing on my podcast, like this guy wouldn't have had to uproot his whole life?

• 31:53Speaker 04

  No, I mean, again, like I feel like. It was the National Hockey League at this point that was standing in his way.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  Now, whatever you think about the initial prank or John being demoted, this is the moment, Greg says, when the crowd mood totally shifted.

• 32:12Speaker 04

  Complete outrage.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  This is trash.

• 32:15Speaker 04

  Like, complete outrage.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  This is garbage. I'm not gonna go about a, on a rant about democracy.

• 32:21Speaker 04

  It became protests online.

• 32:23Speaker 03

  This is a lousy thing to do.

• 32:26Speaker 04

  Sweeping through the hockey world, like, look, the fans voted this guy in. The NHL is doing all it can to keep this guy out, and that's not right.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  You wanna change this? Contact your favorite sports writer in your city. Since the NHL is so damn image-conscious, why don't you put pressure on your favorite reporter to stick up for John Scott? I can only imagine how John feels right now.

• 32:56Speaker 08

  Well, pissed off, sorry for yourself, then you feel, you get sad. Do I even wanna play hockey? What do I wanna do? Like, do I just quit hockey and go work? Like, you think about all these things.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  But now that you're in the minor leagues, are you allowed to play for the All-Star game?

• 33:12Speaker 08

  That's the thing. No one knew.

• 33:14Speaker 00

  He says, right after he was demoted to the minor leagues.

• 33:16Speaker 08

  People started to, you know, read through the bylaws, read through the books.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Trying to figure out, like, can a minor league player play in the professional NHL All-Star game? And it turns out-

• 33:28Speaker 08

  There was no rule-

• 33:29Speaker 00

  -that even remotely addressed the situation. Like, it was totally unprecedented.

• 33:34Speaker 04

  And so, the pressure stayed on. The NHL knew that if John Scott wasn't in the All-Star game, there's probably visions from the NHL of protest signs along the glass, of fans outside the arena holding a rally because John Scott was snubbed.

• 33:49Speaker 00

  And according to Greg, hockey fans are notorious for throwing jerseys onto the ice in protest, causing scenes.

• 33:56Speaker 04

  And, and eventually, the National Hockey League had to acquiesce. They put out a statement.

• 34:02Speaker 08

  They made a statement saying, hey, if John wants to go, he can go.

• 34:04Speaker 00

  But John says, at this point-

• 34:06Speaker 08

  I told everybody I'm not going. Like, the NHLPA, I told all my friends, the teammates. I'm like, I'm done. Like, this is a bogus. Like, I don't wanna do this.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  He says, between the fans making fun of him and the league demoting him, the whole thing was just too humiliating.

• 34:19Speaker 05

  But I was just like- John, you may regret this. I know you wanna like run away and hide right now and like going in front of all these people is the very last thing you wanna do, but you might regret it.

• 34:33Speaker 08

  She was like, "Let's go. It'll be fun for the family. The kids will love it. I would love to see you go and prove these people wrong." My wife was building me back up and solely but surely, I was like, "Okay, you know what? Fuck this. Let's do it."

• 34:56Speaker 00

  January 31st, 2016.

• 34:58Speaker 08

  Nashville. It was a complete circus. It was unbelievable. I was obviously the big story, so the moment I land, there's reporters everywhere asking me questions.

• 35:08Speaker 00

  John would be representing the Pacific Division in the All-Star Game.

• 35:12Speaker 08

  And we had to play, I think it was a Central who everyone said they were stacked because they had all the stud players on their team.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  Players like?

• 35:21Speaker 00

  Matt Duchesne, James Neal, all of these much younger, much higher paid players. And then you had John.

• 35:31Speaker 08

  I knew everybody was staring at me. And I'm weird about my hair because I'm going bald and I'm skating around like, "I wish I would have grabbed my hat." I was like, "Dang it."

• 35:40Speaker 05

  Everything is buzzing.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  Danielle's in the stands with her two little kids.

• 35:44Speaker 05

  Everybody's looking for him to fail.

• 35:46Speaker 08

  Yeah, this dummy's gonna make an ass of himself.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  And before the game, the coach comes up to him.

• 35:52Speaker 08

  Coach asked me if I wanted to start and I just said, "No. Please let me stay on the bench."

• 35:56Speaker 00

  And the coach is like, "All right, but you're going in early."

• 36:03Speaker 00

  So John's teammates skate out to center ice. He's sitting on the bench, butterflies in his stomach.

• 36:11Speaker 00

  Ref drops the puck.

• 36:14Speaker 00

  Right away, 26 seconds into the game.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  John's team goes down 1-0.

• 36:25Speaker 07

  With an early 1-0 lead. And how about the hands and the playmaking of Matty Duchesne right there, the Colorado Avalanche. Brilliant feed for James Neal.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  It was, it was like a terrific goal. Like it was a pass to a one-timer shot. Like it was a goal that all-stars make.

• 36:41Speaker 00

  John's coach looks at him and says, "Scott, you're in." Remember, this is three-on-three. There is a ton of open ice.

• 36:48Speaker 08

  There's nowhere to go. Like, there's nowhere to hide.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  And John says that skating out to center ice, he just kept thinking, "Don't mess up. Don't mess up. Don't make a fool of yourself."

• 36:56Speaker 08

  And that's all I was thinking about.

• 36:58Speaker 00

  Ref's got the puck, holds it above center ice.

• 37:00Speaker 08

  I don't belong here. They think you're a joke. Don't screw it up.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  Drops it.

• 37:04Speaker 08

  Once the puck drops...

• 37:12Speaker 08

  You just kinda, you know...

• 37:15Speaker 08

  Everything else goes away and you just start playing hockey.

• 37:24Speaker 08

  This was like going back to when I was younger. I wasn't the best. I wasn't the fastest, but you, you know, you just start playing.

• 37:33Speaker 08

  And that's what I did.

• 37:37Speaker 00

  This time, John's team took possession of the puck.

• 37:43Speaker 08

  Burns, he had the puck. We're going up the ice.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  John and his teammates charge across center ice. They move into their opponent's zone when...

• 37:54Speaker 00

  Brent Burns passes the puck to John. John manages to control it. He's kind of up against the board, so he's using his body to protect the puck, trying to figure out what to do next.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  When he makes this nice little backhand pass.

• 38:08Speaker 08

  Burns, he had the puck on the right wing and all of a sudden I noticed...

• 38:11Speaker 00

  Between two of the defenders, there's this nice little lane right to the net.

• 38:15Speaker 08

  I went to the net.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Burns spotted John.

• 38:18Speaker 08

  And he put the puck right on my stick.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  John's just like a few feet from goal and the goalie's actually out of position.

• 38:25Speaker 08

  I had a wide-open net and I shot it.

• 38:29Speaker 08

  And I missed the net.

• 38:32Speaker 00

  Like a, like a wide open net.

• 38:34Speaker 08

  But the goalie was luckily sliding back into position.

• 38:37Speaker 00

  And so the puck hit the goalie, bounced off the goalie, and into the back of the net.

• 38:53Speaker 08

  It was awesome. Like, I was so jacked up. I had goosebumps, like, after the goal. It was so neat.

• 39:01Speaker 08

  It was cool. Everybody went nuts. That was the neat thing, the crowd. I didn't know how they were going to react. Usually they boo me, because everybody booed me, and they, they, they were all, all for it.

• 39:19Speaker 05

  The weird thing about the masses, too, it's like, how quickly everybody can go from hating you to loving you. It was such a sense of relief for me.

• 39:28Speaker 08

  A huge monkey was lifted off my back, because I was like, okay. I did something for the team. I didn't mess up.

• 39:34Speaker 05

  He's gonna relax and have fun.

• 39:38Speaker 05

  Just like, be himself in play.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  Which, he did.

• 39:46Speaker 00

  He laid out this guy, Patrick Kane.

• 39:56Speaker 00

  And then the two of them

• 39:59Speaker 00

  dropped their gloves.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  Pretended to have a fight.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  He got a couple nice passes.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  Had a really close shot on goal. He was just kinda doing everything.

• 40:14Speaker 04

  And every time John Scott was on camera or touched the puck, the crowd would come to life.

• 40:23Speaker 00

  Greg Wachinski was actually there reporting at the game and he was down in the tunnels interviewing other All-Stars.

• 40:29Speaker 04

  And what happens when you're down in the bowels of the arena is that the All-Star game is on TVs, but there's a delay between what the broadcast has and what's happening on the ice. So typically you'll hear something happen in the game before you actually watch it on TV. And I remember hearing this gigantic roar from the crowd. And then everybody kind of looked over at the TV and watched the All-Star game.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Okay, so what happened, what elicited that roar was that it was getting to the end of the game, tight game. John's team was up by one.

• 41:07Speaker 08

  We were in our zone, playing defense, and all of a sudden,

• 41:13Speaker 08

  their team shot it.

• 41:17Speaker 08

  We had a save and Bernsy got the puck behind the net. And I just blew the zone. I skated out of the zone as fast as I could because I knew he was going to get it. He saw me up the middle and he

• 41:29Speaker 08

  fired a nice pass and I corralled it and took off down the center of the ice.

• 41:34Speaker 08

  They had someone hounding me.

• 41:35Speaker 00

  But John's so big, he was able to keep this defender off of him. So it was just John, the goalie, and the net. He gathered the puck.

• 41:43Speaker 08

  I ripped a shot top corner on the goalie.

• 41:47Speaker 08

  And it went in.

• 41:57Speaker 08

  It was amazing.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  No goalie deflection, no lucky bounds, just a solid skill shot.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  There was just sort of this moment of just laughter. Laughter from the players being waited to be interviewed, laughter from the media downstairs, just unbridled joy in watching it all happen.

• 42:12Speaker 05

  I was just like, is this even happening? Like, I started to just be like, it's like I could physically see the smile on his face from up in the stands.

• 42:22Speaker 08

  The guys on the ice jumped on me. They were like, "Holy cow, this is unbelievable."

• 42:29Speaker 00

  The final chapter.

• 42:33Speaker 04

  Of the John Scott story, at least as it pertains to the All-Star game, is this really beautiful thing.

• 42:44Speaker 04

  And so, so there's this scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

• 42:49Speaker 07

  Scotty, get us out of here. Best possible speed. I see.

• 42:53Speaker 04

  Where it looks like the Enterprise is gonna get away, having defeated Khan. But Khan is still alive.

• 43:04Speaker 07

  The game's not over.

• 43:06Speaker 04

  And he's gonna try to trigger the doomsday device on his ship to kill everybody.

• 43:12Speaker 04

  And so, as the Enterprise is flying away, you see a bloodied Khan say,

• 43:18Speaker 07

  From hell's heart, I stab at thee.

• 43:22Speaker 04

  Hell's heart, I stab at thee.

• 43:24Speaker 07

  For hate's sake, I spit my last venom at thee.

• 43:32Speaker 04

  And I thought of that scene when the voting for most valuable player at the All-Star game starts.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  To explain, at the end of the game, there's one final bit of fan voting. Fans were gonna choose the MVP of the NHL All-Star game, most valuable player. And the fans in the arena and watching on TV, they would text the name of the person they want to a number, or they would go on Twitter and use a special hashtag and type the person's name. Any case.

• 44:03Speaker 07

  It will be coming up shortly.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  Right as the voting is about to begin, the NHL puts up a bunch of names of players on the jumbotron, says, "Here are your choices."

• 44:13Speaker 04

  And John Scott's name was not listed among the three MVP candidates on the jumbotron.

• 44:21Speaker 07

  Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time to award the 2016 Honda NHL All-Star MVP Award, as decided by you.

• 44:34Speaker 08

  The fans saw that I wasn't on there and they went nuts. They started to boo.

• 44:38Speaker 04

  Loudly, visibly. You could feel it around the rink. I felt it was the last gasp of all the people at the NHL that tried to keep John Scott out of the All-Star game. It was their last chance to get him.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Like Khan trying to get Captain Kirk. That's what he was trying to say with the analogy. Anyway, what ended up happening is that during the voting, thousands of people wrote in their own choice. And when it was announced...

• 45:12Speaker 07

  The 2016 Honda NHL All-Star MVP scores two goals in the tournament and wins as a reigning candidate, John Scott!

• 45:33Speaker 08

  It's funny. I didn't hear it because on ice level, you don't hear what the speakers are playing because they point the speakers to the fans. So I didn't hear until like, somebody's like, "Hey, like, go and like, get your trophy." And I was like, "Oh, weird."

• 45:47Speaker 00

  John skates out to the center of the ice, laughing, looking a little scared.

• 45:51Speaker 08

  Holy shit, I was just like the MVP of the All-Star game.

• 45:54Speaker 07

  John Scott is with Pierre.

• 45:55Speaker 16

  Thanks a lot, Tom. There's been all kinds of ovations for you.

• 46:02Speaker 16

  And they're not stopping. What do you want to say first to the fans in Nashville? Just thank you so much. You guys have just blown me away. I love this city and thank you so much.

• 46:14Speaker 04

  And in what was the teary-eyed Disney family sports film moment...

• 46:21Speaker 16

  Well, your team won a million dollars. How you planning on spreading it around? It's gonna go on 100 parts of me and then they're gonna take the rest. Hey, whoa, whoa.

• 46:29Speaker 04

  He was hoisted onto the shoulders of his teammates and paraded around like he was Rudy.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  Greatest sports movie ever.

• 46:59Speaker 05

  I wanted to go down by the ice so that the kids could see John. And people are trying to help me down the stairs and like parting the seas so I could get down there.

• 47:08Speaker 08

  My, my kids were down at the bench with my wife and it was so weird. Like it was literally like Disney wrote a script and it's like, okay, now he kisses his wife.

• 47:17Speaker 05

  He kissed me in her eyes locked and it was just, we both were kind of like shaking our heads. Like we were both a little bit speechless.

• 47:24Speaker 08

  Now he grabs his kids.

• 47:25Speaker 05

  He scooped them up.

• 47:26Speaker 08

  In the cliche fashion, I grabbed my kids and skated them around the ice.

• 47:30Speaker 05

  Ava's like, Dad, you stink. You smell bad. And like every time, like I would just look at him and I'm like, can you even believe this is happening? And it was, no, like I just can't.

• 47:41Speaker 00

  And as they came off the ice, there were crowds of people waiting to ask them questions, take pictures with them.

• 47:46Speaker 08

  But we had a flight the next morning at like 5 a.m.

• 47:49Speaker 00

  He had to get back to the minor leagues. And before that, they still had to have these babies. So they rush home to give birth to the twins.

• 47:57Speaker 08

  Four days after the babies were born, I went back to St. John's.

• 48:01Speaker 00

  Oh my God.

• 48:02Speaker 08

  Yeah.

• 48:07Speaker 05

  I feel like that was really the beginning of the rest of our lives.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  John finished out that season, played one last NHL game, and then retired. He and Danielle live with their five girls in Traverse City, Michigan. But the legacy of his All-Star appearance lives on in two ways. First, the day after the game, it was announced that John Scott's helmet, the helmet he wore during the game, would be flown to Toronto, where it would be put on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame. But the other thing that happened was just in time for the next year's All-Star game, the NHL created a new rule known as the John Scott Rule, which states that any player who is voted to be a captain in the

• 48:54Speaker 00

  All-Star game, then gets demoted to the minor leagues, will be disqualified, will not be allowed to play, effectively ensuring that never again will the fans have quite the power to overthrow the system and vote in.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  A John Scott.

• 49:28Speaker 11

  Reporter Latif Nasser. This episode was produced by Mr. Matt Kielty and fact-checked by Diane Kelly.

• 49:35Speaker 17

  Also, if you want to hear more from John Scott, and of course, he has a podcast. It's called Dropping the Gloves, available wherever you get podcasts or lose, you know, your gloves.

• 49:46Speaker 11

  And in this episode, we had a lot of original music from John Dryden, The OC's, Weed Eater, and Bongzilla.

• 49:53Speaker 17

  And last, special thanks to Morgan Springer, Faisal Kamisa, and Ben Hankinson.

• 49:58Speaker 11

  And...

• 49:59Speaker 17

  And...

• 50:00Speaker 11

  I think that's it.

• 50:02Speaker 17

  That's it. That's what we got to do today.

• 50:04Speaker 11

  Yeah, let's get out of here.

• 50:05Speaker 17

  Okay.

• 50:06Speaker 11

  I'm Jad Abumrad.

• 50:07Speaker 17

  I'm Robert Krowich.

• 50:08Speaker 11

  Thanks for listening.

• 50:09Speaker 17

  You're welcome.

• 50:12Speaker 13

  To play the message, press 2. Start of message.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm Pushkar, and I'm from Yuba City, California. And here are the staff credits. Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. Soren Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Sandback is our executive director. Our managing editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Jeremy Blum, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gateras, Sindhu Nyanasambadam, Matt Kielty, Mona Madgavkar, Annie McGowan, Alex Neeson, Sarah Kari, Anisa Vitra, Ariane Whack, Molly Webster, and Jessica Young. What help from Rebecca Rand.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Natalie Middleton.

• 51:07Speaker 18

  Hi, I'm Monica, and I'm calling from Mexico City. Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.