Podcast Ombudsman Report for Blueshirt Bandwidth Ep. 73

Welcome back to the Blueshirt Bandwidth Podcast Ombudsman Report. Each week, Charlie Vidal will listen to the latest episode of the podcast and correct the record on anything Joe and Eric get wrong. If you aren't already, you can listen and subscribe to the podcast here.

Canadian Fans

When discussing the Team USA overtime victory over Team Canada in the women’s gold medal game at the 2026 Milan Olympics, Joe mentioned an embarrassing tweet by Team Canada. I still can’t believe that they tweeted this:

Considering how much whining Canadians have done in week since their losses, let’s watch Canadian fans enjoy the other golden goal:  

Episode 73

This was declared the Matt Rempe "good vibes" episode. For all of Rempe’s “good vibes,” when he was on the New York Rangers roster during the 2024 postseason run, he recorded only a single assist in 67:20 of total ice time across 11 games, while not playing more than 8:33 in any game that ended in regulation. He did manage to have 38 hits and four blocked shots.

Women’s Gold

Eric and Joe are apparently not well versed in the success of the United States women’s hockey team. Since women’s hockey was introduced in 1998, they have won gold in the inaugural 1998 tournament and in 2018:

Gold Medal Game

The episode referenced how Team Canada outplayed Team USA in the gold medal game. In fact, Canada severely out-chanced Team USA by a margin of almost two-to-one:

Team USA Overtime Winners

Eric said that Team USA (different versions) scored four golden goals in a year’s time. It’s actually in 14 months, because the final of the World Junior Championships are always on Jan. 5. Here are the videos of all four golden goals:

Teddy Stiga’s goal to win the 2025 World Junior Championships

Tage Thompson’s goal to win the 2025 World Championships

Megan Keller’s goal to win the 2026 Women’s Olympic gold medal

Jack Hughes’s goal to win the 2026 Men’s Olympic gold medal

NHL Olympics

Joe and Eric couldn’t seem to remember how long it has been since the NHL had players in the Olympics, and when Henrik Lundqvist won the gold medal.

The NHL has now sent players six Olympic games: 1998 (Nagano), 2002 (Salt Lake City), 2006 (Torino), 2010 (Vancouver), and 2014 (Sochi).

Henrik Lundqvist led Sweden to the gold medal during his rookie season in February 2006, beating Jaromir Jagr’s Czech team in the seimfinals to win the only Olympic tournament including NHL players that featured neither Team USA nor Team Canada in the medal round.

Canada Five-On-Three

While Jon Cooper is complaining that three-on-three isn’t real hockey, Canada had a chance to score against only three American defenders with five skaters on the ice. Not only was Team USA down to only three skaters, two of them were Vincent Trocheck and J.T. Miller. After Dylan Larkin and Brock Nelson killed almost a minute of the power play with two clears, Trocheck and Miller came out against Cale Makar, Connor McDavid, Macklin Celebrini, Sam Reinhart, and Nathan Mackinnon.

Fun fact: The 1:43 two-man advantage was two seconds longer than the three-on-three overtime.

First Time?

Rangers fans are used to a team with Mike Sullivan behind the bench going into a defensive shell with a lead in a huge game, as the Banter Twitter account reminded you during Team USA’s 4 Nations Face-Off win over Team Canada last year:

16 Seeds

There have actually been two 16 seeds to win a game in the NCAA Tournament. In 2019, University of Maryland–Baltimore County shocked Virginia to become the first 16 seed to ever win a game:

In 2023, Purdue lost to Fairleigh Dickinson:

Curiously, both one seeds that lost to a 16 seed made the National Championship game the following season, with Virginia winning their only championship in 2019 and Purdue running into the buzzsaw that was the 2024 UConn Huskies, losing in the final.

Adam Fox Leaving

“If you’re Adam Fox and you hear this, how do you not take this as an F-You?”

The evening after this podcast dropped, Adam Fox sounded fairly noncommittal about staying with the Rangers:

Herb Brooks

The story of Herb Brooks’s dad telling him that the 1960 Olympic team cut the right player is one that has been told by Brooks himself, saying “My dad said 'Coach Riley cut the right guy, didn't he?' So, that is the truth”

Olympics Performance of Miller

Joe said that J.T. Miller was “Playing two levels above in the Olympics like I f-ing said he was going to.”

While the puck somehow stayed out of the net while J.T. Miller was on the ice, he was bad in the Olympics, playing at a points percentage clip of only 15 percent:

Trocheck, on the other hand, was pretty good adn played the role that he was asked to play pretty well:

Philosophers Trey Parker and Matt Stone

Finally, Eric concluded the episode discussing the creators’ of South Park’s contribution to patriotic playlists everywhere:

But in the spirit of ripping on Canada, let us not forget their earlier work: