It Begins On Thursday

Season 45 of the popular reality show Survivor has been confirmed by CBS already, and it sounds like the latest round of oversized games and eating weird stuff will premiere sometime in the fall of 2023. Survivor: Season 44 was filmed in June 2022 and debuted on TV on March 1, 2023 as we get to watch Jeff Probst age in another month of harmful UV rays on the beaches of the Mamanuca Islands in Fiji. I'm not sure how much longer CBS and Mark Burnett will keep their series going, but there's one version of Survivor that keeps getting bigger, better, and way more fun every year it happens.

Of course, I am referring to Survivor: NHL Playoffs on The Hockey Show on UMFM. As you may have heard at the end of the show last week and the week before, our Survivor contest is returning to the airwaves once more, and that means sixteen people will have the opportunity to win prizes to go along with fame and glory as The Hockey Show's 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs survivor!

Unfortunately, there's no tropical island and our show budget of $0.00 says we'll never be on an island in the south Pacific. However, if you're aware of the Survivor pools that are run between friends or at the office, you pick a random name of one of the contestants, and that person on Survivor is your person for the run of the show. If he or she is voted off the island, the game for you is over. We do something similar, but we put our own twist on the game.

On April 13, we need sixteen people to call The Hockey Show and choose a number from 1 to 16. Each of those numbers will have a corresponding playoff team assigned to them randomly. Whatever number you've chosen will select your team for the playoffs in a similar random fashion to Survivor pools. All you have to do is be near your phone that evening between 5:30pm and 6:30pm Central Time, call us, and choose one of the remaining numbers on the board to find out what playoff team you've been assigned!

If Jason were to call in and choose #6, he may end up with the Boston Bruins. Jason now has Boston until they're eliminated or they win, and card #6 is no longer available as a choice for the next callers. Officially, Jason is a Bruins fan until they're done playing.

If I were to call in next, I may end up selecting #13 and that could be the Vegas Golden Knights. Vegas would now be my team until they're eliminated or they win, and card #13 is no longer available as a choice for the next callers. Wash, rinse, repeat until there are no numbers and teams remaining.

I mentioned a twist on the game above, and here it is: once your team is eliminated, The Hockey Show will call you and YOU will deliver your team's exit interview just as the players on Survivor do at the end of the show. What might you say? Talk about how you're disappointed that a specific player didn't show up in the playoffs. Talk about how you never thought there would be an upset this early or how you're just lucky that your chosen team made the playoffs. Or you can be like Jacob and talk about your team embarrassed you.


While Probst's version of the game promises a big cash prize and whole bunch of prizes from sponsors - both of which The Hockey Show doesn't have - we will be offering up some prizing that aligns with our lack of budget. There will be some smaller prizes handed out as "challenge prizes" much like CBS' Survivor does as well, and those are as follows:

• First shutout recorded in the playoffs.
• First hat trick recorded in the playoffs.
• First goaltender point recorded in the playoffs.
• First team eliminated from the playoffs.
• First to advance from the second round to the third round.
• First team to score seven goals in one game in the playoffs.
• First upset of the playoffs.

Any team that accomplishes any of these challenge goals will earn their Survivor player a prize! The prizes are a number of books about hockey, Tim Hortons gift cards, and some other hockey merchandise, and any prizes earned will be handed out while supplies and challenges last! Needless to say, teams can earn more than one prize in this challenge part of the pool, so choose wisely when it comes to the randomly-distributed teams across the sixteen cards!

The grand prize winner who captures the Survivor crown will take home their choice of an NHL jersey - a Seattle Kraken home jersey or a Winnipeg Jets Aviator jersey - plus a few additional prizes! The finalist will get jersey not chosen by the winner as a runner-up prize, so you're going home with a prize as long as your team makes it through three rounds!

Pretty good, right? Like the television show, we also have some requirements that need to be met before you can participate. The good news is we won't have to have a medical team available like CBS does, but we do have a few must-have REQUIREMENTS for anyone to participate. They include:

1. You must call into the show on Thursday, April 13 between 5:30pm and whenever we fill all the spots in the contest. If all 16 spots aren't filled within the hour, Jason and I will get creative to fill the empty spots. Don't complain - you had an hour to make one phone call!
2. A phone number and an email address. If you're calling us, I'm pretty sure you have at least one of these already. If you have neither, how are living in today's world?
3. A desire to watch your chosen team's progress in the NHL Playoffs. You don't need to follow them religiously, but it's better to know something about your team if/when it is eliminated.

Beyond that, this is a fun contest meant for laughter with a few rewards for those who get lucky. It's not to be taken seriously in any way, and it's a nice way for us to reward our loyal listeners with some free gear. If this has enticed you to listen for the first time or come back to the show after not listening, welcome to the show and here's hoping you get into the contest! Just remember, though, that if your team gets bounced, we're calling you for that exit interview. If that scares you in any way, work through that fear!

Be ready, folks, because this contest always is fun for everyone involved. Like CBS' Survivor, only one person can be crowned as "survivor" in this contest, and we're ready to kick things off on April 13! Here's hoping you'll call in for the best radio contest in hockey!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!