Episode 624

with Dave Hill and No-No Boy

Comedian and writer Dave Hill dives into his newest book The Awesome Game, which makes the case for why hockey should be more popular in the United States, then tries his hand at the surprisingly popular genre of "hockey romance" novels; and singer-songwriter No-No Boy performs "Western Empress" from his latest album Empire Electric, which tells the history behind the grave of the first Japanese-American settler in Oregon. Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello share the most "awesome games" according to our listeners.

Dave Hill

Comedian and author

Dave Hill is a comedian, writer, actor, and musician who has appeared on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Girls5eva, Joe Pera Talks with You, Inside Amy Schumer, @midnight, and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, among other programs. He is author of four books, including The Awesome Game: One Man’s Incredible, Globe-Crushing Hockey Odyssey in which Dave searches to answer the ultimate question in sports: Why is hockey so incredibly awesome? He is a regular contributor to public radio’s This American Life, hosts the podcast The Dave Hill Goodtime Hour, and is the resident heavy metal expert on Malcolm Gladwell and Rick Rubin’s Broken Record podcast. Dave also plays guitar and sings in his own rock band, Valley Lodge, whose song “Go” is the theme song for HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
Website • Twitter • Instagram

No-No Boy

Musician and historian

No-No Boy tells stories rooted in years of research and relationship-building, made vibrant and profound through a rich congregation of instrumental, environmental, and electronically manipulated sounds from Asia and America. The project developed as the central component of Julian Saporiti’s PhD at Brown University, drawing on years of fieldwork and research on Asian American history to write folk songs with uncommon empathy and remarkable protagonists: prisoners at Japanese American internment camps who started a jazz band, Vietnamese musicians turned on to rock ‘n’ roll by American troops, a Cambodian American painter who painted only the most beautiful landscapes of his war-torn home. Along the way he started to draw on his own family’s history, including his mother’s escape from Vietnam during the war. His 2021 album 1975 was called "a remarkably powerful and moving album,” by Folk Alley and “gentle, catchy and accessible folk songs that feel instantly familiar," by NPR. His third album, "Empire Electric", further examines narratives of imperialism, identity, and spirituality, and is being released by Smithsonian Folkways. Website • Instagram

• Full Transcript

  Luke Burbank: This episode of Live Wire was originally recorded in February of 2024. We hope you enjoy it. Now let's get to the show. Hey, Elena.

  Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?

  Luke Burbank: It's going good. I took an eight minute nap before the show.

  Elena Passarello: Was it refreshing?

  Luke Burbank: Surprisingly, Very refreshing. I am feeling amped for this week's episode of Station Location Identification Examination. You ready to try it?

  Elena Passarello: All right. I've taken a zero minute nap, but I'm going to give it a shot.

  Luke Burbank: This is a toughie. Okay, I want a really, like, level set here as we embark on this course. This is where I quiz Elena on, somewhere in the country. Live Wire's on the radio. She's got to guess where I am talking about. This is a place that is, along with Cuero, Texas. A place that claims to be the Turkey capital of the world. Maybe it's the co-turkey capital of the world.

  Elena Passarello: Is it Turkey? Are we on in Turkey?

  Luke Burbank: Not that I know of. Although, I mean with the internet. Who can tell? This is a place for many years has participated in something called the Great Gobbler Gallop. And this is, you'll like this part, if you win this, you take home the Traveling Turkey Trophy of Tumultuous Triumph for the year.

  Elena Passarello: Oh, my. Okay.

  Luke Burbank: I think this is a race involving turkeys. And, I guess the turkey that that runs in the race is named paycheck because the claim goes nothing goes faster than a paycheck.

  Elena Passarello: Is it Wisconsin?

  Luke Burbank: Not quite. Wisconsin.

  Elena Passarello: Minnesota. Minnesota?

  Luke Burbank: Yes. You—exactly right. Worthington, Minnesota. You've done it again, Elena. This is where we're on KNSW radio as part of Minnesota Public Radio. So shout out to everyone in Worthington tuning in from, Turkey Town, USA. Should we get to the show?

  Elena Passarello: Let's do it.

  Luke Burbank: All right. Take it away.

  Elena Passarello: From PRX, it's Live Wire! This week, comedian and author Dave Hill.

  Dave Hill: I love hockey, but I don't like any other sports at all. Like the sound of a football game depresses me like this. The cheering and the enthusiasm.

  Elena Passarello: With music from No-No Boy.

  No-No Boy: So during the pandemic, when we're all locked up, we decided to go to this cemetery. Not because we're particularly McCabe, but for the history aspect, because there's a story everywhere, folks.

  Elena Passarello: And our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello, and now the host of Live Wire, Luke Burbank.

  Luke Burbank: Thank you so much Elena. Thanks to everyone tuning in from all over the country, including Worthington, Minnesota. We have a great show in store for you this week. We have asked the live our listeners a question, as we often do. We've asked what in your opinion, is the most awesome game? Because that's the question that Dave Hill is trying to answer in his latest book. We are going to be hearing those responses coming up in a minute. First, though, we got to kick things off like we always do with a little best news we heard all week this. This is our reminder at the top of the program that there is some good news happening out there in the world. Elena, what is the best news that you've heard all week?

  Elena Passarello: Well, the best news I've heard all week is this story. But maybe the worst news y'all have heard all week is that I'm about to tell the story because it's a sports story, and I am not great at knowing words and things about sports.

  Luke Burbank: But, well, I don't know what sport you're actually going to be talking about, but there's a decent chance that I've spent too much time thinking about it, betting on it. So great. Whatever it is, I've got your back.

  Elena Passarello: So this is about free throws, and I do remember this from when I was in high school. We would make all this crazy noise when the opposing team was trying to make a free throw. We'd, like, slam on the bleachers and say like, miss it. Missing all this stuff and jingle keys. We would jingle our keys. Well, I'm here to tell you that Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan has taken this to the next level. On February 4th, Oakland was playing Cleveland State in basketball, and Cleveland State has a 90% free throw average, which I believe means they make nine out of the ten free throw shots that they take.

  Luke Burbank: Yeah, that's pretty good for a team average.

  Elena Passarello: Yeah yeah. But not good if you're Oakland because you know they want him to miss it. Miss it. So the swim team showed up to this game I guess for some like winter sports solidarity, they sat right behind the opposing team's bucket, which I believe is what you call it in bucket ball. Then somebody, made a foul or something and needed to take a free throw. And the swim team was right behind there, and they all had on Speedos and some of them, their bare chested, and some of them had written O.u pride on their chest. And then when the free throw happened, they got into this crazy formation where the guy who had the you on his chest was in the center, and three other guys were behind him holding a plastic bag. And then this guy named Dane Charleston, who's also a swimmer, showed up with an electric razor and started shaving the head of Ethan Allen. Hahahahaha! And the guy missed his second free throw.

  Luke Burbank: I would have to. That is a truly bizarre scene to have unfold there just along the baseline.

  Elena Passarello: And it kept happening every time somebody fouled or got fouled on or whatever, it got to take a free throw. Ethan Allen showed up, so he got one side of his head for one free throw, another side of his head for another free throw. Then another swimmer showed up and they did it to his hair. But, it's great to what do you see the the like sportscasters talking about it. They go, College was fun. And then you look at the behinds like a shot from behind the free throw line. You just see this mass of people. It looks like a Renaissance painting. The cheerleaders are holding these gold pom poms, and there's this big circle around this guy and all these arms and limbs. It's amazing. So the final score was 83 to 71. Oakland. What? What? And Cleveland's free throw average went down to 67%. Wow. Player sank both of his free throws.

  Luke Burbank: Hahaha.

  Elena Passarello: Because of the shenanigans that were happening thanks to the swim team.

  Luke Burbank: Now there's a lot of pressure though on the basketball team to show up at the swim meet.

  Elena Passarello: Yeah, what did they do?

  Luke Burbank: Truly distracting, I don't know, but they're.

  Elena Passarello: Gonna they grow their hair really fast.

  Luke Burbank: That is a pretty clever way to really throw the other team off from from trying to kind of mess with people to trying to really, really save someone's day. The best news that I saw this week takes us to Greenville, South Carolina, where a woman named Melanie Harper was at the local recycling center and was, you know, separating out her plastics and her paper. And she accidentally separated something else out that she didn't realize at the time, which was her wedding band. Oh, she fell off into one of these big, giant like receptacles for this stuff.

  Elena Passarello: Like how big?

  Luke Burbank: I've seen a photo of all the stuff that was in the receptacle. And it's massive. Like, it's not like the, the little thing you might wheel out, like your driveway.

  Elena Passarello: No, we're entering dumpster territory.

  Luke Burbank: It's basically all the townsfolk coming down and throwing all their stuff in a number of these different dumpsters. And part of the problem was she didn't know exactly where she lost it. She got home and realized she didn't have her wedding band on anymore. And so she emails the city's public works department. Has there ever been an email sent in human history where there would be less of an expectation of anything happening? Like—I mean, you were talking about a needle in a haystack, right? Like to whom it may concern. Some number of hours ago, a very, very tiny piece of metal fell off my finger into a very, very large thing that has all this other stuff in it, and I don't even know which one it went into. Well, would you believe that the folks working down at the recycling center took this very seriously? And they. They spent the entire day dumping out every one of these containers and receptacles, and making this wild pile in the parking lot and picking through all of it. And amazingly, they actually located the wedding band.

  Elena Passarello: They found it?

  Luke Burbank: They did. And it turns out this is not even the first time recently this has happened in Corpus Christi. Back in the summertime, a 17 year old had been at the, like the waste treatment place there in Corpus Christi, and she had lost her ring that had her father's ashes in it. As you might imagine, that was like a very, very important. And Lauren Perez, who was the park supervisor for this particular facility. She and two of the other employees, a guy named Jesse Martinez and somebody named Robert Trevino. This is in 100 degree weather. Went through and picked through every single bag and thing and sort of piece of garbage, etc., where this little ring for the 17 year old could have been in literally the last bag that they looked in. It's always the last, but it's always.

  Elena Passarello: The last bag.

  Luke Burbank: In the last bag they looked at, they found this young woman's prized ring that had her father's ashes as part of it. So good for them. I will tell you the one thing that seems almost like providential, like this was meant to be the story back in Greenville, South Carolina. The guy who found the wedding ring, his name is Travis Golden.

  Elena Passarello: Yeah. It's like his name should be like Travis Find your stuff.

  Luke Burbank: He was meant for this.

  Elena Passarello: Travis metal detector. Yeah, totally.

  Luke Burbank: That was the other guy who found it. So people going above and beyond. That is the best news that I heard this week. You. All right, let's get our guest out here. He is a comedian, writer, actor and musician who you have seen in so many places Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Inside Amy Schumer, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. He's also a writer of many books, including his latest, The Awesome Game One Man's incredible Globe crushing Hockey Odyssey, in which he searches to answer the ultimate question in sports, which is why is hockey so incredibly awesome? This is Dave Hill. He joined us on stage at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon. Take a listen. Speaking. Dave, welcome back to Live Wire.

  Dave Hill: Thanks for having me.

  Luke Burbank: This book is really, really great.

  Dave Hill: Oh. Thank you.

  Luke Burbank: And I have to admit, I've interviewed you before. I do, when I think of Dave Hill, I think of someone who is sort of culturally Canadian, even though you're not sure. But, yeah, you're grown. You grew up in Cleveland, but, your granddad.

  Dave Hill: Clarence that's right.

  Luke Burbank: Was a deeply Canadian man. How did that influence.

  Dave Hill: Fully Canadian man? He well, I yeah, he was from Clinton, Ontario. And, you know, my siblings and I were tossed onto the ice at, like, to and, like, just rinse the placenta off. Sister who was skating, like, very early and, like, we had to it was. No, we had no choice. And my sister, I remember when when she was about ten one day said, I don't like skating, I don't want to skate anymore. And my grandfather said, what good are you if you can't skate? And I was like, five or whatever. I was like, I think he's right. You know, so.

  Luke Burbank: Yeah. So that was a formative moment for you.

  Dave Hill: I had a very Canadian upbringing for a guy from Cleveland. Yeah. Yeah.

  Luke Burbank: Where do you think hockey ranks in the hearts and minds of Americans versus, like, the other sports is something you lay out in the book?

  Dave Hill: You know, I'm glad you asked. It's my my tireless research. Google it is. It's the number six sport in America, and only 5% of Americans admit or acknowledge, any interest in the sport. But I think we can get those numbers, to 6 or 7% in the coming decades.

  Elena Passarello: Nice.

  Dave Hill: Yeah.

  Luke Burbank: Yeah. Were you surprised? Because as you write in the book, anecdotally, you've always been obsessed with hockey, which has led you into a lot of situations when you're talking about hockey to someone who doesn't seem to care about hockey.

  Dave Hill: Which is to say, most people.

  Luke Burbank: Right. Which is oddly satisfying for the data to back up the feeling you've had for your whole life.

  Dave Hill: Yeah, yeah, it's a good feeling. You know, it's a lonely way to, you know, be in the world. I love hockey, but I don't like any other sports at all. Like, the sound of a football game depresses me. Like that's the cheering and the enthusiasm for it. I just because I think, like, oh, I have school tomorrow and everyone's telling me to shut up because they're watching the game. It's really sad.

  Elena Passarello: It's the sound of the Sunday scaries.

  Dave Hill: Yeah. Sad little boy. But yeah. And I, you know, don't even get me started on, basketball, baseball, terror, all those sports, a new one. And, yeah, I kind of like soccer because it's vaguely. It does pump the brakes. It's like, you know, it's like a, not nearly as good version of hockey.

  Luke Burbank: I will say that I, I didn't grow up a huge hockey fan, although I was from Seattle and we had the Thunderbirds part of the Lake Junior Hockey League. Yeah. And so I became familiar with a lot of amazingly named cities in Canada as part of the Junior Hockey League.

  Dave Hill: Yeah, yeah. I was obsessed growing up with Kenny Oakes. All the all the players I knew where everyone is from, like Bobby Clark, Flin Flon, Manitoba, Clark Gillies from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. I went to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan because I was like, what Paradise is that? You know, like Moose Jaw. And you get there under a bit of a let down. But, but it was great. You know, just, Madison had Madison that. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, Sue Saint Marie just it's endless. I don't know if we can say this, but Dildo Newfoundland is one. We'll edit that out.

  Luke Burbank: We do have to take a very quick break. We are talking to Dave Hill here on Live Wire. Stay with us. We'll be back from Revolution Hall in just a moment. Welcome back to Live Wire from Revolution Hall, Portland, Oregon. I'm Luke Burbank here at the line of Passarelli. We are talking with the wonderful Dave Hill about his latest book and his love of hockey. You sort of set out in this book to try to kind of just immerse yourself in the world of hockey, something you love, and also maybe figure out a way to get more Americans on board with it. Kind of like what's step one of that process?

  Dave Hill: Read the book. It's all in the book. Oh, no. That's fine. I think there's just a lot of it. Just sit down in front of it, because, I mean, hockey, just the sound of it, the skating, the pucks, all that, like I put games on. I'm not even just like the way some people would put on, like Shark Week. You just put it on and it just adds to the vibe in your home, I think. Yeah. I love it's.

  Luke Burbank: Like that fireplace channel that I've been using. Yeah, a lot actually.

  Dave Hill: Yeah, yeah, it's the exact same thing. And I think just the, the, the sweaters or jerseys, as they're known, I call them jerseys. And people get mad. I call them jerseys in the book even though they are hockey sweaters. But I do it to entice the lay person, right? Yeah. I don't want to freak them out, but there is a team in Finland, the Tampa Elvis, who have this amazing jersey. Elvis is Finnish for links and and that it looks like it was drawn by a child. Like, in the best way. Like I like it. Yeah, but I tried to ordered online. It was like $75 shipping to get get the jerseys. And I was like, I'm not falling for that. Flew over there. Flew over. You save 75 bucks. It's just there's all sorts of tips in the book. Yeah.

  Luke Burbank: It's really it's as much a financial advice book as it is. There we go. A love letter to hockey.

  Dave Hill: Exactly. Same thing. I went to Kenya. Same thing. Just to the.

  Luke Burbank: Jersey. I actually want to ask you about the Ice Lions here in a minute. First, though, you played hockey in Cleveland in the in the suburbs of Cleveland at Saint Ignatius, where there was an article in the student newspaper that described you as having, quote, a slapshot that could destroy a small town. Who was it who wrote that article?

  Dave Hill: That was me. That was me. Yeah. But I you know, I just I wrote the story very objectively. Yeah. And, that's my teammates weren't too happy about that.

  Luke Burbank: Did it say, like, you know, Wildcat hockey is on the move by Dave Hill. And then it's like Dave Hill with a slapshot that could destroy us. But it was clearly written by you.

  Dave Hill: Yeah, 1,000%. I you know, I didn't think anyone would connect the dots or I didn't expect it to haunt me all these years later. But here we are.

  Luke Burbank: You write in the book about going back to your high school and, skating with them. But what has happened over the intervening years as the Saint Ignatius Wildcat hockey team has gotten way good.

  Dave Hill: Oh, yeah. I mean, when I, when I was on the team, I played, I was on the varsity team for four years. Stop it. Enough. But, but when I was on the team that players, we didn't look like the same species. I just saw two giant kids, little kids. And it was like the bar scene in Star Wars or something. But now that they're state champions, they're amazing. And, they have, like, cool. They all they're like, better looking, they have better hair and everything. Just superior beings.

  Luke Burbank: Were you nervous to be out there with them and skating around in practice? Because I hadn't really thought about, like, how potentially weird. It's the kind of thing that I played, high school sports and the idea of going back to the school and seeing the coach and having fun, that sounds good on paper. And then there's a moment where you're just like by yourself putting on hockey gear as like a 40 something year old man before anyone's even in the locker room. But it's like kind of weird.

  Dave Hill: Oh, yeah. And some of the equipment was my equipment from when I was on the team, like it was. I mean, it was like Field of Dreams. Like they walked in there, said, who's this guy from the 80s? Yeah. And I was already dressed. For some reason, I thought it would be cool if I'm already in my pads when everyone shows up. Oh, no. This middle aged man just standing there like, hey guys, I've been I've been locked in here for three days. And I swear, like, some of the kids were, like, snickering as they walked in. It was very. And then the coach, Pat O'Rourke, I literally had my same gloves when I was like, in high school. And at the end of practice, he'd get, he's like, here, take these. And he gave me his gloves. So I think he felt sorry for me. Yeah.

  Luke Burbank: How did the kids respond to you being there? Did they like high five? You did they largely ignore you?

  Dave Hill: Completely ignored me. And then when we when we, you know, we get out and we're, like, warming up and I'm, I'm doing my, like, my, groin stretches, which is, it's a cool thing to do if you want to fit in. You get on the ice. Stretch out the groin. And, I'm. You know, I had a pretty wild stretch. And then the coach, Pat, calls everyone around, and he's like, we have, Ignatius, honest with us today, Dave Hill and, he played, played on the team back in the 80s. And there was this audible gasp like these kids, fresh tear. Like, that's where this kid came from, a time machine. And they're all, they sit on the boards like, during their scrimmaging, and I scrimmaged with them. They they made me, a third defenseman, which isn't, normally there's just two, but they're like Dave one, you know, just like you kind of drift around, with us. And they all were sitting up on the boards, and I couldn't. I wanted to look cool and do that, too. So it took me a while to finally get up there each time. But I, I'm confident if someone were at the practice and they were on the opposite side in the bleachers in the top row and they were didn't wear their glasses, they'd be like, there's another team playing hockey.

  Luke Burbank: You, you. Then you ended up going to a game. Would you mind reading the pep talk that you were fantasizing about giving the Saint Ignatius Wildcat team? I'm going to set this up for the folks here in the theater and listening, on the radio. So you go to, a Saint Ignatius game, you're watching them in the first period. They're actually kind of not having their best game. And you're sitting there in the stands kind of thinking about what you might need to go down and tell them to give them a real kind of like win one for the Gipper.

  Dave Hill: Type things around. Yeah. And it's been my dream to give a speech like this. And I was kind of making eye contact with the coach, like, I'm here, you know, and, but no reaction. Yeah, this is what I would have, would have said, and I, I walk in and I go, you guys disgust me. And, and then in the footnote, I admit it says the footnotes. I'd make a point of saying it just as I was slamming a locker door, kicking over a trash can, and or soiling myself for emphasis, I'll prove an attention getting techniques when delivering an important locker room and or motivational speech. So you guys just, cut me off whenever you like. You guys disgust me. Also, real quick, that just now occurred to me that some of you maybe didn't see me with my helmet off yesterday and as a result, have absolutely, absolutely no idea who I am. So before I continue, I just wanted to be clear that I'm Dave, the slightly older guy who skated with you guys at practice yesterday. Even though a lot of you guys probably assumed I was some amazing transfer student who just got off the plane from Sweden or something, because I'm so good at hockey in about 500 other things I didn't even have time to get into right now. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, you guys disgust me, and you can bet your ass I didn't insist on borrowing my girlfriend's mom's car, even though she said she needed to use it to go to Jo-Ann fabrics today just so I could come watch you guys sit around in your own defensive zone like you're having a damn picnic with little sandwiches and soda pops and potato chips and whatever else people have at picnics. And then the note says, I'm guessing it's right around this point that coach Pat or one of the assistant coaches would probably try to quietly pull me aside and ask me to return to the stands, but that's when I. I just hold my hand up, all staring at the floor as if to say, damn it, just let me have this one. Besides, we could have avoided this whole scenario if I'd just been invited to the Winter sports rally that there was winners for eight and invite me. Anyway, do I need that back to the speech? Do I need to? This is a special five hour episode of the show. Yes. Do I need to.

  Luke Burbank: Ask them to cancel? Hidden brain.

  Dave Hill: Will be on.

  Luke Burbank: All morning whenever you're hearing this.

  Dave Hill: Let's go, let's go, let's go. After all, I'm Terry Gross. She said it too good for too long. Do I need to remind you guys that you're playing against a team that calls themselves the Lancers, for Christ's sakes? Last I checked, a lancer is just a guy with a stick. Let me ask you this. Do you think a guy with a stick has a chance against a wildcat? Some rule hating Kat from parts unknown that will never understand in a million, trillion years. Hell, no. Not on my watch. Then there's a lot of, specifics about what a wildcat is, which I one again, another thing you learn in the book.

  Luke Burbank: That's Dave Hill reading from the awesome game. You here on Live Wire. It wasn't just your old high school that you went to to, immerse yourself in even more hockey. You went to, Kenya.

  Dave Hill: Kenya.

  Luke Burbank: Yeah, but just hockey hot spot that is Kenya.

  Dave Hill: Well, yeah, I because I'm really into the hockey sweaters I mentioned. Like one night I was googling like best non NHL jerseys because I prefer the non NHL jerseys too safe.

  Luke Burbank:Like you feel like that's holding the NHL back.

  Dave Hill: Their jersey time like that. Minor leagues and European leagues they have like like Sudbury Wolves. One of the greatest jerseys again is like a wolf I mean they're right. That's half the battle right. the logo is a wolf. But then it's got blood on the fangs and they even have a second patch of a drop of blood. Oh, nice. That jersey. And again, it looks like it was drawn by like a 15 year old in the back of history class. So we need a logo now. Anyway. So this list comes up Kenya ice lions. And I was like, that must be some small town in Canada I've never heard of or whatever. I'm like, oh no, it's the more popular Kenya. And so I wrote to this guy in the jersey, he's amazing. And I wrote this guy's name, you know, as if I could, go over there and, and play hockey with them and, yes, I flew there, and I thought I would just. I'm like, these guys, they're going to really learn a lot, for me, but, I took I took a beating over there. I got to be honest.

  Luke Burbank: Were you surprised by the dedication to hockey in a place where you don't grow up with it?

  Dave Hill: It was so cool. Alex Longo, who's sort of the elder statesman of the team. He's over 40. Yeah. Ooh. Gross. But he. This is amazing because he told me when he first saw hockey, he didn't understand how the players were moving. He'd never seen ice skate. Like he was just like, how are they doing that? Like. Right. So I was like, that is so cool to.

  Luke Burbank: See it in source magazine.

  Dave Hill: The first thing. Yeah. And a hip hop magazine he saw there was like an article on hockey. So you never know. I mean, like, yeah, it was just it was just wild hearing how he got into it. And these kids were. Yeah, super. They played for five hours. I thought, we'll play for like an hour or two. That's reasonable. And. But we were playing. The rink was closed, so we played roller hockey. And I never played roller hockey, but I assumed my amazing ice hockey skills would just translate. And we're playing in that, like this parking lot in downtown Nairobi and I this is going on for hours and hours. And there's literally like hawks circling above me, you know, making it, just waiting for me to keel over and rip my flesh, you know, and I asked, I asked one of the players bench. I said, oh, so how long do you guys play? And he just says, we play till we can no longer see the ball. And I was like, oh gosh, and it's a five hours. .

  Elena Passarello: Oh my gosh. Wow.

  Dave Hill: Five hours.

  Elena Passarello: Did you go the distance?

  Dave Hill: I did, but I mean only because I flew, you know, halfway around the planet and yeah, it was, it was, I'm still a bit sore from and this is two years later.

  Luke Burbank: This this show goes out to, you know, like hundreds of thousands of people a week around the U.S and I'm curious for, for those, folks who need a little convincing, what can you tell them right now about what they are missing out on by not being as hockey obsessed as you are? Because the point of this book is to try to convert more Americans into hockey fans.

  Dave Hill: I'm glad you asked. Yeah. I mean, also, you know, I made just that the book is nonstop hockey action. But there's also I mean, I just think it's it's just a literary classic, even as there's other stuff in the book. Like when I was in Kenya, I witnessed a baboon steal a loaf of bread from a bunch of schoolchildren, which is hands down the most amazing thing I've ever witnessed in my life, because I was at the Nairobi National Park and there's like a bunch of these, like, six year old kids, and they're dressing these, like, cute little matching uniforms and, and, like, having a picnic. And then I see a baboon come like from. And my baboon access has been very limited right in Cleveland like I. Yeah I have no I'm like, I've seen these on TV. I don't know what they're capable of. Grabs a loaf of bread and like kind of guys I tell you my going to get away with this one. And then it gets a little further away from the kids. And he's like, that's right, I stole your bread. And he. And then he gets further and further away and he's like, just like flipping out. It's like, yeah, I got your bread. And then on the other hand, there's like a parking lot, there's three other baboons waiting for him, and they're like, oh my God, Dan, he got the break. Whatever they call him, you know. Yeah. And he's running with the loaf of bread and they're like, yeah, we're having like to steal those kids bread. And then the baboon runs right past them. They'll turn on like, where? Where is he going? And anyway, I was like, that baboon is going to be the president of the United States. It was amazing and honestly is amazing.

  Luke Burbank: Honestly, I would take that. Yeah, I would, at this very moment. Absolutely. Take that baboon.

  Dave Hill: It's a man of action. Yes. Baboon of action. But yeah. There's other. Yeah. There's other.

  Luke Burbank: There's lots of stuff in the there. It's not.

  Dave Hill: Content. Yeah. It's again not. It's not just hockey.

  Luke Burbank: No, but there are parts of it that are about hockey, which is something that we wanted to sort of lean on your expertise for. Obviously hockey is not the number one sport in the US the way that you would be hoping, but there is a part of American culture, it turns out, where hockey is way popular and that is romance novels. Yeah, that is right. According to the Washington Post, as far as sports romance novels go, hockey is the most written about sport in sports romance novels. Books like icebreaker, where Anastasia Allen has worked her entire life for a shot at team USA and nothing will stand in her way. Not even the handsome, sexy captain of the men's hockey team. Nate Hawkins. Yeah.

  Dave Hill: I mean, don't get me started. That's a good one. Yeah.

  Luke Burbank: Also it's.

  Dave Hill: Flawed. That's good.

  Elena Passarello: It's not your—

  Dave Hill: Book. It's not my book.

  Elena Passarello: Which is very romantic.

  Dave Hill: I didn't know about this genre, of, hockey romance novels, which is, you know, goes a little past romance once you get in there. But, yeah, it's, but I went I was like, how soon am I going to have the number one hockey book and an on Amazon or whatever? And I was like, I got to take out like 20 of these romance novels first.

  Luke Burbank: Have you targeted pucks around in which Rachel Price. These are real books.

  Dave Hill: I'm telling you, being around, I was like, all right, I will get. I'll have that on your desk tomorrow morning. That's already a book, I guess. Yes.

  Luke Burbank: Pucking around, in which Rachel Price shares one magical night with a man. No names, no strings. Never thought she'd see him again. But she was wrong. Turns out Mr. Perfect is the Playboy grinder for the Jacksonville Rays, the NHL hottest new hockey team.

  Dave Hill: Wow.

  Elena Passarello: So it's a Florida hockey story.

  Dave Hill: [ Yeah, I mean, that one has it all you can tell. And grinder. I mean.

  Luke Burbank: Is that a term? I mean, outside of the dating.

  Dave Hill: Well, yeah, it has a different meaning, in hockey than it does. In that app, I just delete it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It means, there's actually a a blurb from Shawn Avery on the cover of a new book. It's that he wasn't setting me up for this. Just coincidentally says Dave is a grinder. Shawn Avery, former NHL star, Davis grinder. He goes to the hard, hard score areas and sacrifices his body for the awesome game. Very nice blurb. Clearly hasn't read the book. But those are the best players, you know.

  Luke Burbank: Yeah, well, speaking of, sort of book titles and the very, very, very moderate research. We here live where we're always looking to diversify our income streams, and we've come up with what we think are some pretty decent titles for a hockey romance book, but we don't have really any of the plot. And so we were hoping that you're obviously a recognized expert in hockey and romance.

  Dave Hill: Well, yeah.

  Luke Burbank: So we thought maybe we'd run a couple of these by you and you could help us kind of flesh out maybe, like the plot.

  Dave Hill: Yeah. Okay. Lay it on me.

  Luke Burbank: Me. All right. Is that a Zamboni, or are you just happy to see me? I'm Sarah, the shy but sexy equipment manager.

  Dave Hill: Oh, yeah. And then there's this guy Danny, who's new in town. Just, you know, just trying to rebuild his life after what happened in Denver. And. Yeah, he is a Zamboni driver. You know, and, he takes her for a few laps, right? Yeah. By which I mean sexual intercourse. Yeah, that's the gist of that one. Okay.

  Luke Burbank: How about a book called Slapshot? I let Brandon score the winning goal because I'm dying to score with him. Yes, me. Jackson, the shy but sexy goalie from the other team.

  Dave Hill: Ooh, I like this. Expand the genre. Yeah. Jackson. And this is hockey lingo. Jackson takes it in the five hole. Let me explain. Let me explain. Goal! Goalie. You have. There's the there's one two, three, four. There's low stick side, low glove side, high and low. And then the between. When you have no other shot, you shoot for the five hole. And look at.

  Luke Burbank: This right picture between their legs.

  Dave Hill: Literally. Exactly right. And then it's, it checks out with Jackson as well. Okay. Oh, and I'm just talking hockey.

  Elena Passarello: Here, right. Yeah.

  Luke Burbank: How about, this, title for a hockey romance, a book. Pucker up, Mr. hockey man.

  Dave Hill: This is the title. Yeah. Sorry. First try it from 90. This is, like, from 1942.

  Luke Burbank: Well, because.

  Dave Hill: Well.

  Luke Burbank: [00:35:47] This is a thing. What we found out looking up hockey romance novels is roughly 80% of them use the word puck as part of the title. These are real ones. There's, we've already mentioned around. There's puck wild puck buddies tucking the captain puck around and find out. It's really the.—

  Elena Passarello: There is not romance novel called Puck around, and.

  Luke Burbank: I want there to be. That was more.

  Elena Passarello: Aspirational.

  Dave Hill: Just gonna call it lazy writing. They're just using puck over and over, which is, you know, implying, you know. Yeah.

  Luke Burbank: Another thing.

  Elena Passarello: Midsummer night's dream.

  Dave Hill: [Yeah. No.

  Luke Burbank: Well, everyone hearing this out in radio land and here at the Revolution Hall, let's buy Dave's book the Awesome Game and try to move it above those other.

  Elena Passarello: Yes.

  Dave Hill:Puts other bodies rippers on the Hollywood man. Hi. This is my promise to you. If you buy my book and don't thoroughly enjoy it, you can take a shot of me in the five hole.

  Luke Burbank: Dave Hill, everyone right here on Live Wire. That was Dave Hill right here on Live Wire. His new book, The Awesome Game One Man's Incredible Globe Crushing Hockey Odyssey, is out and available now. Sometimes checking your email. Let's be honest, can be a little stressful, but we want to change that over here at live where we want to make checking your email more joyful. With our weekly newsletter, which is only good news, that's all we do over here at the Live Wire newsletter. We got sneak peeks and deep dives on upcoming events. Details on where you can join us live. New episode drops and even more than that, getting this drop a joy. It's super easy to head over to Live Wire Radio Dawg, and you click keep in touch. It takes like 30s 25 if you're speedy, so help us help you have a little more fun in your inbox with the latest from the Live Wire newsletter. This is Live Wire from PRX. Of course, each week on the show we like to ask our listeners a question. Just kind of get to know them a little better. And since Dave Hill was talking about what he thinks is the awesome game that is hockey, we wanted to know from our listeners what, in their opinion, is the most awesome game. Elena has been collecting up those responses. What are you seeing?

  Elena Passarello: Oh, here's a great one from Sam, Sam's most awesome game is playing Wordle with my daughter who was just learning how to read and spell. We have a dance party when we win. I saw this TikTok of, I don't know, like a first grade teacher, maybe, leading her students through a game of Wordle that she had on the classroom projector. And when the kids figured out the Wordle, it was like Super Bowl Sunday. Like they screamed. They were so happy. And then they were close. They'd be like, oh, then they hit the button and they're flapping around. It was so great.

  Luke Burbank: I promise you, those kids are all better at Wordle than I am.

  Elena Passarello: Are you not a Wordler?

  Luke Burbank: Wordle? I'm just not good at it. It's. I'm bad at, Wheel of Fortune. I'm bad at Wordle. I'm bad at anything where you give me some of the letters, but not all of the letters that just. My brain does not compute that information very well.

  Elena Passarello: Not your most awesome game, Wordle.

  Luke Burbank: [00:39:21] No, that's not. But I'm very happy for the listener that it's their most awesome game.

  Elena Passarello: Well, maybe. Maybe this is your most awesome game. It's Martin's suggestion, toe wrestling, which Martin discovered on YouTube one night. Martin says it's so intense and absurd it became the most awesome game in my eyes. P.S. they do the same thing as arm wrestling, but with their toes. I mean, I feel like your arm has like an elbow and like the ability to, like, make the wrist, you know, like like with the over the top, you know, like.

  Luke Burbank: Who can forget the Sylvester Stallone epic over the.

  Elena Passarello: Top? Probably the best, maybe the only blockbuster movie about arm wrestling.

  Luke Burbank: ] Yeah. How does that even work from a kind of like, a biomechanical standpoint?

  Elena Passarello: I wonder if it's foot wrestling and and whereas arm wrestling is not finger wrestling, you know, so maybe, maybe we've got the wrong sort of part, the whole analogy set up here.

  Luke Burbank: Well, Martin is loving it. So that's all that counts.

  Elena Passarello: I can't wait to check it out.

  Luke Burbank: All right. What's another most awesome game that we may not know about, but our listeners want to tell us about?

  Elena Passarello: Marceline says freeze tag is my fondest memory of playing a game. Man, that was fun.

  Luke Burbank: I have, like, literally not thought about freeze tag in the last 30 years, but it dominated my thoughts as a kid.

  Elena Passarello: I couldn't freeze like I just, I was just had too much in me. Or like I tried to do like a really creative pose that's like hard to hold with, like your hand up in the air or like one, two, three dead bug pose.

  Luke Burbank: It really came down to how truthful of person are you? Because to be honest with you, when you got frozen, it was never a cool position.

  Elena Passarello: How do you win that freeze tag? I can't remember.

  Luke Burbank: I honestly it was always like the recess bell rang. Yeah, they got to the bottom of that story at Daniel Bagley Elementary School. All right. One more awesome game from one of our listeners.

  Elena Passarello: Okay. This is another game that I've never heard of before. It's called Teo, which Charles describes as Colombian horseshoes with explosions.

  Luke Burbank: Okay.

  Elena Passarello: Are those the players exploding with rage when they don't get there? You know? Or is this like a horseshoes and hand grenades?

  Luke Burbank: That's. I hadn't even thought of that connection. But they're I mean, that would certainly up the stakes, right. Horseshoes when I was growing up was a very kind of genteel thing that the older people, particularly the guys, would get up to at some point in the barbecue. But if you were able to combine horseshoes and hand grenades.

  Elena Passarello: You might have teo, you.

  Luke Burbank: Know, it'd be dangerous. All right. Thank you to everyone who sent in a response to our question this week. We have got a question for next week's show coming up in just a moment here, so stick around for that. In the meantime, I got to remind you that this is Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank, that's Elena passaro. We have to take a very quick break, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, we are going to hear some music, from somebody who's also incredibly historically knowledgeable. It's our friend. No-No boy. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back to Live Wire from Pyrex. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passaro. Okay, before we get to our musical guest, a little preview of next week's program. We are going to be talking to comedy great Maria Bamford, who you might know from the Netflix show Lady Dynamite, which she was the star of, or something that's a little deeper in the Maria Bamford catalog, but which I to this day love, which is the kind of seminal comedy documentary called The Comedians of Comedy. [

  Elena Passarello: Yeah, back in the day, just.

  Luke Burbank: Kind of there was the Kings of Comedy, which was like the really cool, like selling out arenas, comedy doc. And then there was The Comedians of Comedy.

  Elena Passarello: Yeah, that was very.

  Luke Burbank: More low key. Also, Maria has done an entire standup comedy special for just her mom and dad in the living room of her childhood home. Which was hilarious and weird, like everything Maria does. She has a book out now called Sure, I'll Join Your Cult a memoir of Mental Illness and The Quest to Belong Anywhere, and she talks about all kind of stuff in the book 12 Step Programs The Suzuki violin Method. Turns out not not a cult. We're also going to hear some music next week from the very talented musician Isabel Walker, who's going to talk about her childhood growing up on Maui and how that has influenced her life and her career. Plus, we're going to be looking to get your answer to our listener question. Alaina, what are we asking the listeners for next week's show?

  Elena Passarello:Well, in honor of Maria Bamford, we would like to know what is the closest thing to a cult that you have ever belonged to.

  Luke Burbank: I'm hoping that the responses are like Amway.

  Elena Passarello: Yeah, right. LuLaRoe.

  Luke Burbank: Right. Things like that. Right? Not maybe. Although I don't know if you were in a cult. Let us know. That'd be interesting content. Anyway, if you have a response to that question, hit us up on social media. We are at Livewire pretty much everywhere. This is Live Wire from our musical guest this week. Tell stories rooted in years of research and relationship building that was developed as the central component of his PhD work at Brown University. His latest album is Empire Electric, and it further examines narratives of imperialism, identity and spirituality. It is available right now from Smithsonian Folkways. This is Julian Sapper Reedy, also known as No-No boy, who joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. What song are we going to hear?

  No-No Boy: This is the song off the new album. Thank you for asking. This is, called Western Empress of the Orient Sawmill, and we'll get to it. But as a history teacher, I would be, remiss if I didn't tell you that there's a really important place just, east of here in the Gresham Pioneer Cemetery. There's a big Japanese cedar tree. So during the pandemic, when we're all locked up, we decided to go to this cemetery. Not because we're particularly McCubbin, but for the history aspect, because this Japanese cedar tree. There's a story everywhere, folks. And in the middle of the cemetery, the reason that was planted was because it marks the grave of the first Japanese American settler in this state. 1880, this woman named me Omeo, you ako. She comes over with her Scottish husband, who had gone to Japan to teach former samurai how to plow. And they came over with an adopted daughter named Tama. And they start working this, sawmill they called the Orient sawmill. And Andrew dies. The husband, pretty soon after. But then, mio lives a good life, and she helps all these, Japanese folks come over and start the Nihon Match for the Japantown here in Portland. She gets the name of the Western Empress, but when she dies, she can't legally be buried in the Gresham Pioneer Cemetery next to her husband, so she can't have a headstone. So they plant this Japanese cedar tree. It was only decades later that, we have the good sense to one revoke this white only rule again, that keeps coming up in Oregon history and then allow, a commemorative, headstone to be placed at her grave. So, again, you know, trying to teach these, teach through these little songs, little secret history lesson and, we'll play this song. And, thank you so much for listening to this called Western Empress.

  [No-No Boy plays Western Empress of the Orient Sawmill]

  Luke Burbank: That was No-No Boy. Right here on Live Wire. Make sure you check out his latest album, Empire Electric. All right. That is going to do it for this week's episode of the show. A very big thanks to our guests, Dave Hill and No-No boy.

  Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather De Michele is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Savchenko. Evan Hoffer is our technical director, and our house sound is by D Neil Blake. Trey Hester is our assistant editor and Becky Phillips is our intern. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Ayal Alvez, and A Walker Spring who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Trey Hester.

  Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the James F and Marion L Miller Foundation. Live Wire was created by Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week, we'd like to thank members Corey Zanon of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Bianca Youngers of Portland, Oregon. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to Livewireradio.org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.

  — PRX —