Kypreos, 54, let out a nervous laugh. “Uh, oh,” he said. “Look out.”
Healy wanted to know how Keenan, 71, came up with the idea of showing the Rangers footage of the 1969 Miracle Mets and their parade down Broadway at the beginning of the 1993-94 N.H.L. season.
“Well,” Keenan replied, “I think visualization is a very important part of building confidence and seeing yourself successful.”
“The next best thing,” he added, “was to show the excitement that could be generated in one of the greatest cities in the world.
“And I can remember Mess got teary-eyed,” Keenan continued, referring to Mark Messier, the star center. “He got teary-eyed often. But at the first meeting, he said it was so important to him to have someone come in and say that it’s our objective to win the Stanley Cup. He didn’t want to have someone come in and say, ‘Let’s make the playoffs.’ He wanted it set in stone right from the beginning.”
The hosts will tackle tough subjects like concussions, but harmless anecdotes, not headline-grabbing material, are the show’s staple. The former Boston Bruins coach and broadcaster Don Cherry, 86, for instance, came on recently with one condition: He would not discuss his firing last year from “Hockey Night in Canada.”
One of Patskou’s favorite topics was the “Night of Infamy,” the 1969 playoff melee in Boston that culminated in Forbes Kennedy, the Maple Leafs tough guy, trading punches with Bruins goalkeeper Gerry Cheevers and then decking linesman George Ashley.
That Zoomcast episode, which showcased a discussion of the game by Kennedy, 85, and one of the linesmen, Matt Pavelich, 86, revealed that time had not rounded off the edges of the personalities involved.