10 minute read
Dropping the Gloves
What happens when an NHL enforcer moves to Traverse City and picks up a mic — and the world’s luckiest hockey fanatic as co-host? One of the world’s most popular hockey podcasts, of course.
By Craig Manning
What’s northern Michigan’s biggest claim to fame when it comes to hockey?
Ask most hockey fans in the area – die-hards and casuals alike – and you’ll probably a hear a couple common answers: the fact that NHL legend Gordie Howe once called Traverse City home, for instance, or that Traverse City’s Centre Ice Arena has often hosted the Detroit Red Wings for a pre-season training camp and prospects tournament.
But did you know that one of the most popular hockey podcasts in the world is recorded right here in northern Michigan, by a pair of Traverse City residents?
The podcast in question, called “Dropping the Gloves,” is the passion project of two local hockey buffs.
The first is John Scott, a retired NHL All Star who played as a defenseman for the Minnesota Wild, the Chicago Blackhawks, the New York Rangers, the San Jose Sharks, the Buffalo Sabres, the Arizona Coyotes, and the Montreal Canadiens.
The second is Tim Wirzburger, a local marketing and communications professional with a love of hockey that dates back to his youth. Together, the two have built Dropping the Gloves into one of hockey’s most reliable podcasts, recording 3–4 episodes per week, hashing out the latest developments in the hockey world, and even bringing on bigname guests for exclusive interviews.
Initially, Dropping the Gloves was just something that Scott took up to stay connected to hockey after he retired from professional play. It was a well-timed entry into the podcast world: When Scott closed out his career in 2016, he was riding high off the most substantial streak of exposure he’d gotten in his entire career.
An All-Time Unforgettable All-Star Season
In January of 2016, Scott won the NHL All-Star Game fan vote, earning a spot in the annual All-Star Game — and also the role of Pacific Division captain for the game. That high vote tally happened despite Scott’s limited play time with his team, the Arizona Coyotes, during the 2015–16 season, and despite the fact that he’d only netted five goals and six assists in his 280-game NHL career.
In fact, Scott’s real claim to fame in the NHL was as an “enforcer.” Also known as a “fighter, “tough guy,” or “goon,” an enforcer in hockey is an unofficial role, usually filled by a large and imposing figure. That player’s job? To respond to violent and aggressive play against their teammates — often by getting in fights with players from the other team. An effective enforcer, in essence, is supposed to make players on the other team think twice about playing dirty on the ice.
While the prevalence of enforcers in the NHL has declined over the years, Scott was widely considered to be one, and he certainly looked the part. The Canadian native is 6-foot-8 and weighed in at 260 pounds during his NHL days. He also had the stats of an enforcer. Reporting in December 2015 on Scott’s strong performance in the AllStar Game fan vote, Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail noted that Scott’s 535 penalty minutes gave him “the third-highest PIM-to-points ratio in the league the past decade,” and quipped that he had “more fights than points.”
Fittingly, given his status now as one of hockey podcasting’s biggest names, Scott’s NHL All-Star campaign actually originated thanks to a podcast. In November 2015, the hosts of the now-defunct hockey pod Marek vs. Wyshynski joked that Scott would be an entertaining player to see in the AllStar Game, especially given the game’s thenbrand-new three-on-three format. Twitter, Reddit, and the internet at large latched onto the idea, ultimately propelling Scott to get more votes than any other player – including superstars like the NHL’s eventual 2015-16 season MVP, Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks.
What followed was a behind-the-scenes scuffle where both the Arizona Coyotes and the NHL as a whole tried to persuade Scott to take himself out of the running for the All-Star Game. In the midst of the whole ordeal, the Coyotes even traded Scott to the Montreal Canadiens, which in turn sent him down to their AHL affiliate, the St. John’s IceCaps. Those maneuvers called into question Scott’s eligibility to even play in the NHL All-Star Game, since he was no longer playing for a Pacific Division team or even working as a member of an NHL team at all.
Nevertheless, Scott ultimately did play in the 2016 NHL All-Star Game, and even scored a pair of goals in the semifinal game to send his Pacific Division team to the finals, which they won. And though Scott wasn’t initially included by the NHL in the voting for the All-Star Game’s MVP title, he won it anyway, thanks to strong support from fans and fellow players.
Scott did get called back up by the Canadiens after his performance in the All-Star Game, playing a single game for the team. Then he cut his season short to go home to his wife and four daughters in Traverse City, whom he hadn’t seen in two months. He announced his retirement that December and has since made Traverse City his permanent home. He and his wife have had two more daughters since.
GETTING THE BAND TOGETHER
Back to Dropping the Gloves. Scott says his desire to do the podcast sprouted directly from his whirlwind final professional season, as well as from the fact that, after years of being away from home, he just wanted to stop running for a while.
“I started the podcast because I wanted to stay in the game somehow and I knew I wanted to live in Traverse City,” Scott says.
“I was getting offers to do some TV work with the big networks, but that would have meant I would have had to move to Canada or Connecticut. Podcasting was getting popular and my neighbor at the time, John Aikin, owned a digital marketing company called Web Canopy Studio. He told me to
come into his office, and we just started messing around recording things.”
Scott notes that the podcast was “nothing serious for a year or two while I worked out the kinks, but it evolved into something pretty great.” The most crucial moment of that evolution? The arrival of Wirzburger as Scott’s co-host.
In fall 2018, Wirzburger took a job with Web Canopy Studio. At the time, Scott was already working with the company to get Dropping the Gloves off the ground, after having officially launched the podcast in July of that year. Before long, Wirzburger was drawn into Scott’s orbit and the two struck up a rapport — thanks in large part to Wirzburger’s own hockey background.
Though he wasn’t ever a pro like Scott was, Wirzburger had played hockey growing up, competed as part of a club hockey team in college, and had even joined a men’s league after moving to Traverse City in 2018. He describes himself as someone who was “always a die-hard fan, player, and consumer of the game” — factors that made him an easy foil for Scott in the podcast studio.
“[Scott] was already recording the show [when I started at Web Canopy],” Wirzburger says. “He would have different people around the office come on with him as sort of a bouncing board, but they didn’t know hockey. And I did. So one time John invited me, and then he started having me on more regularly. Then, all of a sudden, he’s referring to me as his co-host.”
That co-host format gave Dropping the Gloves what it had been missing. Two people who know their stuff, bantering away and bouncing ideas off one another, was already the bread and butter of most other sports commentary shows — whether in the world of podcasts or on TV. Scott and Wirzburger had the right chemistry to tap into that vein.
STAYING PROLIFIC
It’s that chemistry — along with a constant flow of content — that Wirzburger thinks has allowed Dropping the Gloves to grow into one of the most popular and buzzed-about podcasts in the hockey world.
“We record three episodes a week, and that frequency allows us to cover stuff in almost real time,” Wirzburger says. “A lot of other shows will do one episode a week, but then the stuff they’re talking about might have happened five days ago. That’s not the case for us. We’re covering stuff around the league — news, trades, injuries, free agency signings, all the big stuff — as it happens.”
Beyond just commentary, Dropping the Gloves also features regular interviews with both active and retired NHL players. So far, the list of guests on the pod has included the aforementioned Patrick Kane; current Chicago Blackhawks Captain Jonathan Toews; Patrick Marleau, who in April surpassed Gordie Howe’s record for most games played in the NHL; Ray Bourque, the longest-running captain in Boston Bruins history; and legendary NHL enforcer Georges Laraque.
“Honestly, we’ve probably had close to 100 NHL players on the show at this point,” Wirzburger says.
THE TC FACTOR
For both Scott and Wirzburger, the cherry on top of all the success of Dropping the Gloves is that the podcast format can be done from anywhere — even from the town they both love to call home.
“I love that I get to have a nationally recognized podcast and compete with all the top sports podcasts, and I still get to live in Traverse City,” Scott said. “It’s been such a blessing — and most of the guys in the NHL know about Traverse City, so it’s almost a positive I’m here.”
“A lot of guys we’ve talked to have actually been to Traverse City, either as part of the Red Wings organization or from playing in the prospect tournament,” Wirzburger concurred. “We had a player on a few weeks ago, and he was like, ‘Yeah, I went there four or five summers in a row, playing in that tournament.’ So that’s pretty cool to have, when guys know Traverse City — especially since John was so intentional about living here when he retired.”
Want to check it out for yourself? Find Dropping the Gloves at @dropping_gloves on both Instagram and Twitter, or listen to the latest episodes on your favorite podcast platform.
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