It's The Playoffs, Baby!

In this episode, Mikki apologizes for a social media mishap, talks about this year's playoffs and how it feels for the Wild to not be in it. She also shares a little tidbit of information about the NHL Draft Lottery and summer hockey plans.

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Creators & Guests

Host

HockeySheWrote

Wild Hockey Fan | Cozy Mystery Writer | Mom of 2 | MN Raised | She/Her | Hockey Takes that No One Asked For

What is Her Wild Side Hockey Podcast?

Her Wild Side combines hockey knowledge with a side of vibe checks. The weekly show will have game breakdowns, any topical news about the MN Wild, and fun things going on surrounding Wild's social media. This show aims to be informative while also sparking good conversation about the Wild and hockey in general without having to keep everything serious.

Hello,

welcome to Her Wild Side Hockey Podcast.

I am your hostess, Mihi,

aka HockeySheWrote.

And it has been one week

since my ranting podcast.

And there's a few reasons

why I've been gone.

Number one is if you are on

Twitter with me,

you will know that I

stirred up a shitstorm.

And it was...

It was a bunch of things together,

but definitely was a mistake on my part.

And I will go ahead and own that.

So here's what happened.

The head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning,

on,

I believe it was like a Wednesday night.

I'm going to say it's a Wednesday night,

uh, made a speech.

They had just gotten, uh,

they were out of the

playoffs and said something

about the goalies being in skirts,

just something like super sexist,

totally unnecessary and out

of left field.

The next morning I recorded a podcast,

which many of you have

probably listened to.

And I

in doing that,

what I do is I record a

podcast and then I go

through and I get clips out of there.

Right.

Cause that's kind of,

that's like a way that I, um, advertise,

I guess my,

my podcast here and the clips

after I get the clips,

then throughout the next couple of days,

I usually just, you know, um,

send one out the door with

a post every once in a

of on Friday morning.

So this was a full 24 hours

after I'd already recorded.

I made kind of a knee jerk

reaction post that was

completely unfair on my part.

And that I should have put a

little more thought into.

And unfortunately,

it was combined with a clip

from the podcast that a lot of people,

once it got kind of outside

of my Twitter circle,

assumed was a brand new video.

And it wasn't.

It was 24 hours old.

But what I did was without

really looking for a little

more information on Cooper, the coach,

I just made a rash judgment.

And I said that...

This is probably a PR move.

I don't know if it was a genuine apology.

And you know what?

I was very quickly called out,

and rightfully so,

and told that John Cooper is a good guy.

Um, he's got daughters of his own.

He's just generally a standup guy.

And that, um,

these were Tampa Bay

lightning fans saying like,

I am pretty sure that his

apology is actually very genuine.

And so I immediately was like, crap,

like this is, this is not good because I

He doesn't deserve that.

I, you know,

I just kind of made a knee

jerk reaction based on

sexism in the NHL as a whole.

And that was not fair to him,

like not at all.

So between all of those kind

of things together and then

it kind of leaked out into

the Tampa Bay Lightning Twitter community,

which obviously because the

way that my post looked,

it was not only a stupid thing to say,

but that the video made it

look even worse.

Anyway, and I left it up.

I know some people were

saying that I was looking

for engagement farming,

like somehow I was going to

get paid for it.

I don't get paid for Twitter at all.

So that had nothing to do with it.

But I do believe that if you

make a mistake, you need to own up to it.

And deleting it is not going

to own up to it.

especially because by the

time it would have gotten

to a point where maybe I

would have thought about deleting it,

it had already been on too many people's

Feeds,

meaning like if you make a mistake

or something like that and

only a few people have seen it,

someone calls you out, then sure,

I could see deleting it quickly and then,

you know,

putting out something saying I

deleted a post about this.

I realized I was wrong.

But by the time that that

all had kind of happened,

it was already like out the door.

So anyway,

I do just want to apologize to

John Cooper.

He did not deserve the post that I made.

And I am glad to hear that

he is genuinely a good person.

Because you know what?

We need more of those people in the NHL.

And I know there are plenty, obviously.

It's just that the people

with the worst takes are

usually the ones that are the loudest.

But I did go back and watch his apology.

And I appreciate it.

And so I just wanted to say

that right off the bat.

Now, moving on, I mean,

most of today is going to

be about playoffs in general,

in some way or another.

Minnesota Wild, not the playoffs.

And I will say, in a way, it's nice.

Now, obviously,

I would prefer to have them

in the playoffs.

Everyone wants their team in the playoffs.

Everyone wants to be able to

watch their team for as long as possible.

And so in that sense, it's not fun.

What I like is being able to

watch without having a stake in it.

I mean, obviously,

like I've made brackets.

I have a few favorite teams

that like I'd love to see go further.

But my team is not a choice anymore.

And so I can be a more objective viewer.

And also, just for me,

I can go to bed if I want

to without watching the rest of the game.

Whereas last year in the

first game of the first round,

when Dallas and Minnesota went into,

what was it?

Three overtimes.

And it was like four or five

hours of hockey.

And it was literally the

middle of the night when I

finally went to bed.

It was really great,

especially because the Wild won,

but also just tiring.

And now if I don't have a stake in it,

if I don't really...

care about either team or if

it's a game that seems like

I know what's going to

happen or is just very boring or whatever,

I can kind of go to bed

without regretting it.

But that being said, obviously,

we all want our team in the

playoffs and it'll be

interesting to see what the

Wild look like next year.

I know that they were not

blaming all of the injuries,

like the injury bug that

hit the team for how they performed,

which was really admirable of them.

But at the same time,

think of if they hadn't had

to have called up so many

AHL players to fill in the roster.

Um, it would have been a,

that doesn't say that we

would have been a shoe in for playoffs,

but I think the season

would have looked so much different.

And so next season,

it's kind of wondering what

we're going to look like that.

Obviously, we've lost Duhame to the Avs.

We've lost Dewar to the

Toronto Maple Leafs.

And so he's out once again

in the first round.

We lost Pat Maroon to the Boston Bruins.

He's still in, which is nice.

So without them,

it's going to be

interesting to see how they

reshape the bottom six, really.

But I'm interested to see.

We've got a big summer.

I know a lot of the players

are going to be working

hard to overcome some of

the problems they had last season.

And we'll just have to see.

We'll have to see how they do.

It could be a very similar

season to 23-24.

Or it could be back to kind

of how they were 22-23.

Lots of numbers.

That means seasons.

Yeah, so anyway, if you,

let me do one of my quick

little ad things.

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are buying tickets for

anything from sports,

maybe even playoff tickets to concerts,

music, events, plays, whatever,

I would love if you would

use our Ticketmaster affiliate link.

So if you are watching the video,

I have the VR code,

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I don't know why I couldn't think of that,

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Otherwise,

I will have it linked in the show notes.

If you buy through that,

we just receive a small

part of Ticketmaster's

profits as kind of the middleman,

as the salesperson in the middle.

So I would obviously

appreciate that because we

love the support.

So we're going to move on now to playoffs.

We're going to talk about the first round.

which is over the second round.

That's kind of, it's started slightly.

By the way, this is Tuesday morning.

I always like to try and

date my podcast to let

people know what I have and

have not seen in the hockey world.

That makes sense.

And I'm gonna talk about my

brackets a little bit.

So in the first round,

First of all,

thank you to the Dallas Stars.

I rarely root for you,

but when you were against

the Golden Knights, I rooted for you.

The only thing I hate is

that I would love to

continue to cheer for Jake

Ottinger specifically and

also Matt Duchesne because

I found out he's a really

stand-up guy and made a

really nice video about

for when Luke Prokop came out as gay.

And he really was just very

open about it and

publicized that he thought

that that was great and

that he wanted people to

live their authentic lives

and all of that.

Anyway, so he's a great guy.

So I would at least cheer

for those two stars specifically.

But otherwise, thank you for your service.

And we'll see you on the other side.

And let's see, Canucks,

my delusional bracket is

Vancouver Canucks all the way.

And I think I explained

because Brock Besser, Minnesota boy,

had such a rough year last year,

has been doing so much better.

I would love that for him.

I also love Quinn Hughes,

the completely melancholy

oldest daughter of the

Canucks and just in general,

I just they have kind of a fun team.

So we ended the first round.

Like I said, Canucks have moved on.

The Rangers absolutely

obliterated the Washington Capitals.

And the most interesting

part of that series was Alex Ovechkin.

He did not have any shots on

goal or I believe any shot attempts.

He literally like I feel bad

because Ovechkin, amazing player,

amazing player.

No one can say otherwise.

But he's 38 years old this year.

He's got two more years on his contract.

He's contracted through when he's 40.

And I just have to wonder.

I know he struggled at

points this year and then

he went on a tear for a while.

And I wonder if that's just

kind of how his age is

catching up with him.

He just cannot.

He's not consistent anymore.

I mean,

there are points where he would

definitely be over in his

in his office waiting on

the power play and, you know,

just standing there,

which is always very

hilarious and just nothing.

like nothing at all.

So they were completely swept.

And then I didn't know until this year,

I love the saying gentlemen sweep,

meaning one team wins four,

but they let the other team win one game.

So like they're being a

gentleman about it.

They're not going to like

totally take them out of

the running like the

Rangers did to the Capitals,

but they will just allow

them a little bit of joy in the playoffs,

which is nice.

So we had

The Oilers had a gentleman

sweep over the Kings,

which the Kings is always

interesting because we've

got Fiala and Talbot are both there.

So that's always interesting

to kind of watch how they're doing.

We had the Panthers have a

gentleman sweep over the

Tampa Bay Lightning,

which was a fun series.

And then the Carolina

Hurricanes had a gentleman

sweep over the Islanders.

The craziest thing.

Out of the first round,

the craziest matchup by far

was Boston and Toronto

because they went all seven.

They went to overtime.

I mean, it was crazy.

You had star players in and

out of the mix.

You had goalies getting injured.

There was just so much going on.

And these are two teams that

have such kind of a...

rabid fan base,

like just very dedicated

that it was so intense.

And I did like, I watched it all the way,

all of the games all the

way to the end because it

was just so entertaining.

But having that series go

for seven games is bleeding

over into the second round.

So let me explain.

We now have the Boston

Bruins going up against the

Florida Panthers and

What's interesting is Boston

only had two days between

the seventh game of the

first round in the first

game of the second round.

While the Florida Panthers

had an entire week between

their last game of the

first round and the first

game of the second round.

And I would have thought

that perhaps Florida would

have the advantage because

they had had extra rest

time if there were any

injuries and they had a

little extra time to kind

of rehab that versus the

Bruins just keep rolling.

But interestingly enough,

the Bruins won and not even

one like what was it, five, five to one,

six to one, five, one,

I think at the end they

completely ran over Florida,

just steamrolled them.

And it,

it has to mean that once hockey

players are kind of in that role,

like the season 82 games,

they're playing back to backs.

They're playing every other day.

They're playing many, you know, three,

four times every single

week for the entire year.

Um,

It's just easy enough to keep going.

Whereas even if it's only a week off,

no matter how much you practice,

you still don't have that game,

that game sense inside.

You know,

you kind of lost a little bit of

the grip of that and have to get it back.

Now, who knows how the series will go?

Perhaps Florida is going to

come roaring back and have

a big win over the Bruins next.

Who knows?

But that one has also been a

super physical.

And I think, I mean, it was one game.

The one game was very physical.

I think down the stretch,

it's going to continue to

be very physical.

And again,

that's going to be one that I'm

going to watch with a lot of interest.

So let's see.

I have two brackets that I make.

The first one is my delusional bracket.

And that's the one where I

pick the teams that I like the best.

Like vibes wise,

just maybe they have

Minnesota players that I really like,

maybe whatever.

And that's that's how I pick it.

And then the other one is my

regular bracket,

which is just where I I

take the skills and the

scores of the teams more

like the stat side of it a

little bit more into

account while I'm making it.

Not that I'm ever all about stats.

You know me, guys.

Come on.

So let's see.

My delusional bracket has

the Avalanche winning over the Knights,

which I actually had Dallas

there just because, again, vibes.

Vancouver over the Oilers.

The Bruins over Florida.

Even though, like, I don't know,

that's a hard one to pick.

I like both those teams a lot.

And the Canes over,

I had the Capitals down,

but it's the Rangers there.

And then my regular one has

the Avs over Dallas,

Vancouver over the Oilers,

the Bruins over Florida,

and the Canes over the Rangers.

So, I mean,

they actually turned out pretty

similar overall.

which is funny.

But as for my brackets, like I said,

I have two brackets and I

think I submitted each one

to like four different leagues, I guess.

This is like the first year

I've ever actually been

like somewhat serious about this.

So my delusional one right now,

I have 69 points out of a

total of 294 and I have been 75% correct.

I'm, let's see, there's at least one

I'm trying to think of which

I have two leagues for the

two places that I write and

one of them I'm second and

the other one I'm fourth out of twelve.

So not terrible, honestly,

for delusional vibes wise.

My regular bracket, on the other hand,

I have seventy three points

out of a total of three

hundred and forty eight,

which is eighty eight percent correct.

So sorry, guys,

but like the vibes and the

stats together might be

where it's at when you're

making a bracket.

who would have thunk right

um but my regular bracket

that one is the one that I

put in with my family my

family always has a league

super small but it's

usually me my brother my

mom my dad so that's four

of us and then usually like

two of my brother's friends

I think this year it's just

two so we've had more we've

had less um and I'm second

out of six in the family like by far

So and my mom,

who does go by vibes and

does not hardly ever watch

the NHL at all.

The Wild, yes,

but like nobody else and

does not pay attention to NHL news,

picked the Boston Bruins to

win the Stanley Cup.

So if everyone could just

say a quick prayer for her.

She picked them because she

likes their logo, like the Pooh Bear,

the Pooh Bear head logo.

It's her favorite.

And she would love a jersey with it.

She just doesn't have one right now.

So that's why she picked them.

I can't blame her.

You know, that's how I pick stuff, too.

OK, so I'm going to quick.

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Welcome back.

I have two more things that

I'm going to talk about right now.

First,

tonight is the draft lottery for the NHL,

where they lock in where

all of the loser teams are

going to pick in the

upcoming draft this summer.

And it appears as though

they have already leaked the

where like everybody's standings.

There was a picture that was

tweeted and then quickly deleted,

but not before people got

screen caps of it, of the board,

like on the ESPN,

like where they put the

board and the teams in order.

And Minnesota, I'm sorry,

we're staying at 13, if that's correct.

And it wasn't a guarantee

that we were gonna move up at all.

And even if we did,

we probably would have only

gotten to third, which is still great,

obviously.

But there's no way we would

get a number one draft pick.

And I think we had like a 2% chance.

So we already knew that it

wasn't going to happen.

But if this is correct,

the draft order that they

leaked in this picture,

then it looks like the San

Jose Sharks will be picking first.

The new Utah team will be picking second.

And Chicago will be picking third.

And thank God.

Because let me just say, first of all,

Chicago does not deserve

another number one pick.

They've got their number one pick.

They've got their star.

He's great.

Again, there's nothing against Bedard,

even though everyone always

wants to make something.

Bedard's great.

But with just how everything is going,

they don't deserve another

number one pick.

San Jose Sharks, on the other hand, my God,

they've been going through it, folks.

Like,

it's got to be so deflating to play

for the Sharks because you

know that the team is supposed to suck.

You know what I mean?

Because they are rebuilding.

They have just gotten rid of

pretty much anything.

player that had any value

for the past at least two years.

Before that,

I wasn't paying as much attention.

And so everyone left there.

I mean, in one sense,

you have to know if you

were a player there,

you have to know I'm

getting paid to do what I love.

And even though we're not winning,

I am still doing my dream job.

You know, I think that's probably the

Mindset that they have to go

into the season and even

just into games with because.

You can't let it get to you.

On the other hand, that's it's rough.

It's rough to be.

Like the laughingstock.

Of the hockey world, of the NHL,

especially because for the

players specifically,

it's not their fault.

You know, like they it's not their fault.

They're not the ones making

the decisions at the

organizational level.

They are simply showing up

and doing what they need to

do and playing the game.

And again, shout out to them.

This is the idea my brother

always has because I talk

frequently about how I feel

that about goalies,

like when they have a

terrible game and people score like six,

seven goals on them,

especially in the NHL,

because like they're

supposed to be really good.

But he always says, like,

I don't feel bad for him.

Like they're making money to do that.

And he does have a point.

You know, they're doing what they love.

And I'll say that if they

don't love it anymore,

I hope that they're done.

That's kind of the whole

thing with Marc-Andre Fleury.

I really enjoy that he is

coming back because at the

end of the season,

you could see how much he

still loved hockey.

He comes to work every day

excited to be there.

He loves what he does.

He is so competitive.

And I just,

I do admire that mindset from him.

And I hope that a lot of other,

especially like younger

wild players who get to see

that day in and day out,

I hope that they realize

that that is the mindset

that they need to have.

They need to make sure that

they keep that in mind,

that hockey is fun.

And they're supposed to like it.

They're supposed to like their job.

So rolling on from that,

we are getting to summer.

It is May 7th.

So we are a whole week into May.

And that is absolutely crazy

to other parents out there.

I have heard the month of

May called Maycember

because it is a month with

So many things planned,

except unlike December,

it's not cookies and like

presents and fun stuff.

I mean, it's fun stuff,

but not like Christmas fun stuff.

And everyone is busy.

I mean,

we've got staff appreciation this

week for my nationwide,

but for my school specifically,

I'm bringing in snacks.

I'm going to Culver's to get

a fundraiser meal.

I'm you know, we've got this,

that and the other thing.

I'm trying to watch hockey every night.

It is just so busy.

And at the same time,

I'm trying to make sure my

kids stay healthy for the

last couple of weeks of school.

My husband's been dealing

with just a chronic medical issue.

And so that's been putting

him out of the running.

I'm trying to deal with that.

Try to make sure my cranky

old dog has enough

attention from his mom.

And trying to figure out...

We're leaving the day after

my kids are done with

school to go up to the cabin for a week.

So I'm also trying to start

getting that in order.

I mean, it's just... May is crazy.

I actually really envy back

when I was in college.

Because I would be done with

college around the first week of May.

And then for...

my summer job I was a camp

counselor so for like three

years running and my job

didn't start for like a

month so I would literally

go home and just like hang

out for a month I mean

obviously you're not

getting paid so like that part sucks but

I'd watch some TV.

I'd read some books.

I, at one point I went up to visit, um,

my grandparents used to

have a spot where they

would put their RV at a

campground on a lake.

I went up there and just

kind of spent a week with

them and read book after book.

And we had campfires and

that's how summer should be is relaxing.

there is some summer hockey,

which is always exciting.

Obviously in Minnesota,

hockey is never over except

if you're a mini might,

because then it's very hard

to find a league,

especially one that is not

super expensive.

And I'm talking about my own

experience because my son,

he watches the hockey with

me sometimes at night and

he keeps being like, Hey,

can you sign me up for hockey again?

And I'm like, dude, I absolutely like,

Yes.

If you ask to play hockey,

the answer will always be yes.

But I have to wait till I

can find you somewhere to do it.

I mean, we'll see.

He's really good on rollerblades.

So I'm assuming kind of this summer,

the neighborhood kids will

do like roller hockey.

We had four more kids move

into the neighborhood like we are.

We have this little

neighborhood gang now of

children between ages four and like 11.

And there's a few preteens, too.

But like.

They're going to they're going to be crazy,

but summer hockey, otherwise,

I don't know if you guys

know about the Beauty League.

Which I watched every game last year,

last summer.

But I watched it on TV.

They had it on, I believe, Flow Hockey.

And it was free.

So I would watch it every

time I watched every game.

Because why not?

It's all professional athletes,

whether college level, whether that's NHL,

AHL.

like players that play in

europe and there are some

big names that come and

it's really fun they do

like a three-on-three

tournament it's not super

serious it's not super

physical because obviously

they don't want to get hurt

during the offseason um so

it's fun because it's very

offensive like very I

always hate when I say that

because it you okay moving

on um there's a lot of goals scored

So I'm excited to go to that.

I want to go in person this time.

And I've also got a few

projects on my plate.

I know I've talked about

writing a hockey romance.

I have started one.

I obviously need to get back

on the train of like just

nonfiction journalist

hockey writing because I've

gotten so far off that train.

And I do have one other

thing that kind of occurred

to me this morning.

And it's hockey related,

hockey vibes related.

But you know that feeling

where you don't want to

give it all away yet?

That's kind of where I'm at.

I want you guys to know that

I am working on something.

And I think it could be

really great and have a lot

of good potential.

but I'm just not ready.

I'm keeping it close to the vest.

I'm just not ready yet.

So anyway,

this is getting a little too long.

My editor might yell at me.

That's okay.

Okay.

Anyway,

down below is always a link to my

merch shop.

If you would like any hot

girl hockey club or her

wild side hockey podcast merch,

there's hockey mugs and

stickers and shirts and

sweatshirts and all sorts

of really awesome things.

I am looking to add more

over the summer also.

So

keep an eye out and I will let you know,

obviously.

Otherwise, yay playoffs.

Let's go round two and I

will see you all soon.