Blueshirt Bandwidth Ombudsman Report

Podcast Ombudsman Report for Blueshirt Bandwidth Ep. 54

Introducing “The Blueshirt Bandwidth Ombudsman Report”: Charlie Vidal officially joins the team to tell Joe and Eric everything they got wrong—and he’s not holding back.

Charlie Vidal

23 Oct 2025 — 3 min read

Photo by Jonathan Velasquez / Unsplash

Editor's Note: Every week, for about as long as Joe and I have been doing the Blueshirt Bandwidth podcast, my friend Charlie will text me as he listens to the episode, noting everything that Joe and I got wrong. Since Charlie was already performing the role of ombudsman, we decided to make it official and publish those reports here. I hope you all enjoy someone (else) telling us what we get wrong every week. Who am I kidding? I know you will. – Eric

Jerseys

Eric’s Brian Leetch jersey was customized by Classic Vintage Jerseys (@classic_vintage_jerseys on Instagram). I've had him make numerous custom jerseys for me including two USA Olympic jerseys.

Mikey Anderson

Mikey Anderson, who Joe mentioned was Gavrikov’s primary defensive partner last year, is a good NHL defenseman (71% WAR per JFresh).

Anderson would be the Rangers third best defenseman this season behind Fox and Gavirkov (76% WAR per JFresh).

He is not Adam Fox (100% WAR per JFresh) because you can count the number of defensemen better than Adam Fox on one hand (this is a statement of fact, not an opinion).

Vincent Trocheck

Eric and Joe were apoplectic as to why Vincent Trocheck had not been placed on LTIR to create cap space to call up reinforcements. He was placed on LTIR on Wednesday, Oct. 15.

Score a Goal

Throughout the pod, Eric was insistent that the New York Rangers would score against the Oilers. They did not.

Game 15

Eric wants to wait until game 15 to cast judgement about the hockey team and Joe wants to wait until game 15 to cast judgement about the broadcast teams. Game 15 will be on Saturday, Nov. 8 against the New York Islanders. There will be another game on Monday night, Nov. 10, before Eric and Joe record the “Game 15 Judgements” episode, to be released on Thursday, Nov. 13.

Broadcast Team

Dave Maloney worked better on radio than on TV because he is an unabashed homer who has blatantly rooted and cheered for the Rangers on air. At times last season, it felt like Dave was the only person in the organization who actually gave a shit about how atrociously the team was playing when they quit for six weeks. That works much better on the radio feed, because anybody listening to hockey on the radio is an obsessed sicko who feels just like Dave does about the team. It doesn’t necessarily translate well to TV where there is a combination of more casual fans and people who got the Knicks schedule mixed up. I don’t have any complaints about Dave on TV so far this season, and am willing to give him until the New Year (unlike certain people who want to jump to conclusions after a mere 15 games) to cast judgement.

Like Joe, I grew up in New York and have memories of listening to Kenny call games on the radio. The fact that he’s done so much national TV (such as doing the entire Rangers/Hurricanes series including Kreider’s hat trick) makes me more used to hearing him call games on TV.

Alex Faust was great filling in for Kenny on the radio last year. Last week he replaced Bob Costas as the play-by-play announcer on TNT’s second team for the Brewers vs. Cubs NLDS series, and sounded like he was actually calling playoff baseball as opposed to reciting poetry.