The Punchline
March 4, 2021 5:26 PM   Subscribe

John Scott (previously) was a hockey player in the NHL. He wasn't a particularly skilled player, no he was a goon. As a joke some people started an internet campaign to get him in the All-Star Game. The league tried their best to prevent him from going but he went and ended up being the game MVP. Here's how it all went down in his own words.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm (33 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
This episode had me absolutely riveted, and I'm not even a hockey fan.
posted by BlahLaLa at 5:30 PM on March 4, 2021 [6 favorites]


Yeah I caught part of this on the radio on my way home from work and I stayed in the car when I got home for a good 10-15 minutes listening to it, only leaving when I found the Radiolab link and knew I'd be able to continue listening inside.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:36 PM on March 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


I've just sent this to a bunch of friends of mine who all love sport, with the message HOW GOOD IS SPORT
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:52 PM on March 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


I'm reading the transcript. "Don Sherry"... [appreciative chuckle]
posted by clawsoon at 6:00 PM on March 4, 2021 [3 favorites]


in related: Goon (2011) is a pretty good film, worth a view. The sequel (2017) is good too.
I haven't seen Broad Street Bullies (2010), but it's on my list...
The classic old-style goon-hockey film (with a script by Nancy Dowd) is Slap Shot! (1977) (very entertaining, but caveat 70s-style foul language)
posted by ovvl at 6:56 PM on March 4, 2021 [5 favorites]


John Scott apparently also almost died last year falling through ice in a frozen lake. Luckily, he made it out alive (https://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2019/01/18/friday-hot-clicks-nhl-john-scott-frozen-lake). This guy must have great luck.
posted by ichimunki at 7:03 PM on March 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


I’m not a fan of goon culture in the NHL, but I still love this story.
posted by meinvt at 7:11 PM on March 4, 2021


MeFi thread from back in the day.
posted by nubs at 8:01 PM on March 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


Thanks, nubs, though I am saddened by all the link-rot in just five years.
posted by meinvt at 8:22 PM on March 4, 2021


It's kind of like the teeth of hockey players.
posted by nubs at 9:20 PM on March 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


The picture for the Reddit subreddit r/hawwkey is John Scott and his daughter at the NHL All Star game. It's charming.
posted by blob at 9:54 PM on March 4, 2021 [3 favorites]


My cousin played in the NHL (8 whole games) and was a definitely a goon (he had a 409 penalty minute season in the IHL), so this story definitely hits close to home. In looking up my cousin's stats I even found an interview someone did with him a few years ago so that was nice.
posted by cirhosis at 10:17 PM on March 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


Seattle Kraken, fuck yeah!

Let's do that Hockey...
posted by Windopaene at 10:25 PM on March 4, 2021


It started out a little mean-spirited, but damn if it didn't end up an awesome tale. (The real life story, not the Radiolab piece.) John Scott wrote two articles in the Player's Tribune that are good reads; one before the All-Star game, and one when he retired at the end of the season.
posted by Superilla at 11:45 PM on March 4, 2021 [3 favorites]


When this event was happening, some people (including on the Blue) emphasized the "mean-spirited" way in which it began. The importance of the post up top is that it records that asshole prankishness and then the original pranksters coming to terms with what they have done. Did they hurt John Scott? At different times he seems to have thought so, but overall he is the hero of this tale, EveryMan who defeats the establishment. I wear my John Scott "Love from the Captain" T-shirt with pride. He exhibits the kind of class you want public figures to possess.
And, I want to add, his wife and marriage sound awesome.
posted by CCBC at 2:06 AM on March 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


I didn't expect the most famous NHL goon to be a mechanical engineer married to a biomedical engineer.
posted by clawsoon at 3:53 AM on March 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


I think one of my favorite moments of that game was the cheering every time Scott was visible, and the booing any time Patrick Kane was visible. (Kane was in the middle of some sexual assault allegations at the time.) It felt like things were right with the world, a good guy being celebrated at the same time one of the "future of hockey" players was being called out for being a trash human.
posted by librarianamy at 6:29 AM on March 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


You know what they call the worst player in the NHL All-Star Tournament?

All-Star.
posted by notoriety public at 7:40 AM on March 5, 2021 [4 favorites]


"and I'm not even a hockey fan"

Are you sure tho
posted by elkevelvet at 10:01 AM on March 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


Goons police pests, so there’s an argument to be made for them. I don’t buy it altogether but it coheres somewhat, so I think it deserves airing, if only to answer the question of why such a decent sounding guy would do that sort of thing. Goons protect the skills players from cheap shots and dirty sticks, which can end careers.
posted by mahorn at 11:47 AM on March 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


mahorn, you may be interested in watching The Code, from 2010, which examines the role of fighting and the enforcer in hockey from the perspectives of many of the enforcers. It came out after the death of Don Sanderson after a hockey fight. The first two interviews touch on why some of them choose that route.


I personally think the "Code" is bullshit, for a variety of reasons, but it is worth hearing from the guys who lived that life and why.
posted by nubs at 12:52 PM on March 5, 2021


They explain it somewhat in the podcast about how the goons are there to let the pests know that there'll be repercussions if they take too many liberties with the skill players. Also on how Scott ended up becoming a goon. Of course they could also get rid of pests by just penalizing them and their team when they do take liberties and then without pests the goons would just disappear on their own. Maybe this has already happened, I haven't watched a hockey game in a good 10-15 years.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:08 PM on March 5, 2021


Thanks for the post. I'm a hockey fan so I knew the story but still really enjoyed the podcast. I would say that you can't make up how things turned out in the actual game except for the way that it seems so much more like a sports movie than a thing that happened in real life. I mean, the dude scored on a breakaway.

Here are the highlights from the game.
posted by GalaxieFiveHundred at 1:42 PM on March 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


If you’re reading the transcript and want to skip the interminable Radiolab host intro chitchat, search for “Nasser”.
posted by zamboni at 3:54 PM on March 5, 2021


I'm not that far into this, but if the guy was so bad at hockey, he still made a normal team, right?
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:39 PM on March 5, 2021


Okay, I just finished this and oh man, I'm so MAD on his behalf and yet he showed the SHIT out of them!
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:50 PM on March 5, 2021


Hit Somebody is a classic in the genre of goon studies.

Thanks for this post I somehow missed this story back in 2015. As an occasional hockey fan I appreciate the meta-game of enforcers but the fans cheering for fights always turned my stomach.
posted by muddgirl at 11:36 PM on March 5, 2021


Goons don't really exist anymore; certainly not in the old-school enforcer mode.
Five years before John Scott played in the NHL, in 2003-04, the 30 most penalized players got 5109 minutes in penalties, and only 345 points; 14.8 penalties per point. (A point is scoring a goal or a assisting on a goal; it's the most common measure of offense.)

In 2008-09, John Scott's first year in the NHL, the 30 most penalized players accrued 4798 minutes in penalties and 567 points; 8.5 penalty minutes per points.

By 2015-16, his final year in the NHL, the top 30 most penalized players had 3331 minutes in penalties, and 744 points; 4.5 penalty minutes per point.

The most recent full-length season, 2018-19, the top 30 most penalized players had 2689 penalty minutes and 977 points, 2.8 penalty minutes per point. Compared with 15 years earlier, that's barely half as many penalties and three times as many points scored by the most penalized guys in the league.

Per the barbarians who track hockey fights, in the most recent full-length season 17% of games had a fight; the most frequent fighters fought six times. In John Scott's last year in the league, 27% of games had a fight, there were 23 guys with more than six fights, the leader was Cody Macleod with 19 fights. In his first year, 41% of games had a fight, there were 62 guys with more than six fights; Zack Stortini fought 25 times that season.

The game has sped up, and teams can't afford to carry someone who has no skills other than fighting. That doesn't mean there aren't pests, and jerks, and the occasional scuffle, but the pure enforcer is as gone as the guys who would play helmetless and smoke a dart between periods.
posted by Superilla at 1:07 AM on March 6, 2021 [4 favorites]


I agree this story reflects the end of an era and the tensions between long-time fans and what the NHL saw as the future of the game. I would love a longer form article on the NHL modernizing hockey, for lack of a better word. I clearly remember when AHL refs started breaking up fights in 2014, in advance of tougher restrictions.
posted by muddgirl at 7:08 AM on March 6, 2021


On the other hand, it presents a beautiful swan song for the end of that era. It’s an era which deserved ending, but there is grace in ending it with a story like this.
posted by notoriety public at 8:56 AM on March 6, 2021 [4 favorites]


I don't disagree, as I said in a previous comment the fans thirst for bloody, teeth-flying knockdown fights disgusted me when I started going to AHL games in 2006.
posted by muddgirl at 9:43 AM on March 6, 2021


I've chased this story down today, just in love with it. Here is this great person, really a gentle giant, in the role of enforcer. Because the story-line is so beautiful -- it really is beautiful -- it helped me to not think about many other stories which aren't maybe as beautiful.

Such as the story of Derek Boogaard. Another goon, just as good a person as John Scott but a person whose luck didn't run as good as Scott's luck, and I think didn't have near as good genetics to handle the line of work they were in. (It's like Scott was absolutely designed and manufactured to do the work and yet somehow still get out and take care of his beautiful wife and children. Scott was truly The Terminator.)

I followed down this story over pieces of yesterday and today, and enjoyed it so much. But I ended up watching that NYT youtube docu on Boogaard's life -- and death -- which I linked above. To keep everything in perspective for myself.

I do not watch football, nor hockey. So few make it out with their body intact, so few make it out with their brain intact. These young men are paid millions to get our aggression channeled through them, but no amount of money is worth what they trade for it. They literally are trading tomorrow for today -- a glorious today for a hideous tomorrow.

I allowed myself the guilty pleasure of following this story down. It is The Hollywood VersionTM of a hit-mans life, replete with money, beautiful wife and children, and Scott seems to have not suffered what most men suffer in his role.

Following down just that one story is like a weekends drinking and drugging without having to suffer the hangover.

But it doesn't work that way.

That is not Real LifeTM.

I'm glad for Scott that he isn't suffering the hangover.

I won't support those "sports" because I know that many people are lost in the hangover -- our hangover, the one they suffer so we can vicariously live through the ecstasy of their drinking and drugging -- I won't support these "sports" because so many people are lost in our hangover.
posted by dancestoblue at 3:06 PM on March 6, 2021 [1 favorite]


Comical -- I hadn't refreshed my screen since starting on that comment last night and in the interim are all of your comments stating more clearly what bothered me about it. I'd pull the plug on my comment if I could...
posted by dancestoblue at 3:22 PM on March 6, 2021


« Older Being a cyborg is cool right now, but using a...   |   On Looking Closely Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments