The Punchline

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

History, Science, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Society & Culture

4.6 • 44.5K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2026

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode, first aired in 2019, brings you the story of John Scott, the professional hockey player that every fan loved to hate. A tough guy. A brawler. A goon. But when an impish pundit named Puck Daddy called on fans to vote for Scott to play alongside the world’s greatest players in the NHL All-Star Game, Scott found himself facing off against fans, commentators, and the powers that be. Was this the realization of Scott’s childhood dreams? Or a nightmarish prank gone too far? Today on Radiolab, a goof on a goon turns into a parable of the agony and the ecstasy of the internet, and democracy in the age of Boaty McBoatface. Special thanks to Larry Lynch and Morgan Springer. Check out John Scott's "Dropping the Gloves" podcast (https://www.droppingthegloves.com/) and his book (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-Guy-Like-Me/John-Scott/9781501159657) "A Guy Like Me". EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif NasserProduced by - Matt Kielty Original music and sound design contributed by -John Dryden, Thee Oh Sees, Weedeater and Bongzilla. Sign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org.Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Latif, this is Radio Lab. Today I'm going to resurface a story with an interview that was one of, if not the
0:11.6	hardest gets of my career. It took me two years of pestering. I regularly pestered the guy's PR people, then his agent, his book agent,
0:25.6	even him directly. I got multiple nose at multiple points. And you're probably thinking,
0:31.6	who is this guy? Is it the president? Is it a rock and roll hall of famer? No, it was this humble, unassuming Canadian guy you've probably never even heard of,
0:41.6	but I had just fallen for his story so hard.
0:45.7	I knew I had to tell it.
0:48.1	So when I finally did get that yes, when I finally did interview him, the only time he offered to talk to me was when he was
0:58.3	at home on dad duty and you could hear his kid banging on a piano in the background. And I was like,
1:08.7	oh, this audio is terrible. Like, I can't do this.
1:11.7	I could barely hear him.
1:13.2	He wasn't paying attention.
1:14.9	It just felt like one of those moments
1:16.7	where the whole thing was going to fall apart.
1:21.3	But then something magical happened.
1:24.0	You'll hear it in the episode.
1:26.2	It's this moment between him and his daughter that felt so intimate, so tender, that it just convinced me like, oh, this story is going to be even better than I thought.
1:40.6	I hope you enjoy.
1:42.1	It's an episode from 2019, the punchline.
1:45.3	Wait, you're listening.
1:46.8	Okay.
1:48.1	All right.
1:49.2	Okay.
	...

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