WEDNESDAY RUNDOWN: EXPANSION DRAFT DAY AND MORE!

It was Christmas for NHL fans on Wednesday but somebody dropped a big lump of coal on the proceedings! We covered it all on Episode #532 of The RP Show – Canada’s Daytime Sports Talk Show. Read on for the rundown:

• RP and Moose Dupont kicked it off with The Warmup for EECOL Electric covering these Quick Six show topics: 1) It’s NHL Expansion Draft Day for the Seattle Kraken, 2) The Kraken kicked it off by signing UFA Adam Larsson, 3) The Bucks win the NBA title with an anti-climactic Game 6 win over Phoenix, 4) Should owners be handed championship trophies before the players? (Rod says absolutely they should), 5) CFL Notes – What’s the top story in the CFL right now?, and 6) NFL Notes – Training camps open next week.
• Freelance reporter Frank Seravelli stole all the thunder on Expansion Draft Day, with an assist from TSN’s Pierre Lebrun, by scooping almost all of Seattle’s picks before 11 am ET. Our panel wondered how the NHL and ESPN would feel about this? And who’s responsible? Rod felt they’d have wanted to keep it all under wraps until the huge TV special at 8:00 pm ET.
• Provincial mens curling champ Matt Dunstone and Dustin Mikush joined the show to announce an April Super Spiel called Best of The West featuring the top Under-30 aged curlers from across Western Canada to be held in Regina.
• The daily Capital Auto Mall/Universal Collision Centre poll question was: Should owners be handed championship trophies before the players? At press time over 90% of respondents said no.
• In the Hour 2 Second Half Kickoff, we debated Seattle’s picks and viewers were eager to know Rod’s thoughts on how Jordan Eberle would feel to be leaving the Islanders? Several viewers wrote in with CFL-related questions regarding attendance, live streams and the like but Rod said they’d have to contact the teams directly.
• Sports Radio 950 KJR Seattle’s Ian Furness joined the show to breakdown the Kraken’s picks and admitted there were several “head-scratchers”. Furness said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman would be furious with the leak of the picks and said it serves ESPN right! He feels Seattle will be a great hockey market and they may be more patient with a losing team out of the gate, however winning solves everything. Ian – the former Voice of the Seattle Thunderbirds and Tri-City Americans – revealed that Seattle is in line to get an NBA expansion team so the Kraken will have some competition in a few years.
• New Saskatoon Blades coach Brennan Sonne joined the show from Sasktel Centre. He’s the 18th coach in Blades history and was introduced Wednesday morning. He said he’s proud to takeover such an historic franchise and feels Mitch Love has left the club in great shape.
• Wednesday’s show is available for viewing now on our Facebook/YouTube pages, you can catch the replay at 4:00 pm ET on Game+ TV, you can listen to the podcast by clicking on the CONTENT tab at the top of this page or listen anytime to our 24-hour live audio feed at RodPedersen.com/ListenLive.
• See you at 12 pm ET/10 am MT on Thursday on Game+ TV Network and YouTube/Facebook Live. On the guest list are TSN’s Craig Button and Sportsnet Flames’ Ryan Leslie!