Around The Rink: The next great hockey sketch is likely about your favorite NHL GMs

The last thing the hockey world needs is another mailbag where readers like you ask writers like me the hard questions. You know, those five or so tough nuggets of hockey I crack open to you like I know the inner workings of the league itself every week with jokes and topical answers.

If you’re looking for a mailbag like that, you’ve come to the wrong place. Instead, we here at SB Nation will be your MC with one solitary hockey question each week for our panel of bloggers from the NHL team sites you know and love. You can certainly pitch questions to our lovely team, but we’re here to debate, discuss, and maybe settle some ideas and issues across the hockey world at large.

Why? Because it’s fun, and you don’t need us yelling into the already crowded void of mailbags you’re likely up to your ears in. So, instead, sit back and relax as we guide you through the whimsical, wonderful, and wacky questions we come up with to torture our NHL team blogs.

To kick off the first edition of Around The Rink, our topic today is ...

Mary: We’ve all watched the recent Saturday Night Live hockey reporter skit with Chance the Rapper, yes? (This is your PSA to do so if you haven’t!) My question to you today is more open-ended in nature, but will likely produce hilarious results given your range of comedic talents. Now that we all know what one hockey skit looks like, design your own hockey comedy sketch. And, go!

OK, here’s my sketch; it plays off of SNL’s famous fake newscasts/live look-in style skits. Starts on a TSN-like Trade Center spinoff set on deadline day. The set has a general host, say James Duthie, and two analysts who are getting all of the trade calls and are breaking all the news, say Uncle Bob and Elliotte Friedman.

The third guy, specifically John Shannon, is constantly beating an Oliver Ekman-Larsson trade. He breaks in every 30 seconds to update them on Ekman-Larsson rumors. Every time Shannon does that, the crew follows up with a live look in at Ekman-Larsson’s house in Arizona. But every time they look in, Ekman-Larsson is doing something completely nondescript and relaxed; he’s chilling in the pool (in February), he’s watching TV, has some teammates come over for lunch, etc.

Pitch: “Woes of Edmonton’s sucking Oilers and its brand new lineup of superstars.”

Canadian hockey media is … well … it’s something. So I was thinking of playing the role of Edmonton’s new general manager so I could throw together an Oilers team the higher ups, the journalists, and the fans just can’t hate.

So, ahem, I just got offered the job and will be leaving Pittsburgh. Hey, thanks, I’m honored. Glad to be here. That Peter Chiarelli guy wasn’t very good, eh? Glad that dude’s gone! But, folks, I have an important job to do. I haven’t seen something this sh***y dealing with oil since Mark Wahlberg in Deep Water Horizon. As we all know, Connor McDavid is the sole reason why the team is playing like garbage right now – obviously. No doubt about that. But since we paid a $1 billion to sign him for the remainder of the decade and can’t trade him like the totally logical and definitely not nonsensical thing the media believes to do, we should round up some super talented, super cheap guys who’ll deliver the slap in the ass this team needs.

Without further ado, get ready to welcome our new top-six, grade-A, extremely fit, gonna-lead-us-to-a-conference-and-Stanley-Cup-championship Edmonton Oiler forwards: right wing Jack Black who can tickle the twine just as beautifully as he can tickle guitar strings, left wing Mike Myers (because Toronto sucks, amirite!), right wing Alex Trebek because I’m pretty sure he’s Canadian and also corrected a contestant on Jeopardy! on the proper pronunciation of Evgeni Malkin, left wing Norm Kelly because he’s a badass and has spicier Twitter fingers than Kevin Durant, and also my nephew, because he’s a better scorer than McDavid and also because he said please.

That’ll do it. That’s a contending team Wayne Gretzky would be proud of. Trust me, I was responsible the 2013-14 icing of superstars Tanner Glass, Taylor Pyatt, and Brian Gibbons during my tenure with the Penguins. I’m a genius.

If I’m asking writers to be creative, I have to put myself on the line too. My skit would be simple. It would involve Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin, Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli, and Canucks GM Jim Benning in a Charlie Brown style football joke. All three are insistent that trading a star player will bring them incredibly solid returns and help reset their franchises. After all, they’ve seen it work before, so why can’t it work for them?

The run up and hold all seem perfect, but instead they get the football pulled away at the last second. The placeholder then reveals themselves to be a Predators fan, an Islanders fan, and a Panthers fan respectively for each as they make off with the returns of the deal. The skit would, obviously, be punched up by topical jokes about tampering, players with “personality problems”, and a return to “old time hockey” as seen fit. End scene with the fans toasting to the GMs’ gullibility.