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.
If you scroll, scroll, scroll,
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,
up on,
I don't know why I couldn't think of that,
up on the screen.
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.