DL345: Skeets! Plus Rooting in Two-Team Cities, Torii Hunter vs. “Imposters” & How Spellcheck Can Help Your Next Internet Hoax

JE Skeets joins the show to talk about The Basketball Jones and the move for the entire crew – Skeets, Tas, JD and Matt – over to The Score. It’s an incredible situation for them, and as we’ve stated before, we could not be happier for the crazy Canadians.

But first…Skeets was in the hospital getting his severely sprained ankle looked at, which leads to a conversation about the waiting room happenings, including a homeless guy in a wheelchair who asked for a bite of Skeets’ sandwich. Why isn’t this a reality show? Like Cops, with freak injuries and blurred out faces of horrified people in the ER waiting room just looking to get a few stitches. If it is, I need to find this show.

Turns out, Skeets loves the idea, and hospitals in general. He actually had a PAPER ROUTE inside a hospital when he was a kid. INSIDE A HOSPITAL.

Okay, onto the Jones. We discuss the swanky new set, and how long it will take for one of their friends to start showing up every day, standing outside the enormous city street-view windows with signs making fun of them. Three days in and I’m shocked it hasn’t happened yet. We also discuss the potential changes he expects now that they are part of The Score. Will we get more comedy bits in addition to the daily show (and rumored weekly audio-interview show)? Is he at all concerned that he’ll need to be more of a comedian now that they’ll (possibly) be expected to come up with more funny bits? Oh, and of course, when’s the TV time gonna start?

We also talk about his departure from Yahoo, and if he’s concerned that he went from one of the most trafficked basketball blogs in America to relative anonymity in the States working for a Canadian TV company. Sure fans of the Jones will still go, but what about the Yahoo traffic that would watch the show’s embed? What about his itch to blog? Will that be part of the gig at The Score? And — his words — how stupid is he to leave Yahoo?

But there’s a flip side. How stupid is Yahoo — my words — for letting him go? Why does The Score see the value in the future of podcasts like The Jones, but Yahoo didn’t? This leads to a brief and hopefully not haughty conversation about the future of our little industry and how it fits with MSM sites.

Congrats again to the Jones. Yahoo’s loss is Canada’s gain.

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Nick and I discuss the victory by Team USA over the Canadians in what had to be the most intense first-round matchup I can remember. That was the greatest All-Star game I’ve ever seen (and yes, I understand that the likes of Ovechckin, Malkin, et al were not involved). Can a game like that restore my interest in the NHL? It sure can’t hurt.

There’s a lot more we discuss about the game, including all the references by NBC people to the Miracle on Ice this week — including last night — but the lasting image I have is Martin Brodeur failing. And that makes me smile. Nick points out that the combination of the United States beating Crosby and Brodeur in the same game is maybe the best scenario ever.

We also take a look at the Olympic bracket to realize just how tough Canada has it now. By my view of it, they’ll have to beat Germany and then face Russia AND Sweden just to get to the Gold Medal Game. Yeesh.

Hosers.

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