Welcome to Syracuse Speaks, a podcast for The Sin Bin!

Now in its third season, Syracuse Speaks aims to cover the Syracuse Crunch, its organization, and the AHL from the stands. Host Alexandra Ackerman has been covering Syracuse on the internet since 2008, and aims to share her passion for the team and the league with her listeners.

In this episode, recorded March 18th and 23rd, 2021, Alex welcomes writer Hardev Lad onto the podcast. Hardev is the current Crunch contributor for Raw Charge, an SB Nation blog that covers the Tampa Bay Lightning organization. Raw Charge has reported on the Crunch since 2012-13, when Alex herself was their main Syracuse contributor, and has featured continuous coverage of the team since that season.

Hardev is very experienced in covering the AHL, and his insights into the team are invaluable for anyone looking for a fuller picture of how Syracuse is doing this season. In this episode, Alex and Hardev cover the following:

• Hardev’s background in AHL coverage, including his time covering the Toronto Marlies during their successful Calder Cup bid in 2018
• His high comfort level with bringing his knowledge of the AHL to his Syracuse coverage
• Hardev’s overall impression of Syracuse so far this season
• The differences seen in the Crunch’s play against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Saturday, March 13th when compared to their game against the Rochester Americans just the week before
• A brief detour into Otto Somppi Is Kind of Awesome?! Land
• What the return of players like Daniel Walcott and Alex Barre-Boulet has meant to the Crunch
• One positive thing and one negative thing that stands out to Hardev about Syracuse this season
• The different scenarios that could play out with the goalie switch of Chris Gibson and Spencer Martin
• What players Hardev would steal away from the Florida Panthers organization if he could (and which one Alex would choose)
• Who has been Hardev’s MVP for Syracuse so far this season

Syracuse Speaks is hosted on Anchor, but is distributed to many of the major podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Breaker, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Spotify, and Stitcher. The royalty-free music featured in this episode was by Purple Planet Music and Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

Thanks for listening!