Find Me Serenity

A few days ago the LA Kings tweeted out a note that two of their players were featured on a podcast. Instead of going with my gut and ignoring that tweet, I sought out the podcast and downloaded the episode. As soon as I saw that it was produced by Barstool Sports I should have hit delete and moved on. But I didn’t. The podcast episode was 1 hour and 59 minutes long. I lasted roughly 30. Thankfully the Kings players were on early and I had a way out. This is how the segment went.BizNasty – haha isn’t it funny how you’re young guys living in LA and on the dating scene, let’s delve deep into your dating profiles and make you uncomfortable about the pictures and songs you’re using to get dates

Matt Luff / Cal Peterson – deflection, uncomfortable laughter

BizNasty – haha isn’t it funny how you’re young guys getting more money than you’ve ever seen in your life after and choose to spend it on designer belts?

Matt Luff / Cal Peterson – deflection, uncomfortable laughter

BizNasty – haha I can have your teammates traded ‘cause left-wing libtards are taking over everything and we can call their behavior bullying, ya know if you want me to, i can do it (this was repeated 3 times)

Matt Luff / Cal Peterson – deafening silence

BizNasty – Luff looks like one of Trump’s kids

Matt Luff / Cal Peterson – deflection, uncomfortable laughter

Thirty minutes. I felt my soul leave my body and my brain cells die.

Then I got angry.

Paul Bissonette, known on social media as “BizNasty” is an NHL veteran. He can say and do whatever he’d like, his time in the NHL as a player is over. Matt Luff and Cal Peterson are two young prospects looking for their place on the LA Kings. Cal has been up and down from the minor league affiliate and Matt is with the big team but only sees limited ice time. They are in no way, shape, or form, going to engage in this kind of conversation. To their credit they engaged in as much of the dating app talk as they were willing to share.

Mr. Nasty prefaced this interview with “these guys were a bit shy. Kind of quiet and boring.” And then came out of the interview, which was a taped segment of the podcast, re-iterating the same sentiments.

He called Luff’s recollection of banter between himself and teammates during pre-game soccer ball kick arounds bullying then proceeded to bully the kid about designer belts and his looks. He seemed to find Luff the easier target as he left Cal Peterson alone for the most part. He put both of them in tough positions by suggesting he could “get rid of players” for them and then called them quiet and boring because they didn’t have an answer for that. Or if they did, couldn’t say anything because they’re trying to make the team he’s threatening. You don’t get to act like an asshole and then accuse the people on the other end of being boring because they couldn’t/wouldn’t engage.

I’m embarrassed that I listened to this piece of trash and even more embarrassed that I listened to the entire interview. I’m angry that the Kings PR team allowed their players to be subjected to it and tweeted out the evidence so that we could hear it. But I’m mostly saddened that it did exactly what I knew it would do. Remind me that the less I know about the things I enjoy the better.

I’m never getting that time back. And what few brain cells I have left have been focused on the asshattery of the whole thing. Matt Luff and Cal Peterson probably don’t even remember doing the interview or are long past worrying about it despite it just now dropping. It seemed to be recorded a while back when both Luff and Peterson were with the big club. Peterson has returned to the minor league team as both of the Kings goalies are healthy now and he’s still the younger of the two backups trying to find their spot as the number one. Which is damn near impossible with Jonathan Quick in net in said position*. As for Matt Luff. I’d imagine he’d happily take a few “bullying” jabs just to be able to be in the lineup every night instead of once in the last month.

*Ask me about this in 5 weeks after the trade deadline passes

A brief side note: Mr Nasty casually mentioned “hitting the pen too hard” in the opening segment of the podcast which I took to mean vaping. He should maybe look into who legalized the substance he’s smoking so freely before railing against those “left-wing libtards” who are “taking over everything.” Just saying.

Because, hockey, I went into watching the Kings game just 12 hours after enduring this podcast stupidity. And just like it always does, it brought me back into the love category in the weirdest way. I encourage you to look up Snoop Dogg doing play-by-play for the LA Kings on Youtube, like, right now.