60 Seconds of Silence in a Roaring Arena
Alex Ovechkin ties (and surpasses) the Great One, torpedo bats and a quick note on Duke
Welcome back!
It only took one week, but this newsletter has changed the way I consume sports. I’ve found myself taking an extra moment to really think about things from all corners of the sports world, not just the ones I pay especially close attention to.
Tushies. Torpedo bats. Total collapses. And Alex Ovechkin. This is the only place you’ll get that dynamic of a foursome. Let’s dive in.
Alex Ovechkin is the NHL’s Goal-Scoring King
Wayne Gretzky is unattainable.
That was the line. And to be fair, it still is. If Gretzky never scored in his career…he would STILL be the NHL’s all time leader in points. The list goes like this:
Wayne Gretzky - 2,857 points
Wayne Gretzky (assists only) - 1,963
Jaromir Jagr - 1,921
Mark Messier - 1,887
Gordie Howe - 1,850
It rivals some of the most ridiculous sports stats ever. Tiger’s made cut streak (and about four other Tiger stats), Cal’s consecutive games played (which doubles third on that list) and plenty others.
I’m not a hockey guy. The NHL Playoffs bring the heat, but other than that I’ve never been dialed in to the rink. I knew Gretzky’s records were borderline incomprehensible. Well, until Alex Ovechkin took over the top spot as the league’s most prolific goal scorer. To overtake Gretzky in any way is unreal, to score every goal in a Washington Capitals uniform is even cooler, in my opinion.
What made me want to write about this was actually the moment Ovechkin tied the record on Friday night. Take a moment to watch the video.
First of all, “the Great 8 stands side by side with the Great one” is ELITE. No notes.
Second of all, 60 seconds. The play-by-play announcer, Joe Beninati, doesn’t say a word for a full minute after that awesome one liner. Neither does Craig Laughlin, the color analyst.
Chills.
So much of sports media today is how loud can we be. How can we make it about us and not what’s happening in front of our eyes. It would’ve been easy to say too much after the goal. On the most fundamental level, a broadcaster is a describer. Tell the audience what is happening. But sometimes the best way to communicate a moment is to not make a sound. This was one of those times.
One of the journalism rules that sticks with me is only use a quote if you, the writer, can’t communicate the information more effectively. It prevents you from using quotes that don’t really add to the story, ones that are just descriptive and not additive. There was nothing the broadcast team could say to paint a better picture of Capital One Arena after Ovechkin’s goal. They knew it and let the building carry those 60 seconds.
Sometimes it’s not what you say, it’s what you don’t say. Bravo.
Torpedo Bats 🤝 Tush Push
It makes me laugh that two of the most talked about topics in sports this week are “torpedo bats” and the “tush push”. A nice reminder that nothing going on here is that serious if these terms can be used unironically.
Torpedo bats and the tush push do similar things: they push the envelope. They force football teams and baseball clubs to think about things differently. In 2025, that’s an impressive feat with margins being so small in professional sports.
I need to shout from the roof tops that ANYONE CAN USE TORPEDO BATS AND ANYONE CAN DO THE TUSH PUSH! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills, because the reaction to the Yankees record setting opening weekend and Philadelphia’s tush push dominance would suggest that only these two teams are allowed to take advantage of them.
You know why the Yankees using torpedo bats feels like almost a glitch in the system? Because the Bronx Bombers hit home runs. It’s what they do, better than any franchise in the history of the sport. Since 2017, the Yankees have led Major League Baseball in dingers four different times and they finished second on another occasion. No other team has repeated as the home runs leader in that stretch.
What if…and hear me out…it’s the power bats up and down the Yankees lineup (or the poor Brewers pitching) that is more responsible for the barrage of home runs rather than some unforeseen piece of lumber? A bad home run hitting team isn’t doing what the Yankees did just because of the torpedo bat, but that felt like the implication in a lot of places last week.
On that note, the Eagles are better at the tush push than everyone else because they built an offense that excels at it! They’ve thought about it more than any other franchise and they run the play more than any other.
Last season, the Buffalo Bills were the only other team to run the tush push more than five times. But instead of trying to use the play to their advantage, the reaction from the rest of the NFL is to get it banned. I understand why, I’d try to nerf the Eagles in any way I can, too. But it is funny that the tush push and torpedo bats are seen more like voodoo than two teams spending time and resources to get a legal advantage over their opponents.
I keep coming back to this comparison: what if the other NBA franchises tried to ban the three point shot after Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and the Warriors unlocked the power of the long ball? That would be quite ridiculous. I would argue that version of pushing the envelope and forcing the rest of the league to adapt isn’t all that different from torpedo bats and tush pushes.
Maybe maximizing what your best players do best is the takeaway here more than anything else.
A Quick Thought on Duke’s Final Four Collapse
It was 67-61 with 35 seconds left. In other words, it was over.
But a big three from Emanuel Sharp, a controversial over-the-back call and perfection from the free throw line resulted in nine points in 33 seconds. Houston went from dead in the water to capturing the Flagg in San Antonio. Duke went from knocking on the door of a first national championship since 2015 to a wild collapse and the end of Cooper Flagg’s college career.
An unbelievable sequence of events in southern Texas.
We could break down Jon Scheyer and Duke’s inability to get the basketball inbounds, but I’ll let one of a million other stories do that.
I’ll finish this week’s newsletter with this thought.
Duke will not play for a national championship on Monday. Duke’s collapse was the most consequential downfall of the season and their year will, fair or not, be defined by it. Duke was clearly the best team in the sport.
All of these things can be true. We don’t need to make a sweeping declaration about how this Duke team was built or take a firm stance on how Kelvin Sampson is constructing a better program in Houston. You’re welcome to have that opinion, but it shouldn’t be formed on the back of those 33 seconds.
Duke’s program is a raging success still today, as is Houston’s. And both of those things would be true if the Blue Devils closed it out like everyone expected.
As always, thanks for reading. See you next week.
Another GREAT read! Thank you
I am curious on your thoughts of MJ vs Lebron. This gets brought up quite often