It was April of 2012; Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" had taken the world by storm, current Vancouver Canucks coach John Tortorella was still employed by the New York Rangers, and these Rangers were on top of the world leading the Eastern Conference.

I wasn't writing for Battle of California just yet, but I was a frequent contributor to Up The Pucks, a hockey podcast with a punk rock soundtrack. The once weekly podcast is now mostly defunct (or at least on hiatus), but the show was generally fun to do and they occasionally had great guests. But I wanted to up the ante as far as guests and interviews went.

Some background: We had just lost an entire show recording due to technical difficulties. We were doing a "makeup" show, and in order to push this show over the edge, I decided to interview John Tortorella in New York. It took me a while to track down a phone number for John Tortorella, but here's what happened when I did.

Below is a short excerpt from UTP Episode 80, the full episode can be found here. This clip below is just under 10 minutes, but hopefully worth every second for you. Get your headphones on, there's some NSFW language (as one can expect with John Tortorella).

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Click here for a direct download of the MP3.

These calls were 100% real and unscripted.

At the end of that clip, I played three voicemails I received within a few hours afterwards. I received two more over the next 24 hours (listen here and here), and dozens of missed calls from their number. It was pretty hilarious how much effort was taken in order to "get back" at me using a voicemail box I virtually never check.

So what did I learn? I learned that every John Tortorella can be as entertaining as the true coach Tortorella, but that their dingbat family members can be even more entertaining.

Do you think Torts will grant me an interview after the game?

Gameday Prediction

A crazy New York lady tracks me down and murders me before the game is over.

Classic Moment

To help commemorate the Ducks' 20th year this season, each gameday I'll be posting a clip of a classic moment from the team's history against that night's opponent. Here is today's...

Ducks eliminate the Vancouver Canucks from the 2007 Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2OT of Game 5.