This is the Jeff Merrick Show on the Sportsnet Radio Network.

And every Wednesday it features Greg Wischinski from ESPN, ESPN.com, and The Drop.

Hello, Greg.

Yeah, the drop has been interesting this week because we've been having a mascot madness bracket.

I saw this.

I saw this.

We've been pairing up the mascots against each other in the bracket.

Now, it was interesting first because both Arda O'Call and I and our entire staff didn't realize that a coyote is a dog.

So we put the coyote's mascot in the same bracket as cats.

Now, if you squint, if you briefly look at Howler, I think he's giving cat in our defense.

Now, you know, from in our defense. Now,

you know,

from an entomology standpoint,

I don't know,

we're completely wrong. But if you squint hard enough, he looks like a cat. But however, the biggest news this week and the one that has a lot of people talking, Merrick is, uh, that Gritty was upset by Wild Wing. we gritty lost in the elite eight in our mascot bracket both through the people's vote.

Yeah, both through the people's vote.

Yeah, and through our own selection committee standards.

So what are those standards when it comes to mascots then?

I'm very, because you've always been, like, I can kind of like, take or leave the mascots.

I get a kid's level.

You've always loved this. You've always had a soft spot in your heart for mascots. And I know this. Actually, I want to make a point about mascots here in a second. But what goes into deciding, you know, whether it's going to be, you know, gritty or Wildwing is coming down to those two. Like, what's the criteria here? I think the in-game performance, I think the look of the character, I think the way that the

mascot interacts with the fans and represents the team, or in this case, whether or not

...