We Helped Scatter the Ashes of a Die-Hard Fan (PTFO Vault)

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Speaker 21 Okay, so hello. It is me, Pablo, entering, invading even your ears because I have done something I have not done before,

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Speaker 21 And this, this episode today, is a hand-picked episode from deep inside the PTFO vault that we sincerely hope you enjoy.

Speaker 21 Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Speaker 22 In January of this year, I took Ron's ashes off skydiving.

Speaker 21 Right after this ad.

Speaker 21 So, this is going to be a local news story at first. And I promise that, as with every story, we have Dave Fleming do for us.
Thank you for being here, by the way. My pleasure.

Speaker 21 It gets big and grandiose and cosmic and profound and stupid and smart and all of that. But this is in the tradition of your study of fandom that began, arguably, on death row in Texas.

Speaker 21 Our episode last year, which was singular in the genre. But this is ridiculous in its own right.

Speaker 21 This is part of my goth period, I think. Yes, it's Denver, it's a couple years ago, and it's a news story that starts like this.

Speaker 21 Interesting story here: Denver Seven's Christian Lopez spoke to a man who spread his friend's ashes on the Av's home ice just as the Zamboni was driving by.

Speaker 21 I'm I'm going to laugh in ways that I think will be redeemed at some point, but who is this guy? So, this particular fan, his name is Ryan Clark.

Speaker 21 And this is the story about Ryan Clark and his best buddy, Kyle Stark.

Speaker 21 And they were friends for more than a decade.

Speaker 21 They met at work.

Speaker 21 Kyle ended up being the best man at Ryan's wedding.

Speaker 21 And the main thing that they bonded over over years was their deep love of the Colorado Avalanche.

Speaker 21 And it involved sort of like splitting season tickets. It involved if Kyle couldn't watch a game, he would call Ryan, who would put his phone up to the TV and FaceTime the game to him.

Speaker 21 There's a stepbrothers feel here of like guys who just instantly became best friends over the Colorado Avalanche. Right, down to what feels like a climactic Pratt Fall or would-be Pratt fall.

Speaker 21 But of course, because we are a show based on journalism,

Speaker 21 you got to know Ryan yourself. Yes.
We ended up talking to him. He had lost his laptop and he had borrowed a phone and he was on lunch break.
Okay, so where are you today right now?

Speaker 21 Currently out in Bennett, Colorado. At like a job site or something?

Speaker 21 Yeah, we were working in the Elizabeth School District. So this is just a little bit north of that right now at a gas station privilege

Speaker 21 do we have a limited amount of time or this whole story just started to just sort of pour out of of ryan um from the front seat of his car right the reception terrible yeah the the sentiment

Speaker 21 crystal clear

Speaker 21 We both, we were avalanche season ticket holders together, so thoroughbred fans through and through.

Speaker 21 Him more so than myself. I mean, this dude's coffee table in his living room was a hockey rink that resembled the Pepsi Center back when it was that before, excuse me, Paul Arena.

Speaker 21 And just diehard. One of the best guys I know.
Miss him dearly. If he had the choice whether to breathe air or watch the Avalanche play hockey, he's going to suffocate.
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 21 He's going to, he's going to watch the game.

Speaker 21 Well, that didn't disappoint, right? That's exactly as we advertised. I just love that he's recording from like half an inch away from his face.
Yeah.

Speaker 21 But you know what's funny is immediately, the minute he mentions Kyle's name,

Speaker 21 you can see the emotion start to bubble up. Yes.
They had been best friends for almost a dozen years when after a seizure,

Speaker 21 Kyle died in 2021. Suddenly, even speaking years later, it's still very emotional and

Speaker 21 hard for Ryan to think about.

Speaker 21 It's hard to talk and not get emotional. So it's trying not to do because I miss it.

Speaker 21 But yeah,

Speaker 21 all-around great individual, very caring, very loving.

Speaker 21 Way too young.

Speaker 21 Passed away at 32. So

Speaker 21 way too young.

Speaker 21 But in terms of the thing that got Ryan on the news, him spreading. Kyle's ashes on the ice inside their favorite building in the world.

Speaker 21 I imagine there are some liability concerns, perhaps even criminal fears when it comes to just what might happen to you if you try to do that.

Speaker 21 You're not the only one who thinks that way, right? Because Ryan and Kyle's family, they set aside bail money.

Speaker 21 So they got Kyle's ashes into a Ziploc bag. They got tickets to a game and they sort of snuck Kyle in.
Two of the hottest teams in the National Hockey League squaring off tonight.

Speaker 21 It's the Avalanche and the Leech at that beat. Last time these two teams hooked up, it was all...
Yeah, January 8th, 2022.

Speaker 21 The Avalanche are hosting the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Speaker 21 And

Speaker 21 it's Operation Kyle.

Speaker 21 In between periods, he saw the Zamboni come out. And so he worked his way all the way down to the glass next to the visitor's bench.

Speaker 21 Basically put one foot up on an armrest of a seat, a front row seat, the other foot teetering on the edge of the boards.

Speaker 21 A family member of Kyle's is like holding Ryan, all 340 pounds of Ryan, teetering on the boards, supporting him from the back side. This is not quite subtle.

Speaker 21 Then he gets the Ziploc bag, gets it up to the top of the glass, and then deposits Kyle onto the ice

Speaker 21 where their beloved Avalanche play.

Speaker 21 until the Zamboni

Speaker 21 and I just want to make this clear what about the machine that cleans the ice if a hockey fan knows how a Zamboni works it was kind of genius because it swept up Kyle and repurposed him into the ice so now Kyle was literally a part of the entire surface in Colorado.

Speaker 21 He was integrated I mean, yeah. Into the playing surface.
I mean, honestly, from one hockey fan to another, tip of the cap to Ryan. There are diehard fans and then there are die-hard fans.
Yes.

Speaker 21 But what happens after

Speaker 21 this

Speaker 21 sequence of events? Like, what happens to Ryan? Well, when a 300-pound man deposits a strange substance over the boards at a hockey arena, it

Speaker 21 tends to get people's attention. Instantly, an usher was kind of like, what'd you just do? What was that? I came down

Speaker 21 and it took less than, I'd say,

Speaker 21 I'd say not even a full minute before somebody, one of the little younger usher kids came over and was like, hey, so

Speaker 21 what was that? He didn't lie. He didn't run.
That's when I explained to him. what it was and who it was.
He just kind of said, that was my best friend. He's like, and I just put him on the ice.

Speaker 21 And so they escorted him out of the seats and into the arena where he was informed he wasn't going to be arrested, but he was definitely going to be banned from the arena. For how long?

Speaker 21 Well, indefinitely at that point, it ended up being for the rest of the season. Man.

Speaker 21 And so there is cruelty in that punishment. Right.
I mean, it's the opposite of what, of course, you're trying to accomplish here. You're trying to stay in the building building with your friend.

Speaker 21 The cops, the usher, everybody associated with the team, and especially all the fans, were kind of like, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. But publicly, you can't do this.
Right.

Speaker 21 But after Ryan is escorted out of the building and he is banned for the rest of the season and he's watching these games from home where he is forced to be,

Speaker 21 what is going through his mind? No regrets. I did what I needed to do.

Speaker 21 Every time I turned that tv on to watch a game there he is you know regardless just when they're when they're in that when i see somebody smash somebody up the boards over there i'm just like you got a first hand view buddy there you go

Speaker 21 then it becomes a little bit of sadness there's joy mixed in with sadness because it's like when i die well kyle's gone i'm kyle's best friend I'm like sitting there going, who's going to, who's going to be that person that can do it for me?

Speaker 21 and the thing that makes ryan's story a story for us in in this special way is that it becomes very clear phlegm as we assign you to look into this story while ryan clark is still searching for his own caretaker in this regard there are so many other

Speaker 21 ryan clarks

Speaker 21 There is an avalanche of ashes coming

Speaker 21 to your favorite sports arena, your favorite field, your favorite racetrack. It's coming.
This trend is happening as we speak.

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Speaker 21 I do want to establish, Phlegm, that there are other ways to celebrate your lifelong devotion to a sports team that also involve death and death rituals that aren't quite as dangerous, it seems, as spreading your ashes unilaterally in a special operation.

Speaker 21 Who knew there was a whole cottage industry for fans in the afterlife? You can get your face painted onto a Jets custom painted coffin, and that has grown into Jets urns.

Speaker 21 And we found a place where they will take your ashes and make them into a golf ball that

Speaker 21 you can shank onto eternity. Not the greatest website name.
I'm just going to put that out there too. Strong disagree.

Speaker 21 This place is great. I am on now extraholes.com.
It says since the game began, golfers have long to spent eternity down the golf course. We've made that possible.

Speaker 21 You hit the ball and spoiler alert, the ball bursts into, quote, several pieces, releasing the ashes into the air for a short distance before settling softly onto the ground.

Speaker 21 So this is not quite the long drive competition. Okay, so it's or maybe it is, in fact, the longest drive in a certain sense.
You are again integrated into

Speaker 21 the surface. And if you're wondering, it is $350 for a dozen balls.
And so, you know, there is a market, Phlem, a market for this very sort of thing. Yeah.

Speaker 21 And the highest form of this is spreading those ashes in what have become our cathedrals, our churches, which are the sports arenas. arenas.

Speaker 21 There was a study in 2024 by Mutual Choice, a company that does insurance policies to cover end-of-life costs.

Speaker 21 And they did a survey of Americans, all 50 states, where they would want their ashes to be spread.

Speaker 21 11 out of the 50 states, the number one place where people wanted to have their ashes left were sports venues. Yes, in Alabama, the number one response was actually Talladega Super Seattle.

Speaker 21 Surprised me. I know.
I'm like, Brian Denny is right there. Yeah.
But noted, Massachusetts, Fenway, North Dakota, the Alaris Center, where University of North Dakota football team plays their games.

Speaker 21 And cremation, by the way, also didn't know this. Finding this out through your research, we are living through peak cremation, Fleb.

Speaker 21 10 years ago, 15 years ago, the ratio of cremation to burial was 35% cremation, 65% burial. They're predicting that by 2030, it will be flip-flopped.

Speaker 21 It'll be 75% of Americans will be getting cremated and 25%

Speaker 21 will still want to be buried.

Speaker 21 Yeah, all of that research, of course, provided by the NFDA, which we all know is the National Funeral Directors Association,

Speaker 21 which raises the question of These sports venues, right? The places that Ryan Clark, for instance, had a great interest in, how do they feel about this trend?

Speaker 21 They're scared to death,

Speaker 21 as it were. They are scared to death and they are doing everything they can to try and subvert it and to press pause.
Why? What are they so afraid of?

Speaker 21 First of all, we should point out, right, ashes are not, they're not harmful to humans at all. There are no microorganisms in ashes.
They're inert. The one thing that they can be harmful to is turf.

Speaker 21 The alkaline and the sodium levels and the pH levels are high enough that if you were to leave human remains in ashes on really good grass or turf, it could burn it out.

Speaker 21 Like if you, if you over fertilize your lawn or something like that. Right.
The salt burn. Yeah.
Basically. Yeah.
Which means that then the groundskeepers need to dig that stuff up.

Speaker 21 I can imagine pragmatically, this is annoying.

Speaker 21 But the venues themselves, what do they have to say about about this?

Speaker 21 I think there's a legitimate fear, especially amongst football stadiums, that at some point, maybe even during the Super Bowl, somebody is going to die for a touchdown and it's going to be a puff of grandpa's ashes coming up.

Speaker 21 Three yards and a cloud of grandpa.

Speaker 21 Exactly. Well, now we know the title of this.

Speaker 21 We really did just name it. They are scared to death because they've already become overrun with requests.
Right. So basically what we're saying is sports has never been more monocultural.

Speaker 21 It is the lone big tent left in American life. We say this all the time on this show.
And they are now worried about copycats,

Speaker 21 people who are in fact seeing news stories like the one we played. Yeah.
For instance, going to baseball now in the aforementioned Fenway Park.

Speaker 25 A woman placed her father's ashes through netting behind home plate at Fenway Park and then posted it on Twitter.

Speaker 25 Now the field at Fenway, of course, is legendary and for a lot of people, it's the ultimate resting place.

Speaker 21 But putting a a loved one's ashes on the field isn't allowed but one woman says her dad would have been proud that she broke the rules in his honor WBC I reached out to half a dozen SEC schools and people wouldn't even respond people would not be quoted off the record they didn't want to be referenced they didn't want to be any part of this because they don't want to encourage more people to leave grandpa at the 50-yard line right their silence spoke volumes on the college level and in the pros yeah in the pros where i have friendships relationships with PR staffs, with front offices for 30 years, these people, maybe for the first time in my career, and I've done some weird ass stories.

Speaker 21 You truly have. One of my closest friends in a very popular AFC, very successful AFC franchise was like, Phlegm, whoa, no, I can't, I don't want to be quoted.

Speaker 21 I don't even want to be mentioned that you reached out to me. The Cowboys PR guy, I put it really well, if not, not unpoetically.

Speaker 21 It was like, we don't want a line of hearses lined up outside of our stadium on Sundays. Right.

Speaker 21 I imagine maybe they saw this happen also in Green Bay at Lambeau, where a fan got tackled again, trying to

Speaker 21 do the same thing. During a Packers Eagles game at Lincoln Financial Field in 2005, this fan ran onto the field spreading his mother's ashes.
He dropped to his knees and made the sign of the cross.

Speaker 21 He was arrested, fined, and the game went on. Packers PR, I imagine, not loving this either.
They were immediately against it. The response I got back was, hey, Dave, nice to hear from you again.

Speaker 21 Thanks for checking, but we wouldn't be able to participate in this one. It's against the law in Wisconsin and it's against Lambeau Field policy.

Speaker 21 So the building policy understood they don't want this to happen, but citing the law in Wisconsin raises that question of is this illegal in that state and also across the country.

Speaker 21 Yeah, I think the Packers PR overstated a little bit.

Speaker 21 And that's part of what's leading to this trend: is that legally, there are no overarching laws on a federal or a state level that prohibits people from spreading ashes or human remains.

Speaker 21 But that law then defers to, if it's on private property, you need to get permission. And so, obviously, arenas, stadiums, racetracks, baseball fields, that's private property.

Speaker 21 You need to obtain permission. Right.
It's their choice to say in the face of this oncoming avalanche, no.

Speaker 21 And so in terms of when this trend really took off, do we know historically when the cremation and personalization and this whole thing really did turn to something that became a boom?

Speaker 21 Another fascinating wrinkle to this, right? We reached out to a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago. Her name is Dr.
Shannon Lee Doddy.

Speaker 21 She's also the author of American Afterlives, which is this fascinating study of the changes in death rituals in America over the last maybe quarter century.

Speaker 26 My specialty is American culture and archaeology and history up to the present.

Speaker 21 And her theory is that it was 9-11 really began to change things.

Speaker 26 There were things that were happening in terms of increasing options and personalization and certainly a steady growth in the U.S. of cremation.

Speaker 26 But 9-11 acted like, I guess you would say, an accelerant to these trends where things just rapidly changed after that, particularly a move towards cremation and the very and very personalized kind of ad hoc rituals and memorials.

Speaker 21 She thinks there have been more changes in American death rituals in the last 10 years than the last 100 combined. But because this is all against the rules,

Speaker 21 it does feel rebellious in a way. Is she familiar with this specific phenomenon, this dynamic? Yeah, she even coined the phrase

Speaker 21 wildcat

Speaker 26 scattering.

Speaker 26 There's something that attracts people to it precisely because it may not be allowed. Like there's something transgressive about that and a transgressive ritual.

Speaker 26 It seems like if you're taking a risk to honor the person, it seems like you're honoring them, you know, a little more.

Speaker 21 You're not supposed to do this shit. Right.
Like, I love you so much, I will risk jail to spread your ashes. It's one of the strongest urges that we possess as animals.

Speaker 21 And sports more and more is the only place that people can turn to to fulfill that psychological need.

Speaker 21 And I think the fact that someone would choose a sports venue as their final resting place or that they would risk to do that for someone they loved,

Speaker 21 it proves that this isn't a theory. This is happening.
It's happened.

Speaker 21 Yeah, it does occur to me that we are living at a time when people are fretting about the decline of communal spaces, the secularization of America, the decline of religiosity.

Speaker 21 But the thing that no one is worried about from a market perspective and a popularity perspective is sports.

Speaker 21 And post-pandemic, especially, it does feel like an arena full of people is our house of worship. It's never felt more special, actually.

Speaker 26 100 years ago about

Speaker 26 a

Speaker 26 French anthropologist, sociologist named Emil Durkheim called this feeling that we get when we're experiencing a spectacle in a group of people where everybody's in one space and going through an experience of awe or elation together.

Speaker 26 And he called that collective effervescence. You can think of like bubbling up, right? And that makes people conscious of the group, of something bigger than themselves.
And it is,

Speaker 26 it causes an experience of euphoria. And it also makes that group stronger when everybody disperses.
They remember that special feeling of collective effervescence.

Speaker 26 And if they keep coming back, it can become addictive. And I think that sports events and sports stadiums, if you're not losing too badly,

Speaker 21 has that effect.

Speaker 21 Yeah, that is where I want to just push back on Dr. Dowdy, because I do think the resiliency of a miserable jet cowboy fill-in-the-blank sports fan,

Speaker 21 the losing almost never gets in the way of

Speaker 21 their true love in the way that you logically might think.

Speaker 21 Yeah, the suffering is what proves the faith. But this is why I am frustrated to hear these venues, these

Speaker 21 cathedrals, say actually to their most devoted parishioners, we don't want you to bring

Speaker 21 your loved ones in that form here. That seems to be a tremendous bummer when it comes to the rules.
It's not going to work. It won't hold, right? This trend is, it's, it's just, it's too powerful.

Speaker 21 It's too strong. It's too popular.
And they're just stupid to not try and figure out a happy medium or to meet their fans somewhere in between where it's like, okay,

Speaker 21 if grandpa was a Georgia Bulldog fan, we'll figure out a way to get him sort of, we'll put him in the stadium somewhere and celebrate that this is, I mean,

Speaker 21 can there be a higher form of fandom? Of tribute. What would it look like if you embraced the Ryan Clarks of the world instead of banned them? Yeah.
Can we find someone who's doing this?

Speaker 21 Can we convince some place? Yeah, to just to embrace this. What is it? What would it look like? if a sports venue embraced this and encouraged fans to do this.

Speaker 21 And we managed to find that exact spot down in Florida. Of course.

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Speaker 4 Hey, I'm Paige DeSorbo, and I'm always thinking about underwear.

Speaker 7 I'm Hannah Bruner, and I'm also thinking about underwear, but I prefer full coverage.

Speaker 8 I like to call them my granny panties.

Speaker 5 Actually, I never think about underwear. That's the magic of Tommy John.

Speaker 6 Same. They're so light and so comfy, and if it's not comfortable, I'm not wearing it.

Speaker 10 And the bras, soft, supportive, and actually breathable.

Speaker 11 Yes, Lord knows the girls need to breathe.

Speaker 12 Also, I need my PJs to breathe and be buttery, soft, and stretchy enough for my dramatic tossing and turning at night.

Speaker 15 That's why I live in my Tommy John pajamas.

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Speaker 21 So what cathedral in Florida, Phlegm,

Speaker 21 agrees with our sensibility here at Pablo Tour, I finds out.

Speaker 21 So we found Wayne Estes, who is the president and general manager of Sebring International Speedway in Sebring, Florida.

Speaker 28 Hello everybody and welcome to a packed Sebring International Raceway, the original home of Formula One here in the U.S.

Speaker 28 and of course down through its considerable history since the 1950s has been a mecca for sports car fans, drivers and teams.

Speaker 21 Yeah and this track by the way in Sebring, Florida,

Speaker 21 America's oldest road racing track, but all sorts of races of all kinds are held there and have been for decades upon decades.

Speaker 21 And accordingly, they have a very different policy toward their fans and toward their fans' ashes than, say, oh, the Colorado Avalanche.

Speaker 29 You get the phone call, and they almost always would start the same way. It would be, I'll bet you've never had this request before, or this is going to be a very unusual request.

Speaker 29 And almost every time someone says that to me now, I think, I got a feeling this is someone who's lost a loved one and wants to distribute the ashes here.

Speaker 21 We need way more Wayne in the sports world. And one of the things he immediately talked about was,

Speaker 21 why wouldn't you do this?

Speaker 29 To me, it was a tremendous compliment to the venue, to the racetrack, to the event.

Speaker 29 And

Speaker 29 I still see it that way here at Sebring as well. It's a tremendous compliment that a place

Speaker 29 has that kind of passion, that people have that kind of passion for the event, for the venue. And that first time, I didn't ask anybody.
I just said, yeah, we'll make that work.

Speaker 21 We'll go wherever we have to go. Where do you want to go? And accordingly, they have a very different policy toward their fans and toward their fans' ashes than, say, oh, the Colorado Avalanche.

Speaker 29 How do you turn somebody away that makes that request? I mean, it's just a phenomenal honor that anybody would ask

Speaker 29 to make that kind of a a gesture at the venue where you're promoting events.

Speaker 21 So, Wayne has had as many as um three cremation ceremonies uh in a single weekend, and people, you know,

Speaker 21 pile up, yeah, potentially.

Speaker 21 Uh, yeah, and it's funny, people, some people want to go in uh, in a turn, some people want to go at the start-finish line, some people want to go in pit row, and and Wayne accommodates it all.

Speaker 21 We took to his attitude right away, and I stayed in touch with Wayne, you know, as the PTFO death correspondent. That's part of my job.
This is your beat. Yep.

Speaker 21 And Wayne, God love them, reached out a couple days later and said, you know, I was just contacted by another fan who is hoping to spread her husband's ashes at the track.

Speaker 21 And of course I asked if I could tag along. And of course, we assigned you.
to go down to Florida. Get to Florida, Phlegm.

Speaker 21 Who are you there to meet?

Speaker 21 So we got to meet this lovely woman named Edna Smith who was at the track to remember her late husband Ron,

Speaker 21 who loved all things racing, all things cars, all things mechanical.

Speaker 22 He always was very avid about air and space and cars and fast cars. We probably had

Speaker 22 In his lifetime a car, he had 30-some cars, and my friends couldn't attest to that.

Speaker 22 And they were all very unusual cars and fun, fun to drive.

Speaker 21 Did he have a favorite, favorite car?

Speaker 21 Favorite kind? Yeah.

Speaker 22 He had an E-type Jaguar XKE. That was a nice car.
That was probably his favorite that he ever had.

Speaker 21 So you were married to James Bond, is what you're saying.

Speaker 21 Or wanna be.

Speaker 21 So, as we're watching Edna stand on the track with you, whose idea was it to scatter Ron's ashes across the track?

Speaker 21 She wanted to do something that honored him, celebrated his life, the things that he loved, but then also would give her a eternal connection to him, that she could watch races there, she could return to the track and always be sort of closer to him.

Speaker 21 So it was Edna's idea.

Speaker 22 The ashes sat for a while before I thought about what I could do to

Speaker 22 in honor of his memory.

Speaker 22 And the first thing I came up with was to go skydiving.

Speaker 22 So I did.

Speaker 22 In January of this year, I took Ron's ashes up skydiving

Speaker 22 and I was really, really nervous, but it was the mission accomplished. I was just covered with his ashes all over me because the wind blew the wrong way and it was like, oh my heavens.

Speaker 22 But it was, yeah, it was awesome, really awesome. And then I, you know, I still had half of his ashes left, So I'm thinking, you know, what else can I do?

Speaker 22 And my friends kind of helped me with the idea of the Sebring Racetrack, you know, take his ashes over there.

Speaker 21 And to be clear, we are honored that she allowed us to be there for it. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, yeah, it was, we were sort of humbled by that.

Speaker 21 And we approached it that way, that we were there to observe and to not get in the way. And we understood that this was

Speaker 21 a very sort of important, solemn moment. Yeah.
And I want to make clear, too, that one of my real joys on this show is to send people out into the world, you often in specific,

Speaker 21 and then

Speaker 21 finally

Speaker 21 find out what this religious, profound ceremony for Edna and Ron was like. And so I have not seen this video yet.

Speaker 21 So let's hit play.

Speaker 21 Beautiful blue sky.

Speaker 21 Edna in the back seat of a convertible. Yep.
And they let us put a GoPro behind her.

Speaker 21 So she's got Ron's remains in a Ziploc baggie, and she's in a convertible provided by Wayne.

Speaker 21 And we are going down the main straightaway.

Speaker 21 She's reaching into the Ziploc bag and she is throwing Ron.

Speaker 21 And you can hear her giggling, right? She's giggling.

Speaker 21 And she's talking to him, right? She's smiling. She's giggling.
She's talking to him.

Speaker 21 Every 10 seconds, a handful of Ron is going onto the straightaway at Sebring. And also everywhere else, I think.

Speaker 21 Ron is in the car. He's in the seats.

Speaker 21 And Ron's going all over Edna, too. Oh, yeah.
Ron is omnipresent.

Speaker 21 Yeah, she's emptying the Ziploc.

Speaker 21 Rarely is cremation also a joyride.

Speaker 21 Yeah, at one point, so then we were in a minivan in front of them as well. And they were stepping on the gas because it's hard to be on.

Speaker 21 Her hair is blowing in the breeze. Her sunglasses are on.
She's grinning.

Speaker 21 The way she explained it was kind of like Ron wouldn't be jealous, but he would be so happy that she chose this as a way to sort of memorialize him.

Speaker 21 This is what what he loved and to see her so happy too.

Speaker 21 Because you cannot get on this track and not floor it, right? It's like they gave us access to the track and it was like, I kept going, punch it, punch it, Wayne, punch it.

Speaker 21 When she got out of the car, she patted her pants and just poofs of smoke, her ash came up.

Speaker 21 And I love that. Yes.
I just love that.

Speaker 21 You can see there are, I mean, Ron, God love him. And there ended up being handprints, fingerprints.

Speaker 21 It's funny how quickly you get connected to somebody like that when they share a moment like this. And I went out because there were still piles of ashes every so often.

Speaker 21 We all kind of went out and said goodbye to Ron.

Speaker 21 Now you understand why people are willing to go to jail to do this because it means

Speaker 21 beautiful, man. Yeah, it really means something more than just going to a gravestone.
Well, it's absurd and it's beautiful and it is, of course, deeply serious.

Speaker 21 It's also lighthearted and something we can celebrate as we marvel upon the ridiculous nature of what it means to be a human being.

Speaker 21 Just so something so poetic and beautiful about this ceremony and the fact that it is a mess,

Speaker 21 that it's unpredictable, that the ashes go everywhere.

Speaker 21 When was the last time you were at a traditional funeral or a cemetery and people were giggling and laughing and talking to the deceased and sort of it was a celebration.

Speaker 21 And I think that's part of the changing death rituals in America. That's what people want.
They want a celebration of life. And boy,

Speaker 21 you just saw it there in living color. Yes.

Speaker 21 Ron. is going to be a part of that track, a part of Edna, and also definitely in the upholstery, I think, based on just the statistical distribution of what I was witnessing there.

Speaker 21 Well, and here's the thing. Ron is also a part of your favorite correspondent, Ron.

Speaker 21 At one point, Ron blew into our camera, into our microphone cover. Ron, boy, Ron gets around.
I just cannot say this enough. Thank you to Edna for letting us celebrate Ron with her.
Yeah.

Speaker 21 Because it reminds me of what we started the story with, which is Ryan. die-hard hockey fan who didn't have the same welcome mat laid out for him after he tried to do this for his loved one.

Speaker 21 But luckily, that was not the end of the story for Ryan and Kyle and the Colorado Avalanche.

Speaker 21 Okay, so now we're back in Colorado, Phlegm. with the story of Ryan Clark and his best friend, Kyle Stark.

Speaker 21 And you mentioned that this was not the end for Ryan, his banning from his favorite building for the rest of that season. So

Speaker 21 what the f happened? Something magical happened once Kyle became a part of Ball Arena.

Speaker 21 They win that game against the Leafs 5-4 in overtime.

Speaker 21 And the comeback is complete.

Speaker 21 Then they go on this incredible streak. They don't lose another game inside Kyle's arena for a month, which is unheard of, right? It's unheard of.

Speaker 21 It's unheard of

Speaker 21 in hockey, especially as they're trying to build toward the playoffs. And as a Red Wings fan, I'm watching the Avalanche going, what is going on with that? The Avalanche can't lose.
Here's Bakar.

Speaker 21 Lucid goal. Mercury.
Lickenen has scored. He sent his team in overtime to the Stanley Cup final.

Speaker 21 All I can think about, of course, is that Ryan can't be there.

Speaker 21 He's at home watching all of these games. He cannot witness the streak because he's been banned.
But, you know, I think in Ryan's mind, it's perfect. That's my boy helping him out, is all I can say.

Speaker 21 You know, that was

Speaker 21 an extra body power play. So you're going,

Speaker 21 you know, you're going six on four as opposed to, you know, five on four.

Speaker 21 And, you know, everybody in that corner, he's grabbing their legs. Yeah, hold on, bud.
You're going to stay here.

Speaker 21 It is hard to deny the impact of Kyle Stark.

Speaker 21 It was awesome to see. It was awesome to know that he was there during that whole timeframe,

Speaker 21 that whole playout. And I'm sorry that I look away.
I just try not to break down again because it's,

Speaker 21 yeah, it's

Speaker 21 still fresh, even though it's been a few.

Speaker 21 Part of the emotion, though, is joy, right?

Speaker 21 Oh,

Speaker 21 yes. Yes, absolutely.
Yes.

Speaker 21 Like when they dropped that banner, I wish I could have been there for that game because they should put Kyle's name on the bottom of it, you know, or at least at least his initials on the cup in the corner, you know.

Speaker 21 Like, what is this? KES? Don't worry about that. Just hang it in that, you know, take that layer, that layer off, put a fresh one on.

Speaker 21 We're listening to Ryan, yet another person in this episode, getting emotional in a car. Celebrate

Speaker 21 what his team, their team, pulled off thanks to his best friend.

Speaker 21 Manson to McKinnon, Kiddon. Bouncing cuck and a goal.
Artari Leckenen makes it 2-1. Colorado.
His team won the Stanley Cup.

Speaker 21 The dream. The dream.
Phlem.

Speaker 21 Man, can they spread some Kyle in Detroit?

Speaker 21 Five seconds to go.

Speaker 21 Up it comes to the line.

Speaker 21 Colorado has won the Stanley Cup.

Speaker 21 And in the present tense, of course, Ryan can go back

Speaker 21 to ball arena. He was.
He was only sort of kept out of the arena for the rest of that season. And then he was allowed to come back.
He can go back to the building where his favorite team plays.

Speaker 21 And when he is there now, I imagine that all of this feels

Speaker 21 feels different.

Speaker 21 Different, but in a great way.

Speaker 21 And so now every time, again, you saw it with Edna, you see it with Ryan.

Speaker 21 He feels Kyle's presence there. He talks to Kyle when he's in that arena.

Speaker 21 He's got a place where he can sort of visit his friend forever now.

Speaker 21 And I am just left at the end of this episode wondering about that question, which is when Kyle said, I'm like sitting there going, who's going to be that person that can do it for me?

Speaker 21 The biggest question posed in this episode maybe.

Speaker 21 Yeah, I think what we've discovered is there's now a new highest form of friendship and fandom. Absolutely.
Right.

Speaker 21 It's like somebody willing to spread your ashes, wildcat spread your ashes at your favorite sports arena.

Speaker 21 But as for Ryan, it's a little bit sad, right? His person is gone. He doesn't have a person to spread his ashes.

Speaker 21 And so as the official now lifelong PTFO death correspondent, I went ahead and volunteered.

Speaker 21 Right here, Ryan, I got you. I got you.

Speaker 21 I got media credentials. I'll put you wherever you want to go.
And I know we're joking and laughing, but

Speaker 21 you know, at the end of this process, I got to tell you, I'm 100% serious. I will be there for Ryan when he needs me.

Speaker 21 Tay Fleming, I have never doubted your sincerity

Speaker 21 on these assignments. And I already, whenever it, whenever it needs to be, long into the future.

Speaker 21 I am ready.

Speaker 21 Well, we're going to turn you into golf balls, Pablo. So,

Speaker 21 this has been Pablo Torre finds out, a Meadowlark Media production.

Speaker 21 And I'll talk to you next time.

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