The Breaking Bad Easter egg hunt continues with the hockey game and New York Times column from “Granite State” 

First, Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard blog did the heavy lifting on tracking down the hockey game playing in the bar where Walt uses a pay phone to call his son. (Honestly, if you were so distracted by a 15-year-old hockey game during that scene, you’re watching the wrong show.) It was a game between UW-Madison and the University of Denver—two perennially successful college hockey programs—from back in 1998, which confirms Robert Forster’s assessment that there’s only a one-horse town near Walt’s remote cabin.

And second, from that same scene, Walt’s pride flares up after seeing former Gray Matter partners Elliott and Gretchen Schwartz interviewed by Charlie Rose. But in a passing aside as Rose questions whether their new charitable endeavor is in response to Walt’s infamy, he references a New York Times column by financial journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. On DealBook this afternoon, Sorkin was kind enough to furnish the fictional column, with all the tidbits of Gray Matter’s backstory from the early seasons.