Dan Bernstein (37:21)
And what Jason told me was it's fanfic. This came out of fan fiction regarding Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. It's completely. That's why. That's why one is American, one is Russian. They're drafted one, two. That this was just something they kind of created where the illusions are supposed to be obvious, but it's not real. It's not based in truth, it's not a true story, but it's just fanfic and it's supposed to be. Apparently the guy who plays Rozanoff is an actor named Connor Story, and Russian people thought he was Russian because there are so many scenes and lines that have to be delivered. There's full monologues he gives in Russian that are subtitled conversations that he has with family and friends in Russian. It is apparently so accentless, like Muscovite Russian. Perfect. That actual Russians didn't realize this kid was from Texas. Oh. And it's like I say, I haven't seen it, and I'm bringing it up for a reason. Okay. And the reason I'm bringing it up is it's starting to get some traction now. It is so popular in certain circles, I guess, apparently. Like, how are they. Like, Beth and her friends from SoulCycle are all so into it that they're talking to each other and they're, like, messaging each other about every episode. And there's. I think they're already making plans that there's going to be, like, she and her friends are doing a group in the Pride Parade or they're going with either Chicago Gay Hockey or Pride tape or something because of this show. And they're. That the NHL itself has taken notice of it. And if. If somewhere you're thinking, wait a second, here are. This doesn't seem right. Or this seems a little at odds with what I remember some things going on in the NHL. Aha. You're right. So let me take you back a little bit about why this means something to me. Why the NHL and their relationship to LGBTQ is important to me. And they've always been. They were. The NHL was for a long time ahead of other leagues in outreach, Pride nights, inclusion. For a while, they were doing a really good job. As atavistic and backwards as hockey culture can be, it was. The internationalization of it, in a way, was more helpful. It was just. Hockey was just nicer than other sports in that regard. And it was. It hit home because when Jason got involved in hockey, one of his first coaches, maybe his most formative coach, the coach that actually helped him make the transition to goalie and was really supportive of that and helpful and helped guide him deciding to become a goaltender, is a young man, a great guy who was. Is openly gay. And it was just it was never a big deal. He would be there with his husband and their kids. And one of the kids was Jason's teammate at games. And it was just, you know, it just was. And they didn't really think about it because the kids were too young to know any differently. They didn't care. They didn't know that it was in any way controversial in hockey or so. And this was when they were like 8, 7 and 8. From the second year of mites into first year squirts. I think it was the squirt team that he coached, that first year squirt team. And it was also one of their spring coaches and they coached him again in peewees. So when Jason got older for his bar mitzvah, his service project was to raise awareness for inclusion in hockey. And it was awesome. And they did an exhibition game in Skokie with all of his friends. And we had Pride tape involved, which is the rainbow hockey tape called Pride Tape. They sent us boxes, rolls and rolls and rolls of Pride Tape. And they were involved. The youe Can Play organization sent a representative there and we did a whole hashtags on social media and tried to drive all the hashtagging at the time. There's pictures still on Twitter, I'm sure. We marched that year in the Pride parade with you Can Play and with Pride Tape in their group wearing our McFetridge uniforms. And he, you know, and teammates and everybody. And that was. That was kind of the thing. Everybody was awesome. And the Blackhawks sent a guy, you know, Adam Roguen from the Blackhawks. And it was good man, Adam Roguen. Oh, great dude. And they sent. Why can't I remember the hockey player he was on the Hawks, Stan Makita. No, it was a third line guy. He was awesome. I'll remember it. And it was just. It was a great day, great thing. And what happened was recently the NHL has faced some blowback, largely, interestingly enough, from Russian players and players who were doing the stupid homophobic baseball thing. Like, my religion says I can't support this. Like all those jack offs on the Tampa Bay Rays, you know, Clayton Kershaw, who had to write the Bible verse next to the rainbow about taking back the rainbow from the horrible gays. You know, all these. All of these brutes that decided to do that because, well, my religion in Russia, we can't do this because Putin will send people after us. So the NHL, of course, not having any balls. The NHL relented and said, well, no more. We can do Pride Nights. But no More special jerseys or sweaters or anything during the warmup skate, because that's where people were doing it. They then got rid of pride tape to remember that. And the NHL said, no pride tape. And some players said, hell with you. What are you going to do? Suspend me? And they put pride tape on their sticks. Connor Bedard, I think was one of them. And then the NHL relented and said, well, okay, I guess you could put pride tape on your stick. So when the pendulum started to swing back because the NHL got scared and they were scared of homophobes and they were scared of hateful, loud people and it sucked and we called them out. So NHL now, now this show heated rivalry is getting really popular.
