Winter Olympics Show-and-Tell
Hang Up and Listen
Joel Meyer
4.6 • 986 Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2026
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hosts Alex Kirshner, Lindsay Gibbs, and Ben Lindbergh kick things off by picking their favorite (and the most horrifying) events to watch at the upcoming Winter Olympics.
Then the panel digs into Bill Belichick’s bizarre Hall of Fame snub. They finish with a conversation with the Athletic’s Matthew Fairburn about the Buffalo Sabres, the NHL’s most playoff-averse team that might actually make the postseason this year.
Ben delivers an Afterball on Jordan Smith, the amateur tennis player who stunned the field at the Australian Open’s 1 Point Slam and walked away with one million dollars.
On the bonus episode, available exclusively for Slate Plus members, the panel discusses Novak Djokovic's Grand Slam dreams being dashed once again.
Olympics Preview (4:38): Get ready for ‘Skimo’ fever
Bill Belichick (27:19): The Spygate punishment
Buffalo Sabres (41:05): Can the city shake its playoff malaise?
(Note: time codes are only accurate for Slate Plus members, who listen ad-free.)
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Podcast production and editing by Kevin Bendis, with production assistance from Patrick Fort.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Groundhog Day, 2026. Welcome back to Hang Up and Listen, the sports podcast here at Slate. Back with you again, I'm Alex Kirchner. I'm a contributing writer here, and I co-host split zone duo. That's a national college football podcast. We have a fun show for you this week. |
| 0:21.1 | We're going to start with a round of show and tell on the Winter Olympics, which are approaching |
| 0:25.4 | later this week. We're going to bring a couple of things that we're excited about and tell |
| 0:29.2 | the class about them. We're going to talk about Bill Belichick, not getting into the pro football |
| 0:34.1 | Hall of Fame on his first ballot. Is this just spite by voters or a consequence of |
| 0:39.8 | some weird eligibility rules and dynamics going on around Canton right now? We'll discuss that. |
| 0:45.8 | And we're going to talk about a revival in Buffalo, New York. The Sabres are, we think, good. |
| 0:52.8 | Joining me for all of it this week is Lindsay Gibbs, |
| 0:55.2 | the women's sports lead at CBS Sports |
| 0:57.2 | and the publisher of PowerPlays, |
| 0:59.0 | a newsletter covering the key stories of the hour |
| 1:01.4 | in women's sports. |
| 1:02.7 | Lindsay, how are we? |
| 1:04.2 | I'm doing very, very good. |
| 1:05.6 | I would like to make an announcement that, you know, |
| 1:07.9 | I used to always use these intro segments to talk about my Panthers, |
| 1:12.9 | and I've been a little searching the past few weeks, but now it's going to be the Charlotte Hornets, |
| 1:20.0 | because friends, they are good. The Charlotte Hornets no longer suck at basketball. I am pumped. It's going to be fun. Just prepping everyone. I don't have like a lot of stats on hand right now, but next week I'm going to come armed. This is just kind of a, you know, I wanted to get everyone ready. |
| 1:41.2 | Yeah, looking forward to the future Hornets updates. Thank you. Yeah. |
| 1:45.5 | The Hornets have, I believe, in fact, I'm confirming not won a playoff series since they have been |
| 1:53.2 | this iteration of the Charlotte Hornets, nor did they win any when they were the Charlotte Bobcats. |
| 2:00.0 | The previous Charlotte Hornets made a couple of deep playoff runs back in their day. |
... |
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