The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Greg Cote's Catchphrase Countdown Reaches The Top 20 | Hour 2
28 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What happened in the Eastern Conference Final for the Canadiens?
This is the Dan Levitar Show with the Stukas Podcast.
We root for America. You root for the best story. You root for the underdog. You root for the Canadian. Put it in the club. You root for the Canadian team.
What was that word? Put it in the club. Oh my.
I don't know how you guys felt about watching what happened in hockey last night, but at this point, I really do feel that it is cruel what America does to Canada's proudest teams when it comes to winning the championship. I cannot imagine.
How anybody who cares about hockey in Canada would feel in terms of the height of angry that this year you're looking at Vegas and Carolina on the sport they invented and to get squashed out like that at home where when they come out of the locker room, you know they're done at home. Just cruel.
I just want to keep it like it was Florida and Vegas four years ago. So it was probably the same reaction.
Yeah, I said after Game 3, with Game 4 being in Montreal and the Canadiens down two games to one, I don't think I've ever felt a series being over more than I did at 2-1 than this series at just 2-1. Montreal has nothing for Carolina. It's the second straight game, and including overtime in the last game, Second straight game that Montreal had no shots in the third period.
Like, Carolina suffocates them. And really just throughout the game, like, they have no shot attempts, Montreal. You're watching knowing they have no chance.
Plus, they had played 18 games so far in these playoffs. Two series have gone to seven games. And they played multiple overtime games, as Zaslow said. And mostly every game, they have had just about 15 to 20 shots on goal.
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Chapter 2: What are the issues with NBA officiating discussed in the episode?
These people think they invented hockey. To watch these two teams take the sport from them, I'm saying emotionally cruel to people who care about hockey. Something that would be prosecuted if it was done by a criminal. You're doing that tone again.
But it's awesome now. Get them, Dan. Go. Get them.
I just felt bad for Montreal. They care so much about hockey. Vegas and Carolina. Vegas and the cheap guy. All right. Tortorella and the cheap guy.
I just want to laugh at them. It's hilarious. I mean, I know people, you know, general public doesn't necessarily care about this stuff. But you want to talk about, like, ratings-wise and how many people are going to watch. Carolina-Vegas is going to do very poor.
Chapter 3: How do fans feel about Tony Brothers as a referee?
It'd be like if all the SEC teams just, like, stopped winning.
Yeah, but I also don't think that's fair because we have inundated our audience with two years of Panthers talk they did not want. And Florida was doing that to the entire sport. And ratings, I mean, Montreal is crushed today. Like wherever it is that regions get crushed across the path here, like wherever it is we've been watching playoff stuff,
Maybe Boston, maybe the Celtics, the way it went out in the first round, in terms of what a city does and feels around its regional identity. The Montreal Canadiens choked out like that at the end of the season. I'm not kidding. Cruel to Canada.
I think Montreal is crushed but not surprised. I mean, Carolina was the favorite in this series. They've had this kind of a disappointment since 1993. They're used to it by now, right? I mean, they just lost the gold medal to the United States. I mean, they have to be getting over the fact that, look, we're not winning right now. Now, what Canada would say is that
half of the roster on every team is Canadian. It's not like Canada still doesn't run the NHL in a way, but their teams from their country are just snakebit. They just can't win.
I don't remember. When's the last time a Canadian team won the championship? 1993. Canadian team. All right, so sorry I didn't listen to you on that. Roy, a watch party on Friday night, a live stream you guys are doing as part. Are we doing one of those for the basketball finals? Yes, sir.
Are we doing that? Tonight, you can catch us live on the Levitard Show YouTube page, man. Me, my sister, and my brother, we live tonight, man.
I forgot to tell you, Juju, I have to do that from the phone.
All good. All good.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of the Stick in the Toy Hall of Fame?
Yeah.
Perfect timing. Good deflection.
I don't need to take a quiz. It's still a no-hitter.
No, it isn't.
Were there any hits?
Were there any complete games?
Nobody is saying there were. The game was completed.
Yeah, by myriad pitchers. That's the problem with baseball. Lean back. That's the problem with baseball now.
Did you forget? You forgot there was a microphone.
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Chapter 5: What are the arguments for and against the inclusion of the Stick?
The basketball the last couple of nights, okay? We'll catch raises later. We will get to them. We'll get to them. The basketball. the officiating i'd really really dislike where we've arrived which is You really can't actually officiate the game perfectly. It's pretty impossible. And so the commissioner can say the officiating's great, and we're all gonna say that it stinks.
And the conversation problem that this league has about its officiating, when I think everyone is too good now, whether it's James Harden or Shea or anybody who can get fouls, they've gamed the system so they can trick all the referees all the time, and we're saying you shouldn't flop like that, and we're saying the referees should be better. It's not possible.
Everything out there is moving way too fast. And however we officiated things in the past, it doesn't work anymore. It's not something that can work.
And so I really did want to ask you before we get into the basketball of it, if we're already doing driverless cars and everything else, and we're already headed down the very infant part of you can do two challenges here, as we perfect the technology and officiating better, can you guys foresee a day where this is all computerized? I'm not even kidding.
where the officiating is all something that is done with however it is that technology advances because we can't allow human error this much anymore in games that people are gambling on and the point differences matter and you can't be out there fooling the referees all the time with how you're playing basketball.
I think fans, I think there's an element of watching sport that fans like being able to either blame or yell at the officials. I think it's part of the game. I'm having a great experience watching these NBA playoffs with my 14-year-old son. He's really into it now, and mainly because of Wemba Nyama. He transcends, and he brings in a new audience, and my son is now one of those.
And so every night I'm watching these games. I woke my son up this morning to get ready for school. I was like, hey, man. you think the Spurs can force a game seven tonight? And he goes, as long as Tony Brothers isn't refereeing. Like, which is, I mean, come on. Tony, that's elite ball knowledge, right? That's awesome. I love that. Does he know that it's Scott Foster, the extender, though?
He hasn't learned about Scott Foster yet. But last game, game five, he learned about Tony Brothers. All right. So he's very angry at Tony Brothers. Does not want this. Last night, my son was saying, if the series gets to game seven, is it possible Tony Brothers is the referee for that game again? He was asking, do the referees work every game? And I was like, no, no, no. It's a different referee.
It could be Tony Brothers in game seven.
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Chapter 6: What is the controversy surrounding flopping in the NBA?
Correct. So if all of that is what you're entertaining at the starting point, can you give me a date where you can imagine? I mean, we got it in tennis. They overturn everything like that.
Like, is there a date off in the future where we can get this stuff so much better that this isn't the stupidity around the conversation as I'm trying to watch the world's most majestic athletes in some 7-3, dude, and I'm talking about Tony Brothers, and I'm raising a generation that's talking about Tony Brothers.
I told this to the crew in the back and Juju doesn't think it's happening anytime soon and my timeline is 2100. Little tiny nodes all over the body or in your jersey and you can feel the amount of force that the defender is putting on the player to know whether they have flopped or whether that was a true push. 2,100.
So the way that we have a sound meter for like, let's make it loud in here, and that thing moves, I can see how hard the foul was up on the board. But realistically, they just needed to get it together, man. I think we bailing them out by saying, damn, it's not possible. It is possible to improve.
The same way it was possible to improve on Josh Allen's first down spotting whenever they got eliminated. No point intended, but, bruh. We see it's across the line and a referee is running this way and spotting it. And even their new improved rule is, oh, we got the eye in the sky going to go where the ball was. No, it's where they spotted the ball.
So I think that we just need to hold these referees a little bit more accountable.
Yeah, but why are we demanding perfection in our officiating? right athletes strike out they commit bad errors in every sport i agree human fallibility is accepted as a part of sports but we don't tolerate it with officiating i don't understand that i think sports should do one of the other you either go all in Like everything is ABS, everything is reviewable, everything is electronic.
You go all in or you go all in on the human side. You throw up a middle finger to AI and everything about it and you say... I don't think I'm absurd when I say there are too many dollars at risk.
They're going to figure out how to fix this. You can't have the commissioner of the league lying to everybody saying our officiating is fantastic when it's obviously not. When so many of the conversations after all of these really important games are... Well, Tony Brothers, you say juju. When you're out here saying... We've got to hold the referees more accountable.
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Chapter 7: How does technology impact officiating in sports?
Just wrong.
Was that a charter inductee? When did that start?
Put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Is the stick overrated? And also put it on the poll at Levitard Show. Should the stick be in the Toy Hall of Fame? No one is voting yes to that.
It probably got the lifetime achievement thing where it doesn't actually get voted. You know how sometimes they put a legend in that actually didn't get voted in? That's the stick.
Okay. No. Stick's got to be there. The stick begins the toy thing. Without a stick, Monopoly wouldn't exist without the stick because it's a domino effect. One stick leads to the other.
The fart began comedy. You put that in the Hall of Fame?
Yeah, I think so.
I'll bet the whoopee cushion's in. Yes, yep, the whoopee cushion. Whoopee cushion's funny as hell, Dan. Damn right it is. What came first, the stick or the rock?
As a toy? The rock, I bet you, is not in the Toy Hall of Fame. Dwayne Johnson?
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