Tired of sitting around the house and watching reruns on television every day?
Too much Harry Potter? Monk? Grey’s Anatomy? NCIS or one of the spinoffs?
Here’s something different.
New Jersey Devils defenseman P.K. Subban and the NHL are bringing something new to television Saturday for fans and everyone dealing with the isolation and hardships caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s NHL Hat Trick Trivia. Subban is the host of the weekly 30-minute show in which contestants will answer up to three hockey trivia questions for prizes, the top one being two tickets to any game next season.
Everything is filmed remotely with Subban hosting the show from his living room in Los Angeles, in the house he shares with fiancee and Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn. Contestants are filmed at their homes and there is a guest player every week. Patrick Maroon of the Tampa Bay Lightning had the role this week.
Among the contestants on the first show are a St. Louis police officer who played hockey with Maroon, and a Bloomingdale, New Jersey, paramedic. Both have been on the front lines in the crisis.
”For me, it is exciting to help during this time,” Subban said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. ”I know how tough it is not only for the NHL, but all the professional sports leagues out there. I think when players can step up and show they care about the league – we can be divided a lot of times – but I think this is a great time for us to show people how much we care about the game and care about the fans.”
While this is the first time the 30-year-old Subban has been the host of a game show, it’s not his first time in this role on television. The 2013 Norris Trophy winner as the league’s top defender was the host of an NHL All-Star Special last year and he was the host of a Just For Laughs gala in Montreal in 2016.
Steve Mayer, the NHL chief content officer, said Subban’s big personality made him an easy choice for the job.
The first episode was taped Tuesday and it took roughly 2 1/2 hours to get 23 minutes of content for the program.
”Yesterday was a day we were feeling things out and working out the kinks,” Mayer said. ”It took a little bit longer, but we expect it to come down moving forward.”
While Maroon was friends with the police officer, it’s funny that he’s the guest with Subban. Google their names and a video comes up of an AHL game in 2010 with Maroon playing for the Adirondack Phantoms and Subban on the Hamilton Bulldogs.
After a play, Maroon appears to put either his glove or stick in Subban’s face. It also appears Maroon got thrown out of the game for the offense.
Subban laughs about it now.
”If I can be honest, if I was an Adirondack Phantom playing against the Hamilton Bulldogs and I was playing myself, I probably would have sticked myself in the face, too,” he said.
The trivia show is simple. Contestants will receive a hat for the correct answer to the first question, an NHL jersey for getting the second one right, and two tickets for a hat trick of correct answers. They lose everything with a wrong answer.
Subban didn’t reveal any questions, but here’s one: P.K. is short for?
Read on.
The program will be telecast every Saturday at noon ET on Sportsnet and on NBCSN on Wednesday evenings. It also can be seen on the NHL’s channels on Facebook, YouTube and IGTV, and will air on NHL Network.
Subban didn’t say whether Vonn would make a guest appearance, but hinted he would be doing backflips if she was asked.
”This show can bring a lot of fun and positive energy to people and humor and remind them of their love of the game of hockey and the people in hockey,” Subban said.
Oh, by the way. The answer is: Pernell-Karl.
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More AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports
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