The phrase “hot take,” represents a few things these days. To me, it’s still best defined as something that could happen, but isn’t particularly likely to happen.
For reference, if you were to predict any team that landed in the 2021-22 regular season top five as this year’s Stanley Cup Champion, I’d call that a cold take. If you were to predict any of the bottom five this year’s Stanley Cup Champion, I’d consider that a scorching take.
Takes, of course, exist on a spectrum, and you can always tell the difference between a hot take that someone genuinely believes, and a hot take born for the purpose of being a hot take.