Interview with Sean Leahy

Over 10 years ago, I wrote a post highlighting other blogs with "Sean" in the title. I'm sure that you're shocked that many are no longer in existence. With that written, I thought it would be fun to come back to this topic and turn Sean's Ramblings into Seans' Ramblings. How cool would it be to hear from other people named Sean like Sean "Diddy" Combs, Sean Connery, former Pittsburgh Pirate Sean Rodriguez, and others?

First up: Sean Leahy, NHL writer for NBC Sports. I've been a big fan of Sean's work from his time writing the Going Five Hole blog and then when he jumped to Yahoo's Puck Daddy. Here we go:

I guess my first question is how did you become a hockey writer? Did it start with Going Five Hole (one of my favorite hockey blogs and how I first saw your writing)? What is your background? Were you a hockey fan growing up? (Yes, I realize that this is more than one question.)

I originally had started a blog with a few friends with the idea we'd cover sports, pop culture, technology, and wrestling. Quickly my buddy and I realized our other friends who were going to take care of the non-sports stuff weren't going to contribute as much as they originally promised, so PopJocks became a sports blog. Eventually, my partner was going through grad school and preparing for his wedding, so his time was limited to work on the blog. More and more I started writing strictly hockey and then decided to create my own hockey-only blog, and that's how Going Five Hole was born in the fall of 2007.

I was always a hockey fan. With two older brothers, we played a lot of street hockey growing up on Long Island. I've always wanted to work in sports, but just didn't know what specific job I wanted to do. When I was getting Going Five Hole going, I was working a full-time job with a USL soccer team. Within a year, I was laid off from the soccer team and started writing more and more with Puck Daddy, which I started contributing to in its second day of existence in April 2008.

In my opinion, Yahoo’s Puck Daddy with Greg Wyshynski, you, and others was the preeminent place for hockey over a several year period. Can you share your experience at Yahoo?

Writing for Puck Daddy was such a fun time. Our editors let us do our thing and be creative and have fun while also covering the sport from all angles. It was cool to watch the site's popularity grow over the years and then explode really after Twitter became a huge part of our daily lives. The interaction with readers and doors being opened for us (ex: getting press credentials) really helped us make the site grow.

What happened to cause Puck Daddy to no longer exist? As I mentioned before, I thought it was one of the best places for hockey coverage anywhere.

Verizon purchased Yahoo in 2017 and they basically laid off thousands of people, including me and two others on the Puck Daddy staff after the 2016-17 NHL season. Wysh was only there another few months before leaving for ESPN. Puck Daddy wasn't going to be the same and he didn't have the desire to try and recreate it.

You’re now at NBC. What has been your role there?

I've been with NBC since October 2018 and I oversee four writers -- Joey Alfieri, Scott Billeck, Adam Gretz, and James O'Brien. I also do a lot of the behind the scenes stuff in regards to planning and scheduling and being a liaison to NBC HQ. I still write often each week, trying to find unique angles to stories like I did at Yahoo.

Since you’re with NBC, do you get to watch the filming of "The Good Place" or hang out with Hoda and Kathie Lee?

My requests to appear on "Men in Blazers" and "Law & Order SVU" have not been approved yet, but my fingers are still crossed.

What is the coolest thing you’ve been able to do or experience through your work as a hockey writer?

I've been able to play NHL2K11 against Ryan Kesler, hang out with Jim Craig and his "Miracle" gold medal, spend an hour chatting with Willie O'Ree, and drink water out of a giant Stanley Cup fountain in Times Square. There's been so many cool things I've been fortunate enough to experience over the last decade. I definitely feel lucky.

When not writing and covering hockey, what does Sean Leahy do for fun?

I love watching other sports like football, soccer and baseball. They're a good outlet for me to get away from the game for a bit. I also spend a lot of my summer reading books, catching up on plenty of non-fiction and biographies. Fishing is also a nice thing to do to get away. Grab a 12-pack and hope the fish are biting that day.

Finally, who do you think will win the Cup this year? Actually, a better question may be: Tampa or the field?

I had Tampa vs. Nashville before the season and I'm sticking to that. And even though picking the field might be the smarter bet, it's so hard to think of anyone beating the Lightning four times in seven games. They've only lost back-to-back games twice this season. They've come up short three times in the last four years. I think they finally get it done this June.

Thanks to Sean for taking the time to answer my questions. Please follow Sean on Twitter and read his work on NBC Sports.


Tampa Bay Lightning photo by Chris O'Meara of AP. Picture of Sean from his Twitter page.

Republicans Should Fear Eli Manning and Jason Campbell

After switching around from the Washington Redskins preseason game to the South Carolina-North Carolina State college football game, I turned to the Democratic National Convention to watch Barack Obama’s acceptance speech. Besides wanting to see his speech, the preseason game ended and I didn’t have that much interest in this particular college football game (particularly since South Carolina was winning big).

However, this got me thinking about next week. The Republican National Convention will end next Thursday night with John McCain’s acceptance speech. Next Thursday night also marks the beginning of the NFL season as the Washington Redskins face the New York Giants, a game that a millions of people care about as opposed to last night's games. Although the NFL and NBC moved the game to a 7:00pm Eastern Time start so it won't conflict with the speech, I think the Republican Party should be worried about the game exceeding three hours. If it is a close game after 10:00, there will be millions and millions of people who will stay with the game and not switch to see McCain’s speech. If that's the case, what will NBC do? They probably won't want to alienate viewers by switching away from the game and going to the convention (that worked so well with the Heidi game 40 years ago). What will the Republicans do? Will they delay the speech until the game ends? Will the NFL try to encourage coaches Jim Zorn and Tom Coughlin not to challenge plays to save time? Will NBC try to speed things along by showing fewer commercials? (That’s funny!) I guess the Republican Party should hope that both Manning and Campbell have excellent games with few incompletion passes so that the clock continues to move.

Let all of the conspiracy theories (both political and football) begin!

2007 Steelers Postmortem

Do you want to know why the Steelers lost to Jacksonville on Saturday night? Well, I hope that you aren’t looking to me to provide the answers. I apologize that I’m still in a bad mood following the game, but if you have watched the Steelers over the past month or two, you already know the team’s problems. The offensive line was useless as the Steelers rushed for a pathetic 43 yards on 26 carries and Ben Roethlisberger was sacked six times. The special teams gave up another big return and did nothing to really help the team. Besides Allen Rossum’s kickoff return for a touchdown against San Francisco in September, did the special teams do anything, well, special this year? I can’t remember any other big punt or kickoff return or a blocked kick. The play-calling, especially the Roethlisberger’s run on 3rd and 6 late in the fourth quarter, was questionable, as was Mike Tomlin’s decision to go for two after Sean Mahan’s “holding” penalty. Roethlisberger reverted back to his 2006 season in the first half with some poor decisions. While I thought the defense played well overall, they couldn’t make stops when it mattered.

You can read much more analysis about the Steelers throughout the internet, but I wanted to put the season in perspective by going back to my season predictions from September.

The team will finish 10-6 and earn a Wild Card playoff spot. They will win the first playoff game but lose in the second round.

The record was correct, but I was one round off for the playoffs.

Clark Haggans will lead the team in sacks. Ike Taylor will lead the team in interceptions.

Haggans only had 3 sacks this season. That’s a terrible number for a starting outside linebacker in the Steeler defense. Even last night, I don’t remember Al Michaels announcing his name. Meanwhile, Taylor did lead the team in interceptions with three and made a huge pick to help propel the fourth quarter comeback.

Ben Roethlisberger will have more touchdowns than interceptions. He will also not be involved in a motorcycle accident or have an appendectomy this year.

32 TDs and 11 interceptions in the regular season, but had 2 TDs and 3 interceptions last night. There were no known surgeries or motorcycle accidents.

Nate Washington will have at least six touchdowns.

I was close as Washington had five touchdowns. However, he really is hit or miss. Washington had 5 touchdowns in 3 games, but in the other 13 games, caught only 23 passes for 309 yards.

Chris Gardocki will not have a punt blocked this season (or any other season).

Neither Gardocki or Daniel Sepulveda had a punt blocked this season. In case you were wondering, Sepulveda’s punting average of 42.4 yards was 21st in the NFL and net average of 37.9 yards was 11th in the league. In 2006, Chris Gardocki finished with an average of 41.3 yards (30th) and net average of 36.7 yards (tied for 19th). That’s certainly an improvement but that needs to get even better next year.

Fast Willie Parker will have another 200-yard game rushing.

This one was wrong. Although Parker had 8 100-yard games, his high was 133 yards. Let’s hope Fast Willie has a speedy recovery.

Considering the fact that the Steelers had a rookie head coach, multiple injuries to key players and an ineffective offensive line, a 10-6 record and a division championship is a successful season. Of course, Saturday night’s loss still hurts.

Two final comments:

Boo to NBC. Instead of showing one of my favorite things about Pittsburgh, which is driving out of the Fort Pitt tunnel and seeing the city’s skyline, NBC covered the bottom of the screen with an American Gladiators promo. All you could see was the lights on the bridge.

I watched the Pitt-Villanova basketball game in attempt to cheer myself up. That didn’t help. Pitt had a 63-62 lead until Villanova hit two free throws with 10 seconds left. With a chance to win, Ronald Ramon lost the ball, Pitt’s 22nd turnover, to end the game.