Metal Blade’s Brian Slagel Launches NHL-Themed Radio Show
Metal Blade label head Brian Slagel and NHL.com's Shawn Roarke have teamed up to co-host 'Metal Misconduct,' an NHL-themed radio show. The show is available at HardRadio.com and via iTunes as a podcast. Slagel and Roarke co-host the program, which will include interviews with musicians and athletes, as well as music selected by Slagel himself. The show premiered March 5th with the Buffalo Sabres' Drew Stafford as the special guest. New shows will air on the first Saturday of every month.
Roarke, the senior managing editor at NHL.com, said, "I live at the intersection of where metal and sports meet. As a journalist, sports, particularly hockey, are my business, as well as a passion. Metal music, meanwhile, is a passion that is well into its third decade and continues to serve as the soundtrack for my life."
How did Slagel decide to craft a show that paired hockey with metal? Well, aside from the fact that a riff can be as brutal and bloody as a on-ice fight, Slagel said the connection was quite obvious. "I noticed hockey players are into metal, and metal gets played at [hockey] games," Slagel told Noisecreep. "Jaromir Jagr is a big metalhead, just a huge Metallica fan. Janne Niinimaa is a big Cannibal Corpse fan." After spending some time at the NHL office, Slagel was encouraged to do a show that engaged hockey players via their love of music. "[The players who are also music fans] don't have a platform," Slagel said. "We can merge those worlds."
There are plenty of metal hockey moments that the public never hears about, so Slagel was happy to share one with Noisecreep. "The player Roman Hamerlink, during his first All-Star nod, which was maybe his third or fourth year in the league, was nervous when he met James Hetfield," Slagel recalled. "He went up to James and sheepishly said, 'I want you to have this,' and gave James [his] jersey from the All-Star game. James was like, 'Are you sure? I don't want to take this from you,' but Roman insisted, 'I want you to have this.'"
Slagel, who follows the Pittsburgh Penguins, the LA Kings, and the Washington Capitals, also gave Noisecreep his Stanley Cup predictions.
"The Flyers are good and the Lightning are playing good. But I think it's going to be the Bruins and Canucks. I want to see them both, but who makes it there depends on who is the healthiest," Slagel said.