EPISODE 376: The 5th Annual(-ish) Year-End Holiday Roundtable Spectacular!

It's our year-end Holiday Roundtable Spectacular - featuring a look back at the year's newest additions to "what used-to-be" in professional sports (RIP MLB's "Oakland" Athletics & the NHL's Arizona Coyotes), and a predictive glimpse into what might be in store for 2025 - with two of our favorite fellow defunct sports enthusiasts: Steve Holroyd (Crossecheck, Philly Classics & Episodes 92, 109, 149, 188 & 248); and Paul Reeths (OurSportsCentral.com, StatsCrew.com & Episode 46).

Buckle up for our yearly mélange of amusement and bemusement at the fringes of the pro sports establishment, as we simultaneously marvel at and lament some of the most curious events of the past year, debate who and what might be next to stumble into oblivion, and conjecture about future scenarios for the next generation of defunct and otherwise forgotten pro sports teams and leagues - including:

  • Spring football's unified UFL

  • Arena Football League 2.0 RIP (and Arena Football One 2025)

  • MLB's now-Sacramento-and-someday-Las Vegas (maybe) Athletics

  • The NHL's Utah Hockey Club (fka Arizona [née Phoenix] Coyotes, via the WHA's original Winnipeg Jets)

  • Major League Cricket

  • Baseball's genre-bending Savannah Bananas - and its soon-to-launch Banana Ball Championship League

  • Indoor soccer's new Baller League

  • Premier League Lacrosse's pivot to city teams and a new women's division

  • The new League One Volleyball (LOVB) takes on the 2nd-year Pro Volleyball Federation (PVF)

  • NWSL soccer

  • PWHL hockey

PLUS: Can Diamond Baseball Holdings (41 MiLB teams and counting!) be stopped?

AND: Will Michael Jordan, et al. break up the NASCAR stock car monopoly?

EPISODE 277: Winnipeg Jets & Phoenix Coyotes Hockey - With Curt Keilback

Fans of the original NHL version (1979-96) of the Winnipeg Jets, as well as the first ten seasons (1997-2007) of their subsequent incarnation as the Phoenix Coyotes, will surely remember the dulcet tones of team radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster Curt ​​Ke​i​lback (​"​Two Minutes for Talking to Myself: Jets, Coyotes, Tales, Opinions​"​).

For 27 seasons - spanning some 2400+ games - ​Ke​i​lback was the signature voice of the since-rebranded Arizona franchise, a seemingly lone constant amidst the club's steady stream of existential change from 1970s World Hockey Association dominance, to NHL small-market competitive frustration, to (supposedly) "greener pastures" in the Valley of the Sun.

​Ke​i​lback takes us on clear-eyed journey back through some of the more memorable moments of his Jets/Coyotes broadcasting career, including: the original (and much-copied) "Winnipeg White Out;" the ill-fated 1996 "Save the Jets" campaign; how he kept his job despite the Jets' impending move; the not-so-great coaching tenure of "The Great One;" and his call of "The Goal" - then-Washington Capital rookie Alexander Ovechkin's impossible-to-describe, body-prone, behind-the-back score against the Coyotes in 2006.

PLUS: we debate the current wisdom and likely future of the current Arizona-labeled version of the franchise - and whether it will EVER work!

Two Minutes For Talking to Myself: Jets, Coyotes, Tales, Opinions - buy book here