Latest / Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More / Episode 7: USA Women's Hockey Dominance, WNBA CBA Talks, Angel Reese Returns & NWSL Roster Moves

Transcript

Episode 7: USA Women's Hockey Dominance, WNBA CBA Talks, Angel Reese Returns & NWSL Roster Moves · Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More

0:00
23 year old defender Carolyn Harvey has had nine points, two
0:04
goals, 7 assists, which is by far and away the best the best
0:08
player in the team right now. I mean best player in the
0:11
tournament. In the tournament, yes, Right
0:12
now. Hi, I'm Caitlin.
0:21
Hi, I'm Alex. And you're listening to Raising
0:24
the Game, a podcast covering the rise and opportunity,
0:27
visibility, accessibility of women's sports globally.
0:30
We're a husband, wife team who are avid sports fans raising two
0:34
young girls and find the exposure and investment in
0:36
women's sports a gateway for them and other young girls like
0:39
them to see their passions for play, performance and
0:42
leadership. Not as extracurriculars to be
0:44
added to a resume or a discipline with an expiration
0:47
date after high school or college, but as a real
0:50
opportunity to build a career as an athlete, a coach, an analyst,
0:55
an athletic trainer, a director of sports operations, maybe even
1:00
a podcaster. Each week, we're bringing you
1:02
the top stories in women's professional and sometimes
1:05
collegiate sports. We'll highlight primetime
1:07
performers, key business decisions, economic impacts, and
1:10
the growing opportunities for women's athletics.
1:13
You'll hear our perspectives on these stories as fans, but
1:15
perhaps more importantly, as parents who value what these
1:18
stories mean for our kids. If there's a storyline or topic
1:21
you'd like to hear us talk about, reach out via e-mail at
1:23
raisingthegamepod@gmail.com or on social media at RTG Under
1:28
SCORE Pod All. Right, we're back.
1:32
Thanks for being here with us. Before we get into favorite
1:38
thing to kick off the episode, we'll just do kind of our
1:40
standard commentary call to action around supporting the
1:48
community here again in Minneapolis.
1:51
I think like we mentioned last week, things have really kind of
1:54
died down from a national news media perspective.
1:58
But I do know from people that I am familiar with that there's
2:04
still a significant amount of activity going.
2:06
On not much has changed on the ground here.
2:08
Yeah, it's sort of expanding out beyond like the Twin Cities
2:13
area. So I will say today if you are
2:16
watching us or if you see clips on our social media, Alex and I
2:19
are both wearing some gear that we got from Soda clothing
2:25
company. We mentioned this a little bit
2:27
ago and the proceeds for that went to support Saint Louis
2:31
Park, one of the communities that we used to live.
2:33
So finding ways to to give and support where we can.
2:39
This is one way that we do it. We have a bunch of links in our
2:42
show notes, podcast notes that we'll continue to keep there if
2:45
you feel compelled to, to join in for sure.
2:48
So one other thing I do want to mention off the top is today's
2:54
episode's going to be a little different than the last couple.
2:56
We aren't doing a particularly deep dive on anything.
3:01
We have a lot of things to cover off on.
3:03
And so our top headline segment is going to feel a little
3:07
shorter, but that's mostly because the rest of the episode
3:11
is going to be like taking all the top headlines and talking a.
3:13
Little bit more about them, so yeah.
3:18
Exactly. So if this feels a little like
3:20
you're watching SportsCenter or that you're listening to
3:22
SportsCenter this week, that's why we have a ton to catch up
3:26
on. We're going to talk Olympics,
3:27
We're going to get into WNBA, other basketball news, There's a
3:31
lot of soccer stuff going on. So as we gear up for a lot of
3:36
these seasons to get started, as well as have the Winter Olympics
3:40
continuing into its second week, this week, we're just gonna be
3:44
talking. About it all.
3:45
Talk about everything. You wanna take us through some
3:47
of the top headlines we did pull out.
3:49
Do we wanna do favorite thing first?
3:50
Oh my goodness, yes, of course we do.
3:53
I think again, we might have a very similar favorite thing,
3:56
maybe the one V1 tournament from Unrivaled 100% so good, insane
4:03
basketball being played, especially as it got deeper Yeah
4:06
into it. Yeah, it we're, we'll talk a
4:09
little bit more about this in our basketball segment and like
4:12
give you a little bit of some fun facts behind it.
4:15
But I read a quote that was like, is the NBA taking notes,
4:22
the WNBA taking notes? Because it's like from an like,
4:25
think about All Star games. The NBA just played their All
4:27
Star game this past weekend. Is the NBA taking notes not just
4:31
the no, that's what I. Said I said that I said them
4:33
first because they're All Star games.
4:35
Frankly are I find them very. Important trying to do a little
4:37
gimmicky things. Yeah, this was so entertaining.
4:41
It's so quick. It's really on brand with the
4:44
age of social media like the quick scroll and swipe and
4:47
whatnot and material impact on the line and talk about the
4:54
prize money that was on the line.
4:55
But that made for really good. I mean, these ladies were not
4:58
messing around it. Definitely felt more intense the
5:02
deeper into the bracket that. 100% like if you watched it at
5:06
all, it was like icy stairs. There was not a lot of like
5:10
trash talking like they were locked in on their game.
5:13
So super fun. I do have a couple others that
5:16
I'm going to throw out there. I know we're going to talk about
5:18
it, but just the the ice hockey at the Olympics, the Team USA
5:23
has been unbelievable. Like it.
5:26
It's really impressive to watch. And I as a sports fan, I don't
5:32
care what the sport is. I really enjoy watching people
5:37
excel. Like, really?
5:39
Excel. We'll get more into that in a
5:42
little bit. And then the other thing I had
5:44
to put in there, we were watching some coverage like
5:48
prime time coverage on NBC of the Olympics the other night and
5:52
it was just like random pairs figure skating.
5:54
So we've talked a lot about ice dance with Madison Chalk and
5:58
Evan Bates. Pairs is where it's a male
6:01
female pair. They do more of like the
6:04
throwing. Of the.
6:06
Female skater and I was like glued to the television, like
6:10
mesmerized during this routine. And it's just, it's so
6:13
enthralling, like just watching all of these sports.
6:17
But that one in particular stood out.
6:19
I'm of course a big figure skating like closeted figure
6:23
skiing lover. Athleticism like you said, of
6:25
being thrown in the air and landing on one skate, let alone
6:29
like 1 foot. So I saw a a fun fact about
6:33
that, that these women are absorbing something from like
6:36
something like 6 to 9000 like pounds of pressure or something
6:41
when they land. And then there was 1 pair in
6:45
particular the the woman gets thrown 21 feet across like like
6:52
distance wise. I don't know.
6:56
I don't know, maybe they were. Doing.
6:57
Maybe they were. Doing more of like a curved
6:59
thing or something like that, but like they're like it's, it's
7:03
I would be scary. Yeah, that's scary.
7:05
I. Told Alex.
7:06
I told Alex the other night I was like, I'm lucky if I can
7:09
jump off of 1 foot and land on one foot and like hold a
7:13
position. They land on one foot on a blade
7:16
going backwards absorbing apparently a ton of pressure.
7:20
It's crazy. So OK all.
7:22
Right. We're going to, Yeah, top
7:24
headlines. Let's do it.
7:26
All right? US Olympian and track and field
7:29
star Allison Felix named an International Olympic Committee
7:32
member, demonstrating the value of the athlete perspective.
7:36
Yeah, I thought this was cool. Allison Felix, for those who may
7:40
not be familiar, was she's a multiple time medalist and for a
7:45
Team USA track and field. But she really, I think, shot to
7:49
maybe more societal fame, if you will, when she challenged Nike,
7:57
I believe, on their maternity policies.
8:02
So. I think they were actually going
8:04
to cut her. I, I don't remember the exact
8:06
story, but they were going to like cut her or dock her down
8:09
while she was out on maternity leave as a sponsor, like she was
8:12
a sponsor athlete. And then she actually ended up
8:15
transforming Nike's product line as a result of all of this
8:21
conversation so that they now actually have a maternity
8:25
apparel line for pregnant women. So she's, she's done a ton of
8:29
work, I think to, to speak to equity and sport across the
8:33
genders. Really cool to see her getting a
8:36
perspective here, whether or not the IOC, yeah, yeah, takes that
8:42
into consideration. We'll see.
8:44
Alex and I both have a lot of issues with.
8:45
The IOC might be a deep dive at some point man.
8:49
Yeah, but cool to see, cool to see that she's willing to maybe
8:54
step in and try to make some change.
8:56
Moving on Peacock, NBC streaming services premiering 2 new
9:00
episodes of its Hello Sunshine documentary.
9:02
Series 1 focused on X Games athletes and another focused on
9:06
the trajectory of the PWHL. You heard it here first.
9:11
Yeah, that's right. I, I think I missed it here, but
9:14
hello Sunshine's the production company, the documentary series
9:17
actually called The Rise. There was one a couple maybe a
9:22
month or so ago on Nafisa Collier.
9:25
Actually, we had talked about it, but I thought this was cool
9:29
talking about X Games athletes. But then obviously we've been
9:31
talking a lot about the PWHL. So cool to see that they're
9:35
spotlighting that. I would recommend everybody go
9:37
check that out. Giannis, Giannis, wait.
9:42
Giannis. Giannis purchased a stake in
9:45
Chelsea FC, joins Alexis Ohanian, who bought 10% stake
9:49
last year. Yeah, so Serena Williams husband
9:53
and Reddit Co founder Alexis Ohanian bought into the let's be
9:58
clear, women's Chelsea FC and Giannis just announced that this
10:02
week that he's buying a stake in the team.
10:04
So cool to see. I think we see this theme of
10:06
like athletes and, and, and folks who are around sport
10:11
investing in women's sports right now and this is just
10:13
another example. Yeah, South Carolina dispatches
10:17
LSU. I think we outlined that on our
10:20
What to Watch. We talked about that being
10:22
important. I heard there were all the
10:25
fireworks you'd expect between a showdown of a Don Staley and a
10:28
Kim. Mulkey.
10:30
Kim Mulkey The game was played on Valentine's Day on Saturday,
10:34
and I saw what was she wearing, like electric pink.
10:38
There you go, Like suit, you know, blazer and and dress pants
10:42
with like these black hearts like embroidered on it.
10:46
And you can go find the clip, y'all?
10:50
Kim Mulkey, as is her custom, went off on a referee at one
10:55
point for not letting her call a timeout or like, didn't hear her
10:59
or something. But that is worth its weight in
11:02
entertainment goal basically. Six former Pitt Panthers
11:05
basketball players sue head coach Tori Verde, alleging he
11:09
pressured players into the transfer portal, made harassing
11:11
remarks and threatened players careers on and off the court.
11:16
Yeah, So this is unfortunate. We have a couple headlines this
11:19
week that aren't like, the best news.
11:21
I think we don't want to shy away from some of the challenge
11:25
that athletes face, women, female athletes in particular.
11:30
This one seems a little bit more like it was not along the lines
11:37
of like physical or like sexual abuse, but still not great to
11:44
see people who are in positions of power take advantage of those
11:48
positions and really impact. I mean, what what really struck
11:52
me was like he was threatening these allegedly again, want to
11:56
be clear, this isn't, you know, allegedly threatening these
11:59
players careers on and off the court.
12:02
So like not just their basketball playing, but like
12:05
what were they going to go do after the fact?
12:08
So. Was this also the coach?
12:10
I saw that he had tried to throw it back on them, saying that
12:13
they had been made like some remarks towards.
12:17
There was another, I think another one out.
12:18
There like I don't know for sure, but honestly it wouldn't
12:21
the the I did see a quote from the university because they're
12:24
also suing Pitt and they were like, we believe it isn't like
12:30
they're protecting him. So it'll come out in court, but
12:35
we believe women. All right, WNBA star Rakia
12:38
Jackson takes leave from unrivaled season, admits
12:41
harassment and felony charges from ex-boyfriend, NFL player
12:45
James Pierce. Junior agrees to testify.
12:47
Yeah, another bummer of a headline.
12:50
Rakia was one we were really enjoying watching in the
12:53
unrivaled season. She was on the breeze BC with
12:55
Paige and Cameron Brink and Dominique Malonga.
13:01
Really scary, frankly, if you read about what happened.
13:04
Stalking her after the fact and. Yeah, down in Miami where she
13:08
was playing and he like followed her in his car and then, like
13:14
hit her car. And then she tried to go
13:15
straight to the police station and he blocked her from going
13:19
there and then he left. He like, but I think it's super
13:23
brave of her to step in and be cooperative.
13:27
These are really difficult situations.
13:29
She is unfortunately you know, and and I'm glad she's able to
13:33
take. The time away.
13:34
For herself, but it's bummer to not see her play.
13:39
The other thing that I think we saw about this was there were
13:42
some really Speaking of, we're just on a bad take like tear
13:46
these last couple weeks, but somebody was like they're going
13:50
to ruin his. Career.
13:51
Yeah, they're going to ruin his career.
13:53
And you're just like, hello, he ruined his career.
14:00
How do you read that story and say that it's her fault that he
14:04
stalked her? Heaven forbid.
14:06
Oh my gosh. All right, well, let's move on
14:09
to something a little bit more fun here.
14:11
We're going to talk. We're doing our Olympics
14:13
roundup. We've got quite a few things to
14:16
talk about here, but we're going to start with kind of what we've
14:20
been latching onto a lot here is ice hockey.
14:24
The United States women have been completely dominant in the
14:28
Olympics. Here they're out scoring their
14:31
opponents 26 to 1. Yeah, that's 26 for one against
14:39
they lot. They only gave up one goal in
14:41
their game against Chechnya, they won five to one.
14:44
Finland they won 5 to 0. Switzerland they won five to
14:48
zero and Canada they beat 5 to 0.
14:51
And we kind of joked their biggest thing is they can't get
14:54
past five goals and then 6 O quarter final victory against
14:59
Italy. So I think the biggest thing
15:03
here is that 23 year old defender Carolyn Harvey has had
15:07
nine points, two goals, 7 assists, which is by far and
15:11
away the best the best player in the team right now.
15:14
I mean best player in the tournament.
15:15
In the tournament, yes, right now.
15:18
And I think there was something we heard today while we were
15:21
watching the game against Sweden, Sweden in the
15:25
semifinals, they were in the second intermission and they
15:28
were talking about her. And they said through two
15:32
periods today, she doesn't have a point yet.
15:34
And they were up five to nothing.
15:36
So not only is it her, the benches like, the whole bench is
15:41
stacked like. Yeah, I think if you right, I
15:44
think if today, what was it? They had the five goals and I
15:47
heard they were talking about Harvey and then they said and 13
15:52
players with with a point. So in hockey, for those who may
15:56
not have watched, you get a point for a goal and you get a
15:59
point for an assist and each goal you can have up to two
16:01
assists per goal. So they're what that tells me is
16:07
they're moving the puck 'cause that's almost 2 assists per
16:09
goal, right? No unassisted goals, right And
16:14
you have everybody distributing that wealth around.
16:18
So like it, it's, it's insane. I think we're seeing, there's
16:22
been some headlines that are coming out.
16:24
It's like, is this the best team ever assembled as far as the
16:28
Some of the NBC commentators are former Olympians, either Team
16:33
Canada or Team USA usually, and they're talking about how like,
16:37
they've never seen play like this before.
16:42
I think the, the, the one question we talked about this
16:44
earlier today is that we've seen some of these games where the
16:48
other team only has three or four shots on goal.
16:51
And so I think the only question on that game is how prepared is
16:55
the goaltending to be able to take on potentially I think it's
16:59
Canada 1 today. So they're taking on Canada.
17:02
Are they going to be able to, you know, deal with more shots
17:05
than they've than they've seen probably all tournament?
17:07
Yeah, and I think to that'll be interesting to see right as AI
17:13
played goalkeeper in soccer, very different kind of visuals
17:18
and things like that. But it is true that like the
17:21
longer you spend off, like off action, right, it becomes it
17:27
becomes the challenge becomes locking back into the game,
17:31
right? And it becomes like, can I stay
17:33
sharp and focused? And I think it's a really good
17:36
point you make that, you know, now they've been rotating.
17:39
They've had Aaron Frankel is arguably the best goaltender in
17:43
the world right now, who's the starting number one for Team
17:47
USA. They've had Gwen Phillips play
17:49
in a couple of games too. So they're getting some rotation
17:52
in there, which is good. Sometimes that helps goalkeepers
17:54
to just not sit back there and just wait for things to happen
17:58
to them. But I do think, I think the
18:02
biggest stumbling block for them is the fact that they beat
18:06
Canada 50I hope, and I don't think they are I'll, I'll
18:12
comment on that in just a second.
18:13
But I hope that they don't sleep on them thinking like, hey, we
18:17
already beat them. They are going to come.
18:19
I mean, it's a freaking rivalry, you guys, this is the 7th gold
18:24
medal game between these two countries.
18:26
Canada has won four, the US has won three.
18:29
Canada famously won in the 2022 Beijing Olympics in like very
18:35
like a lot of close games, like just tough fashion and you Team
18:41
USA is definitely out for revenge.
18:44
But you do worry that when a team has just kind of sailed
18:49
through the tournament. Now today, I will say against
18:53
Sweden, it was 10 at the end of the first period, like it was a
18:56
tighter game. And Sweden came out, kind of
18:58
took it to them. And it even looked like that
19:00
earlier in this early in the second period.
19:02
Like I thought I was going to say something at one point, like
19:05
Sweden's skating hard. They're being physical.
19:08
They're bodying these these women up and look like they
19:12
could they could take it to them.
19:14
That's. Probably what you're going to do
19:16
if your Canada is 100. Percent physical, so physical,
19:18
right? And I think we will see that.
19:20
I think we're going to see, I think I think there might be a.
19:23
You got to be careful though, because you don't want to give
19:25
up penalties. Yes, exactly.
19:27
Exactly. But then as soon as the US
19:29
scored that second goal, I think they scored three goals in like
19:32
3 minutes or something. I.
19:34
Walked away for 10 minutes and then yeah, you were no.
19:36
And suddenly they just. They like, they know how to pour
19:39
it on when things start to open up.
19:41
So it's going to be a hell of a game all.
19:44
Right. We're going to move on to Canada
19:45
and there is a little bit of a wrinkle when we're going to talk
19:47
about Canada and that and that loss against USA so.
19:50
You would like it. Their record entering the
19:53
semifinals, 4 and one, actually, I think that should be 5 and
19:57
one. I think I'm mistyped there.
20:00
Their goal differential is 19 and seven, so obviously not
20:04
quite as good. Still fantastic, about 2 1/2 or
20:07
so to 1. And their only loss, like we
20:10
said, coming from the United States, A5 O loss.
20:13
Five of those seven goals they've allowed were against
20:15
the. US and I think they've.
20:16
Allowed one against two other opponents, so like their D is
20:20
not that. Yeah, exactly.
20:23
So. And Marie, Phillip Poulin was
20:26
out for two games out during that USA game.
20:29
She is back and she is ready to play against the US in this
20:33
game. So they're getting their depth
20:36
back. They are.
20:39
It's going to be interesting to see how much she brings to that,
20:43
to that game, 'cause I think that potentially is why they
20:46
didn't put up as much of a fight against us.
20:48
Yeah, for sure. And I think it'll be
20:50
interesting. You've got her and Hillary Night
20:53
on Team Inside Team USA, both playing in a record 5 Olympics
20:57
for their respective countries. A lot of respect, a lot of
21:02
rivalry between those two captains.
21:04
And so it is truly going to come down to like the battle of
21:08
Captain Clutch versus Captain America.
21:10
And we mentioned this when we did a PWHL deep dive a couple
21:15
weeks ago, but Poulen is known for scoring game-winning goals.
21:21
So as long as they can keep it close, I will be watching her
21:25
like a hot because she she knows when the moment arrives, she's
21:31
usually ready. For it, I mean the the the
21:34
question I have at the end of our our call, she here was is
21:37
she going to make this, you know, make the difference, the
21:39
five goal difference or is the US team just inevitable at this
21:42
point? If I had to like put a
21:45
prediction out there, I think Team USA, unless they get the
21:50
norovirus that everybody has apparently had in the Olympics,
21:54
I think their depth is too good and one one player alone is not
22:00
going to flip the switch and change the outcome.
22:02
I think it's going to be a 4252 score and for the USA.
22:08
And I think if it does, if it goes that way, I think it might
22:10
be tight. Early.
22:12
Early. Exactly.
22:12
And then there will be a breaking point.
22:14
Yeah, yeah. So looking forward to that,
22:17
though it's. Going to be a fun one.
22:18
It is Thursday. I think it's right around noon
22:21
is when we have that game. So absolutely, that'll be a fun
22:24
one. All right, We are going to move
22:26
into, we're going to do a little bit of a medal count here.
22:31
These are strictly medal counts for the women or mixed team,
22:37
mixed gender team for each country.
22:42
We have Sweden in the lead with four golds, 3 silvers, 2 bronze,
22:46
Italy in second with four gold, 2 silver, 3 bronze and then
22:51
France with three gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze and then in
22:56
fourth place I. Actually think we.
22:59
Did we move? Unless we're only going by gold
23:01
medals, 'cause we we landed a couple medals that today that
23:05
we're just catching up on here. The USA now has. 14. 4 gold for
23:12
women, is that correct? 5 silver and five bronze.
23:18
And if we look at that from a holistic standpoint there,
23:21
there's 6 total golds for the USA, four of those are women, 8
23:25
total silver for USA, five of those are women, 5 total bronze,
23:28
and they're all women. 80% of the medals won so far are on the
23:34
women's side or or mixed. Or mixed, yes.
23:37
But mostly women's, yes. For sure.
23:40
So that's cool. We want to talk through some of
23:45
those, some of those medals. Yeah, we have.
23:48
I mean, we have them. We have most of them here.
23:50
We did this research early. So I'm missing the bobsled and
23:53
you got them all right. Perfect.
23:55
We have a gold in the team event and figure skating I which I
23:58
think we talked about last week. Gold in the women's downhill by
24:03
Breezy Johnson. I got to say a quick thing about
24:06
that. So Breezy Johnson, 'cause I, I
24:09
am a avid Swifty, for those who are unaware, and Breezy Johnson
24:16
not only won the gold medal in downhill at the finish line, I
24:20
don't think it was at the downhill race.
24:21
I think it might have been in the Super G race.
24:24
Her boyfriend proposed to her and when she posted online,
24:29
Taylor Swift commented on it with her lyrics from one of her
24:33
songs. Where's the trophy?
24:35
He just comes running over to me.
24:37
Congratulations. I was like, wow, you got a shout
24:41
out. From like.
24:41
The pop superstar in the world. Yes, yes, that's amazing.
24:47
That's a baller move, Taylor Swift.
24:49
We have we Then we have Elizabeth Lemley, who won a gold
24:53
in the women's moguls and a bronze in the duel moguls, which
24:58
I didn't realize there was a difference until you told me
25:00
about that. Today, yes, we learned all about
25:01
moguls differences over the weekend.
25:04
I also want to add in here, we did see you today.
25:07
The mono Bob finals happened. So that's single person bobsled.
25:11
And our spotlighted black woman, most decorated black Olympian,
25:17
Winter Olympian of all time, Alanna Myers Taylor took home
25:21
her elusive gold medal. And do you know who she thanked?
25:28
Who'd you think? You remember she's one of those
25:30
40 year old working moms. She thanked her nannies.
25:33
Amazing. Because childcare is necessary
25:38
and should be something that we all get to absolutely to support
25:43
our dreams. That's who I'd be thinking too.
25:45
Yeah, we also have Speaking of moguls and dual moguls, Jalen
25:50
Cuff won silver in both of those.
25:54
So that was actually interesting gold for Elizabeth Lemley in the
25:57
single silver. Yeah, they took 12.
26:00
Yeah, and then 2-3 in the other one.
26:03
Of course, we've got silver for Madison Chalk and Evan Bates and
26:06
mixed Ice dance, silver for the Corey's and mixed double S
26:10
curling and silver for Chloe Kim in snowboarding halfpipe, which
26:15
I think we talked about a little bit later now we're looking for,
26:19
but still a great story there. Yeah, so many good stories here.
26:22
I think we aren't going to get into the Chalk and Bates
26:25
controversy, but there was, if you, if you are following that,
26:28
there was a lot of drama over that over the last week about
26:33
the French team that did win and, and the performances.
26:37
And it was interesting. I, I stayed up and watched it in
26:40
prime time. I'd already, I knew the outcome,
26:42
but I remember walking away being like, there's, there's was
26:48
better, like it didn't. I don't know.
26:50
So it's one of those things where if you really want to go
26:54
down the rabbit hole, you can go find that on the Internet.
26:57
All right, moving on to some bronze medals.
27:01
I tried learning how to say this earlier today.
27:03
You want me to try it? I think you should try it and
27:05
then I'll go. Ashley Farharson.
27:08
Yep, that sounds great. She got bronze in singles luge,
27:14
so shout out to anyone who's going to go down any device in
27:18
that on that track I'm. Kidding.
27:21
We have bronze. Jesse Dickens got the bronze in
27:24
the 10 kilometer freestyle and then we had bronze for
27:29
Jacqueline Wiles and I believe Minnesotan Paula Moulton and the
27:34
women's team combined skiing and.
27:36
Then added to this list just today, Kaylee Humphrey is also
27:40
in mono Bob. Took all the bronze medal.
27:42
So US went 1/3 on the mono Bob, which was kind of expected.
27:48
I think we're pretty stacked when it comes to the mono Bob.
27:51
Side. All right, some other impressive
27:54
performances, not necessarily US.
27:56
We actually watched this one because it was against Aaron
27:59
Jackson, but Fem K cock from the Netherlands, speed skating 500
28:04
meters, set an Olympic record. She did it against, like we
28:08
said, Aaron Jackson put Aaron Jackson into 5th place on that
28:11
one. We'll talk about it later.
28:14
I think there was some mistakes from Aaron Jackson on that
28:17
specific run, but Fem K ran an amazing race or skated amazing.
28:21
Race and she's apparently been like so informer on the World
28:25
Cup tour for the last couple years like I don't think it was
28:28
for those who know speed skating.
28:30
I don't think that it was surprise.
28:33
I did see a quote before we got on air here from Aaron Jackson
28:36
saying like, she had the best start that she could have asked
28:40
for, but she did not do well on the back half of the race.
28:43
And she, you know, bummer, but it's still cool to see her out
28:48
there representing. We got to watch a fun little
28:52
interview she did with Snoop Dogg, the world's ambassador,
28:55
too. All things Olympics.
28:58
Had him on skates. Had him on roller skates which
29:01
was he seemed very. Uncomfortable.
29:03
Yes. We're gonna we're gonna have
29:06
another name here. Federica Brignone.
29:09
Yeah, that's good. I'm gonna go with that.
29:11
From Italy, Competing on home soil.
29:15
Brought home 2 gold medals in Alpine skiing, super G and giant
29:18
slalom. Her giant solemn victory was
29:22
particularly emotional. She dominated the field to
29:24
become the first Italian woman to win that event since 1998.
29:28
That's amazing. I do think Italy is like showing
29:33
up well. They're doing really well.
29:35
And surprisingly so, I don't think people were pegged in
29:38
them, not at all doing as well as they are.
29:41
And then one fun one. Here, in a bizarre twist,
29:43
Sweden's Sarah Hector and Norway's Theo Luis Stiernansund
29:48
skied identical times down to the 100th of a second, not just
29:53
once, but twice. And so they shared a silver
29:58
medal and no bronze was awarded. Yeah, they they do each get a.
30:02
Silver medal, yes, they each get a.
30:03
They're not. They don't each get half of 1
30:05
Silver medal, they each get one. You get 1/2.
30:09
But to to ski 2 times exactly down to the 100th of a second is
30:13
insane. That is insane.
30:16
All right, moving on to some highlighted the I think it was
30:20
the people, the the women that we highlighted last week or the
30:24
week before. We're going to talk a little bit
30:26
about them. Like we said earlier, Aaron
30:29
Jackson failed to defend her 2022 gold medal in the 500,
30:33
finishing with the time of 37.32 seconds.
30:37
This was I think a 5th place pace for her.
30:40
Like you said, she had a great start, one of the best starts in
30:44
the 1st 100 meters and I think I saw from the quote that she had
30:49
a small stumble on the back half which a small stumble in a 37
30:54
second race is. Yeah, just looking at the call
30:57
sheet here, right, the difference between 1st and 5th
31:01
is less than a second. Less than a second.
31:03
Right, so you're a small stumble is a, yeah?
31:08
Huge, huge mistake. Yeah.
31:13
Yeah, Moving on to Michaela Shifrin, this was from
31:19
everything every almost every article online is talking how
31:22
this is about resilience versus podiums.
31:26
She had that terrible crash in November of 2024, punctured her
31:32
abdomen and had to have surgery. And so this was kind of more
31:36
about her just getting back into the intense international
31:41
competition. I mean, she's had some some more
31:43
of it, but like, this is kind of the first Big 1.
31:46
So it's really just if you find the podium, it's great.
31:50
But can we go out there and just perform?
31:53
Yeah, I think Schifrin also seems to have a little bit of a
31:56
bugaboo when it comes to the Olympics, right?
31:58
She finished off podium for all six events she was supposed to
32:01
be in or she competed in, excuse me, in Beijing right now.
32:06
It's looking like that might happen again.
32:10
I do think, you know, we talked about this when we talked about
32:14
Yvonne last week, but these people are literally hurtling
32:19
themselves down a mountain at like 7080 miles an hour on skis.
32:26
And so you can imagine just the mentality you have to have to do
32:31
that when you feel good, how hard that would be to overcome a
32:37
really significant crash or really significant injury.
32:42
Just concerned that you can, you know, maybe you can't quite see
32:48
an aberration in the snow that's going to throw you off and send
32:51
you hurdling off course or whatever it might be.
32:54
So. She actually said during the
32:55
giant slalom that she was battling some kind of PTSD
32:59
mental hurdles with the speed and everything.
33:01
I would believe it. I would believe it.
33:03
I believe she has one more chance in the slalom, which I
33:06
think is on Wednesday, February 18th.
33:09
Nice get it girl, we're cheering for you.
33:12
Just do well. We don't care about the podiums.
33:15
Just just show up. Yeah, that's what we're saying.
33:17
I'm saying just show up. You're there.
33:19
You're a freaking Olympian, by the way.
33:21
Sometimes in all of this we lose like track of the fact that
33:26
these people are just Olympians is a huge like accomplishment in
33:32
and of itself. And then we go and like you see
33:35
people bashing these folks who have in immense amounts of
33:39
pressure on them to win these medals.
33:42
The fact that they are there should be enough for.
33:45
Us the classic meme of you're sitting on the couch eating your
33:49
Doritos going what an idiot. They messed up.
33:52
Like, yeah, no, no, you don't get to talk.
33:55
All right, moving on, Chloe Kim Kim's bid for historic 3 peat 3
33:59
consecutive golds was thwarted by South Korean teenager Is It
34:03
Koi Troy Guyon. Kim put down a clean technical
34:08
run, scoring 88, but Choi represent responded with a
34:12
massive 90.2500 LB run to take the top spot.
34:16
Yeah. So we were watching this or I
34:18
was watching this, I think. And I was thinking to myself,
34:23
I'm like, is it normal for this many athletes to not complete a
34:30
run? So.
34:31
I was watching the second they do 3 heats and you top score
34:35
wins, right? And that's how the snowboard
34:36
scoring is done. And I watched the whole second
34:40
heat and I think 11 athlete completed a run.
34:46
So it went without falling basically.
34:48
And I started to think to myself, I was like, well,
34:50
somebody can just get down the half pipe.
34:52
They're probably. Going to win.
34:54
And then sure enough, Guyon does it.
34:57
And beautiful run, by the way. And then Kim went last 'cause
35:02
she was the highest scorer going into the last heat and she was
35:06
trying to put up this like, insane.
35:08
I mean, if she had nailed it, it would have been lights out,
35:10
right? Like, but I think the connection
35:14
between the two is actually what's really cool.
35:17
So I don't think we're going to talk about that.
35:19
Yeah, I was, I mean, I was going to say, I think that you had
35:21
said that Chloe Kim is kind of a mentor to guy on.
35:26
So kind of almost like this passing of the torch moment.
35:30
I'm sure Chloe Kim will be back. But I think this type of thing
35:35
there's some people who can who can kind of last and have the
35:38
longevity there. But I think sometimes with these
35:41
half type, half pipe type sports or kind of more physical type
35:45
sports, you might not be there for very long.
35:47
Well, I mean, didn't we? We talked about this a little
35:51
over a month ago, Like Chloe suffered a really significant
35:54
shoulder injury not that long ago, right?
35:56
So the fact again, going back to like the mentality, the fact
35:59
that she's even out there competing and having a good time
36:03
smiling. I mean, one of the most
36:05
beautiful things y'all that I saw was she finished her run.
36:08
She had fallen. She knew she wasn't she was good
36:11
enough for silver medal, right? Good enough for she was going to
36:14
get a silver medal. So sorry.
36:17
The first thing she did, she she got up off her butt after
36:20
falling, she, you know, slid the rest of the way down the hill,
36:24
immediately goes over to Guyana and gives her a hug immediately
36:28
didn't even like take a breath to think about like, oh, I just
36:31
got I just got a silver medal at the Olympics.
36:35
She went over and congratulated this young woman.
36:38
And it's just like such a example.
36:41
That's the other thing I love about the Olympics is just the
36:43
examples of like class and character that some of these
36:47
athletes display. So kudos to Chloe all.
36:51
Right. And then the last one up here we
36:52
have Jesse Diggins was kind of running into some troubles here,
36:58
finished 8th in the skiathlon after a crash, was knocked out
37:02
of a Sprint in the quarterfinals while she was nursing some
37:05
bruised ribs from that crash. The relay team actually got
37:08
fifth in that 4 by 7 1/2 kilometer, which we watched.
37:12
We saw the Swedish gal. Crashed twice.
37:15
Ass over tea kettle, Just just. Flipped on her face.
37:19
Broke a ski. Broke a ski.
37:21
Well, she broke a ski and they still got second.
37:23
She broke a ski and but not just like her ski came off her
37:27
binding, her entire binding. Came off her.
37:29
Ski. So she couldn't.
37:30
She had to get a technician out there to like, give her a new
37:33
ski. And somehow Sweden still got
37:35
seconds. And then going back to Jesse
37:38
Diggins was able to get the bronze in the 1010 kilometer
37:42
freestyle. So I think this was her victory
37:46
lap. You know, she's, I think one of
37:49
the headlines I saw was they asked her what she's going to do
37:52
after this and she said I'm going to get a life and like
37:55
just live it so. You've seen clips of her finish
37:59
of that. She left everything out on that
38:02
course, so hats off to you Jessie.
38:06
All right. And then moving on to still to
38:08
come, we said we have the ice hockey final on Thursday at
38:11
noon, Michaela Shifrin in slalom on Wednesday the 18th.
38:16
I think it's a 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM, 6:30 AM central.
38:19
So probably not going to be watching that.
38:24
Speaking to to figure skating, we have women's singles figure
38:28
skating, Alyssa Lou, Amber Glenn and Isabel Libito from the US.
38:32
We'll start the short program Tuesday at 11:45 AM central and
38:37
then they have the top 24 skaters from the short program
38:41
move on to the free skate, which is Thursday at noon.
38:44
You want to talk about pressure? Yeah, like we talked about it.
38:47
These these young women are being hailed as maybe the top
38:50
trio. So we'll see how they do.
38:53
We'll see what they can do. We have women's curling Tuesday,
38:58
Wednesday, Thursday and then into the weekend if they make it
39:00
past the group stage. The group stage isn't even, or I
39:04
mean, the semifinals is not even kind of planned out there.
39:07
So we're not quite sure when that's going to be.
39:09
And then we have the two women bobsled.
39:12
Training starts on Thursday and then goes through the weekend.
39:15
The official schedule is not yet announced.
39:17
At least it was not what we did in research.
39:19
All right. Lots to come still.
39:24
So that's it for Olympics for this episode.
39:28
I guarantee you we will be talking about it at least once
39:31
more next week, so stay tuned for more updates Now I'm going
39:37
to shift gears into some just women's professional basketball
39:42
updates. We have a couple different
39:45
segments to go through here, so the first one wanted to hit
39:49
y'all with ACBA update. So I think last time we aired an
39:53
episode, the league had just presented a proposal back to the
39:58
union. The union had been reviewing.
40:01
There were minimal changes. I don't say there were some
40:07
agreements on some housing situations, developmental player
40:10
roster spots. But not a lot of movement on the
40:13
revenue sharing portion, which again, I think you mentioned
40:16
this last episode, you know, the the executive body for the union
40:21
is like, if we can figure that out, we're good to go basically.
40:26
And the league continues to kind of drag their feet a little bit
40:29
on that. But suffice it to say, we
40:33
mentioned this already, but NBA All Star Weekend was this
40:37
weekend. And the NBA commissioner, Adam
40:39
Silver, was asked in a press conference about the CBA
40:44
situation. So you might be wondering,
40:46
Caitlin, why are you talking about the NBA?
40:49
This is a women's sports podcast.
40:51
Well, the NBA is a 42% owner of the WNBA.
40:57
And Kathy Engelbert, the commissioner of the WNBA,
41:01
reports directly to Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA.
41:06
If you're wondering where the other 58% of ownership of the
41:10
WNBA goes, another 42 percent is to the team ownership of the
41:18
West, and then there's 16% that is held by private investors.
41:23
So at this press conference, though, Silver essentially
41:29
stressed the need for movement and urgency on both sides.
41:33
So he was quoted as saying we need to now move towards a next
41:37
level sense of urgency and not lose momentum in terms of the
41:40
amazing amount of progress we've seen in women's basketball.
41:44
So he's cognizant of, you know, the stakes here as a as a
41:49
business person. I think at the same time he did
41:53
say he was trying to pressure He he want he intends to pressure
41:57
both sides. He's not looking at this as like
41:59
the players are out of bounds or the league is.
42:02
He's kind of which. Smart.
42:03
I mean that was that was going to be my question.
42:05
Is this directed at the players? The owners are a little bit of
42:09
both. I wouldn't.
42:10
I had I was almost thinking the owners a little bit more like
42:13
get your product figured out here.
42:15
I that was kind of my read to a little bit was, but I also think
42:19
I can't imagine that he's looking at some of the numbers
42:22
that the union's asking for and saying like absolutely let's
42:26
they would have agreed to it. I mean, Kathy reports to him.
42:29
So you have to assume that if they were a OK with those those
42:34
numbers, they would we would have had this done a long time
42:38
ago. What is funny is that on the
42:42
same day, on Valentine's Day, the W, MB, MB, PA so the players
42:47
association like social media account posted a Valentine's
42:52
message to the league and it read like this.
42:55
Roses are red, Violets are blue. We'd love a proposal that values
43:02
players too, with little kisses on it.
43:08
Yeah, might be. So it's interesting, in addition
43:13
to this, there were some some chatter around Brianna Stewart,
43:18
who's part of the executive committee saying that she was
43:20
excited about where they're headed and progress.
43:24
But then like 2 days later there's a headline that's coming
43:28
out that beast that Stewie is has just signed to go back
43:32
overseas to the Turkish club Fenerbache Opet to help them
43:37
with their playoff push here in April.
43:39
Which literally butts, right? Up to the start of.
43:42
Pre season for the West. So I'm like you're kind of
43:45
sending mixed messages. Do we?
43:49
So we don't have an agreement is the the TLDRI should have led
43:53
with that. We'll be keeping our eyes open.
43:57
I'm going to talk in a little bit about actually, I'm going to
44:00
go into it right now. Excuse me, we have this the the
44:03
season is supposed to tip off May 8th and April 20th or so I
44:09
think is when you usually report in for pre season.
44:12
They get a couple weeks in and then they go.
44:15
What was really interesting as I was looking into this is they
44:20
had they have so much they still have to do.
44:23
Yeah, yeah. They have the expansion drafts
44:26
for two teams and this was what really caught my eye and it
44:28
plays into the free agency situation as well, which is
44:31
stalled out. If just a reminding our audience
44:34
they're in a moratorium for free agency.
44:36
No one wants to sign when the CBA may be renegotiated.
44:40
Not going to get the same. Same, Yeah.
44:42
Pay or or or whatever that you would under a new CBA.
44:46
There's the college draft. There's the college draft, Yeah.
44:49
So if we think about this, just this expansion draft alone, you
44:53
have two teams that have to go through this draft typically.
44:58
So when they did the expansion draft for the Golden State
45:00
Valkyries, who joined the league last year, last season they held
45:05
that draft, the expansion draft, in December.
45:08
Oh yeah. It's February, February.
45:17
And why that timing is important is because teams.
45:21
So first, the way that it works is the 12 teams that existed at
45:24
the time could choose six players to protect.
45:28
OK, There's usually about 15 players on a basketball roster,
45:32
give or take. So that meant nine players were
45:34
free for the expansion draft. And then the team that's
45:38
drafting can pull from all the teams.
45:42
They don't have to pull from all the teams, but they get that
45:44
pool of players to draft from. OK.
45:48
So now there was also a minimal number of free agents at the
45:54
time. Now, we've talked about this
45:56
before. Over 100 players are in free
46:00
agency and literally not signed to contracts right now because
46:04
they've put that moratorium. So my question is, is like, how
46:08
are you protecting players because they're not actually
46:10
assigned to your team? And then the second thing is, is
46:16
you have two teams that have to go through this.
46:19
And so the planning, the planning process between like
46:24
for, for the Portland fire or the Toronto tempo is, hey, I
46:30
know I want this player, but what if Portland, Toronto knows
46:33
they want this player? What if Portland takes that
46:34
player who's my contingency? Like it's, it's a totally
46:37
different process than it was with, with the Golden State
46:41
Valkyries. And so I feel like they have to
46:44
work out free agency before they can work out the expansion
46:48
draft. And then you have the college
46:51
draft it. I don't know how they would get
46:54
it done. Yeah, they, they, they're going
46:57
to have to like. They have like a couple weeks I
46:59
think to get this signed. I think we talked about that a
47:02
week or two ago. It was like it's going to be
47:04
like March, like March, mid, early March that they have to
47:07
figure this out by right 'cause otherwise it can't happen.
47:10
And the impact of this potentially right is Alex and I
47:16
were talking about this earlier tonight.
47:18
It's like, what's the product on the court going to look like?
47:21
Because now you have general managers and coaching Staffs
47:24
trying to construct teams without knowing who's going to
47:29
be on. I mean, they, they don't have
47:30
teams and then they're going to have to do it fast.
47:33
And it's going to be based on kind of availability.
47:35
And then like, what can you pay me?
47:37
Essentially? I I don't.
47:39
There was the what you said about earlier tonight was like
47:42
the, and then like the chemistry of the players, the chemistry
47:45
with the coaches, the training staff, like it's just.
47:49
I think it's gonna take. Not gonna be there until yeah, a
47:51
month or two into the season versus.
47:53
It's gonna take until July for us like All Star break time kind
47:57
of for us like really start to see these teams in in in my
48:01
view, right. So we'll see what happens there.
48:05
It's definitely gonna be a little bit chaotic, but we've
48:09
seen it in the in unrivalled. We've seen those really, really
48:13
talented individual players come together and gel this over this
48:17
two-month time period. So different game, right?
48:20
3V3, we will transition a little bit to unrivalled here.
48:24
I'm going to whip through a couple things worth noting.
48:29
One of the big headlines from the week is Angel Reese of the
48:33
Chicago Sky played played ball at LSU in college.
48:38
She is returning to unrivaled. So she has not yet played in
48:41
this season. She's going to return to Rose BC
48:45
she was part of that team last year when they won the 2025
48:49
inaugural championship. She was the defensive player of
48:53
the year and she'll be hitting the court on February 20th,
48:59
which I believe is Friday night as the Rose try and get into the
49:05
play offs. So we'll talk a little bit more
49:06
about that here in a second. So one other one another one
49:12
worth mentioning. We talked about this in favorite
49:14
thing but that one V1 tournament so fun to wild.
49:20
Intense basketball. Intense basketball you really
49:23
gain a lot of respect for like the individual skills that each
49:27
of these players have. What's really interesting to me
49:32
is the versatility across the board, regardless of position.
49:38
You've got bigs who now like the game demands that Biggs now can
49:42
shoot a three consistently and well, right.
49:46
The game also demands that you've got guards who can get in
49:50
body up createspace and hit like a a short jump shot or get in on
49:55
the rim right against a bigger opponent and and finish.
50:00
And so it was really impressive. This was won by the Las Vegas
50:05
Aces, Chelsea Gray, so defending WNBA champion from that team,
50:13
she gets a 200K bag. We're looking at this, her
50:18
entire salary from last year, y'all was 196 K.
50:23
So she made more. I think I saw it was like she
50:25
made 200K and 32 minutes of play.
50:28
Yeah, and it's my comment here is like, there's not really
50:32
anything to say, but we just keep highlighting this and how
50:36
insane it is. But between these two leagues,
50:38
you can play for 32 minutes and get 200K versus.
50:42
And like good ball, she had to beat really good players to get
50:47
that. And that's why we were saying
50:48
before like they were so locked in and focused.
50:51
Like you could tell they want the money.
50:54
They take their game seriously. The other thing that was
50:56
interesting in the one V1 was just like the they talked about
51:01
this a little bit like the vulnerability to put yourself
51:05
out there. I mean, we saw it.
51:06
Look at court and T kind of got he's got the full.
51:10
Blanks, right, Like to put yourself out there and really be
51:14
like, all right, I hope I can hang with this player and
51:18
somebody hits a rhythm or whatever, but like, you know,
51:20
props to them. The runner up was Alicia Gray of
51:24
the Atlanta Dream. 50K for her as that runner up.
51:30
Those two went back and forth. That was that looked exhausting.
51:35
That was a crazy exhaust. Last Yeah, final match of the
51:39
the three Yeah, the. Yeah, they they play 3.
51:42
Three. Totally.
51:43
Yeah, Yeah. Or seven point games and then
51:44
the semi finalists each got 25 K.
51:46
So that was Kelsey Plum and Aaliyah Boston representing the
51:49
bigs there in the in the final four.
51:52
So real quick, we're going to talk a little bit about the
51:55
playoff picture and unrivaled because that's coming up here.
51:58
We have our final slate of games that actually starts Tuesday
52:03
night this week, which is a little different, but the top
52:06
four teams make the playoffs current standings.
52:08
You've got the laces led by Jackie Young and Alyssa Thomas
52:12
and the Phantom led by Kelsey Plum and Aaliyah Boston.
52:15
These two teams have qualified for the playoffs.
52:17
They are locked in. Following them up, we have the
52:20
Mist led by Brianna Stewart and Alicia Gray, and then the Breeze
52:24
led by Page Becker's and Dominique Malonga.
52:28
Rose, BC right now, which Chelsea Gray is a part of, Angel
52:31
Reese's joining, are on the outside looking in.
52:35
So we will be watching couple different games, but kind of
52:41
looking at the Breeze and the Rose and a little bit of the
52:44
mist to sort of see how that shakes out.
52:46
So Tuesday night this week the 17th, the Breeze play the bottom
52:51
ranked team Lunar Owls. The thing is about this league
52:55
is like anyone can win on any night.
52:57
And so like this is a must win game for Breeze in my view.
53:00
They need to take care of business.
53:02
You've got Angel Reese's debut on Friday night against the
53:05
Hive. The Breeze play the vinyl on
53:08
Saturday night. The vinyl are squarely out, I
53:11
think of contention right now. But again, like spoiler
53:14
potential for them right then the rows have to turn around and
53:18
play the top seed top team laces on Sunday nights.
53:22
That's tough. And then the breeze play the
53:24
mist on Monday night. So there could be a lot of
53:28
shuffling that happens in these last couple.
53:30
That was my that was my big note about the Angel Racing is that
53:33
like while you still have, there's a little bit of games to
53:38
play, but you have the breeze playing some easy games.
53:41
She almost needs to come in and be perfect.
53:44
Yeah. Like a little bit like she has
53:46
to be dominant in order to help the Rose do what they can to to
53:51
win, Yeah. It'll be interesting.
53:53
So the other big news and unrivaled this week is that they
53:58
have scheduled to play the semi finals of the tournament in NYC
54:02
at Barclays Center where the New York Liberty play.
54:05
This will be on Monday, March 2nd, so about two weeks from
54:08
now. I think this is a market test
54:12
like they killed it in Philly. And I genuinely think that
54:18
future iterations of unrivalled, we're just, we're going to see
54:21
almost like a. Like a travel?
54:22
Traveling type situation where they can take it to different
54:25
markets, you know, here and there during the season.
54:30
Really cool to see. I guarantee that's probably
54:33
going to end up being a sell out again.
54:34
Too. Yeah, I think I saw someone had
54:36
said a couple nights ago like 10K had already been sold so
54:40
easily, you're going to sell that out.
54:42
So that's cool. And then final piece here in
54:46
basketball news, Team USA. So our women's basketball team
54:52
for Team USA would compete at the Olympics and there's World
54:54
Cups in basketball as well. Just named a roster for an
54:58
upcoming international tournament, the FIBA Federal
55:02
International Basketball Association World Cup Qualifying
55:05
tournament running mid March here, the 11th through the 17th.
55:11
They are going to be playing against Senegal, New Zealand,
55:15
Spain, Italy and Puerto Rico. The USA actually already
55:21
qualified for the 2026 World Cup, which will be held in
55:25
Berlin, Germany, but they still use these games as like a tune
55:31
up. And actually the roster dropping
55:33
the the roster itself is really interesting.
55:36
So you've got the 2024 and 2025 Rookies of the Year and Caitlin
55:41
Clark and Paige Becker's making their senior side debuts.
55:46
You also have debuts for Angel Reefs, Sonya Citron and Kiki
55:51
Arya Fan, who both play for the Washington Mystics and the W,
55:55
and they will be joined by 2024 gold medalists Kalia Copper,
56:00
Chelsea Gray, Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young, as well as Derek A
56:05
Hamby and Ryan Howard and Aaliyah Boston.
56:08
So that is a stack lineup. I will just mention you can see
56:12
almost all of these players play an unrivaled every.
56:14
Weekend if you want that's kind of what I was going to say.
56:18
I feel like with the the people you have on this team, you have
56:22
like I. Think Clark's the only.
56:23
One, yeah, you have so many of these big names that have
56:27
brought so much attention to the sport lately that I think these
56:31
are going to be viewed a lot more by spectators and viewers
56:35
online. Like, I think it's, it's going
56:37
to bring a lot more attention to that, to that's part of the
56:39
game. Yeah, it's interesting.
56:41
Like if you contrast it with women's professional soccer, I
56:45
think the US women's national team from a soccer perspective
56:50
really kind of attracted viewers.
56:54
And you're seeing it now with like, we want to keep these
56:56
players from the US Women's national team on the NWSL teams.
57:00
And like, there's kind of that this is almost going in reverse.
57:03
Like, I got to be honest, I don't think I ever paid
57:06
attention. I didn't know this was a thing
57:08
until you you put it on the college sheet today.
57:10
Team USA outside of the Olympics, right?
57:13
And now it's like, oh, this is like something that goes on year
57:16
round those World Cups. And I think you're going to
57:19
start to see viewership shift that way because of the presence
57:24
of, frankly, these superstars. Yeah.
57:26
Right A. 100%, so that'll be fun to watch.
57:29
They're going to be led by Duke University women's basketball
57:32
coach and personal fave of mine, Cara Lawson, along with Natalie
57:36
Nicasse, who was the WS Coach of the Year of the Golden State
57:41
Valkyries last season, Nate Tibbetts of the Phoenix Mercury
57:45
and Stephanie White of the Indiana Fever.
57:48
So we'll be on the lookout for that.
57:52
And then we're going to wrap things up here before we get
57:57
into what to watch with just a little bit of a women's soccer
58:02
roundup. So there were some huge trades
58:05
that happened in the NWSL over the week.
58:09
Kroy Bethune, US Women's National team midfielder, 2024
58:13
rookie and Midfielder of the Year in the NWSL was from the
58:18
Washington Spirit to the 2025 Shield winners.
58:24
Kansas City current all right for estimated fee or transfer
58:30
amount of about $1 million. So this isn't salary.
58:34
This is like what the teams pay between them for that transfer.
58:39
And then Claire Hutton, who we actually spotlighted a couple
58:42
weeks ago from her, her national team contributions, she is
58:47
headed to Bay FC for 1.1 million from Kansas City current after
58:53
leading that team to the Shield last season.
58:57
So these are huge transfers. They're they're the second and
58:59
third highest interleague transfers behind Jayden Shaw,
59:03
another US women's national team star last year transferred from
59:09
North Carolina Courage to Gotham FC.
59:13
Current CBA requires player consent for all transactions.
59:17
It was reported that Bethune actually wanted to make a
59:20
change. Kind of interesting her like
59:23
bestie is Trinity Rodman or so it appears on, you know, the Tik
59:26
Toks of the world. And, and Trin, as we've covered
59:30
here, obviously just signed that huge deal with the spirit.
59:34
Part of me wonders if Kroy is looking at it being like, maybe
59:39
I can go get my bag somewhere else cuz you're kind of taking
59:42
up a little too. Much.
59:45
Yeah, Under the current CBA constraints and even the high
59:48
impact player rule, which both of these players do qualify for
59:51
that, they meet the criteria. Hutton, I think that's a big
59:55
move. Bay Bay FC didn't do great, but
59:58
I think they have an opportunity to build a team around her.
1:00:01
Yeah, So that'll be interesting to watch.
1:00:03
So was that consent clause not in the previous CBA?
1:00:07
Is that like a no? Somewhat of a newer thing.
1:00:09
Yeah, yeah. They were just kind of, they're
1:00:11
just kind of stuck wherever you were at.
1:00:13
Just trade you around wherever you want to go.
1:00:18
So one other big move from US women's national team
1:00:22
perspective is Katarina Macario. She plays forward for the
1:00:27
national team. She has been overseas.
1:00:31
She played in France for a stint and then she's recently been at
1:00:33
Chelsea FC playing for the Blues for the last 15 or last 15
1:00:38
seasons, last couple seasons. She's not that old, folks.
1:00:42
Her contract expires at the end of this WSL season.
1:00:47
So Women's Super League is the NWSL equivalent in in England.
1:00:52
She doesn't want to re sign, which is kind of interesting.
1:00:54
She's had some injuries over the last couple seasons, hasn't been
1:00:58
selected for some teams. I think maybe just struggling to
1:01:01
jive and really find her groove there.
1:01:04
And so this started a whole swirl of like Barcelona wants to
1:01:09
make an offer to her and then Manchester City and Arsenal and
1:01:14
some other London City lionesses.
1:01:17
And I was like, oh, would she stay?
1:01:20
Well, turns out, I think she actually wants to come home,
1:01:23
come home. And so reportedly she's in
1:01:25
advance talks with the San Diego waves.
1:01:27
Yep, Who also could use a like marquee player.
1:01:31
They they lost Alex Morgan to retirement two seasons ago.
1:01:35
Then they had, you know, trade aways of Jaden Shaw and Naomi
1:01:39
Germa. Yep, Savannah McCaskill just
1:01:42
left there. Kaylin Sheridan Like, they've
1:01:44
kind of that team's kind of gotten a little gutted at.
1:01:46
Your feet a little bit. There.
1:01:48
And so I think it'll be cool if that comes through for Macario
1:01:52
to come back stateside and another frankly, win for the
1:01:55
NWSL. It would be interesting to see
1:01:57
if that high impact player role plays out.
1:01:59
Yeah, for her salary too. Who doesn't want to play in San
1:02:01
Diego? I mean, really beautiful there.
1:02:03
Yeah. So the last thing we want to
1:02:06
wrap with on the women's soccer front is the She Believes Cup is
1:02:11
coming up starts on March 1st, which is like 2 weeks from about
1:02:20
now. Yeah, about now.
1:02:22
The US will play Argentina in Nashville, they'll play Canada
1:02:26
on the 4th in Columbus, and then they'll round out the tournament
1:02:30
against Columbia on the 7th in Harrison, NJ.
1:02:35
Couple rule changes I thought were interesting.
1:02:38
So typically in these international tournaments, you
1:02:41
roster 23 players and they actually expanded that to be 26
1:02:46
players. However, coaches have to declare
1:02:49
the 23 that will dress for the game when they submit starting
1:02:53
lineup. So you don't get to have all 26
1:02:55
kind of get to play a little chess on like who you need and
1:02:58
you can do matchups and things like that depending on your
1:03:00
opponent and then all matches ending in a tie will move
1:03:04
directly to penalty kicks. Straight to penalties.
1:03:07
Yeah. So I think they they typically
1:03:09
you see this because they want to reduce the risk of injury.
1:03:11
Injury, Yeah, yeah, that makes. Sense you're also playing three
1:03:13
games in a week, yeah. So I think there's a lot of
1:03:17
consideration for players who are especially NWSL players who
1:03:21
are heading into their season, WSL, they're late in the season,
1:03:24
you want to protect them for the playoffs.
1:03:26
So like I I get it. The winner of the tournament
1:03:30
then is determined based on points.
1:03:32
You get 3 points for a win, one point for a regulation tie, and
1:03:36
an additional point if you win the shootout.
1:03:38
So both teams in a tie get a point, but then whoever wins the
1:03:41
shootout gets a bonus. No points for a loss in case
1:03:45
you're not there yet. So I think this next part's
1:03:49
gonna be interesting. I think somebody who listens
1:03:52
challenge you to a roster prediction.
1:03:55
Yeah, yes, yes. So friend of mine, former
1:04:01
colleague, loves the US women's national team almost as much as
1:04:06
I do. He can, he can challenge me on
1:04:09
that if, if he wants to. He said he really wanted to hear
1:04:13
me make a roster prediction for the She Believes Cup.
1:04:17
We've talked about here this roster, Emma Hayes has come out
1:04:21
and said that the coach of Team USA has come out and said that
1:04:26
who she names in this roster is likely going to give a glimpse
1:04:30
into who she's thinking for the World Cup next year.
1:04:34
And so I'm going to give it a go.
1:04:38
I realized that unfortunately I had, well actually, fortunately
1:04:42
that I had 26 spots that I could choose because She Believes Cup
1:04:46
and I think I have 26 here. I may be off by 1.
1:04:50
And I also have to admit that I didn't, I didn't check injury
1:04:54
status of every one of these players.
1:04:57
So I could totally see where maybe one or two of them is not
1:05:01
playing because of injury. But here we go.
1:05:04
So for goalkeepers I've got Casey Murphy, Fallon Telus,
1:05:08
Joyce and Mandy McGlynn. I think tell us Joyce, if she's
1:05:12
healthy, is going to be the number one.
1:05:14
She's been playing over with Manchester United in really good
1:05:19
form. I think she's probably going to
1:05:22
be looking at that number one spot for Team USA come
1:05:25
tournament time. For defenders, I've got Emily
1:05:29
Sonnet, Naomi Germa, Emily Fox, Giselle Thompson, which is a
1:05:35
little bit of a, I think that might be a little bit of a
1:05:38
surprise. 1 Emily Sam's Avery Patterson and then this was one
1:05:45
and, and this friend of mine will get this is Tierna
1:05:48
Davidson. I don't know, she's been out
1:05:51
with pretty serious injury. She's definitely one of the top
1:05:55
defenders in the system, but I'm I'm unsure on her status right
1:05:59
now. I threw Giselle Thompson in
1:06:02
there. I really liked how she played in
1:06:04
the games at the start of this year.
1:06:06
She's played a couple last year, just her play making out of the
1:06:10
back in. She was playing right back.
1:06:13
I think in the games recently it's Paraguay and Chile and I, I
1:06:17
just, I thought that creativity was really good.
1:06:20
Plus she did a good job job of, of covering gaps and making sure
1:06:24
that she was in good positions to support her team.
1:06:27
So we'll see. She's the younger sister of
1:06:31
Alyssa Thompson, who I do have named in the forwards here.
1:06:34
For midfielders, I have Olivia Moultrie, Lo La Banta, Rose
1:06:39
Lavelle, Lindsay Heaps, Sam Coffey, Claire Hutton, Lily
1:06:43
Johannes and Cori Bethune. I don't think there's any.
1:06:46
I don't. Think there's any arguments in
1:06:47
there? At all like that's pretty
1:06:49
straightforward. And then for forwards, I have
1:06:53
Kat Macario, Sophia Wilson. I think we'll see her, Trinity
1:06:59
Rodman, Ally Centnor, Jaden Shaw, Yasmine Ryan, Alyssa
1:07:03
Thompson and Emma Sears. So those names have all been, I
1:07:08
think, really impressive when they've had opportunities to
1:07:11
play in recent matches. I think you get good production.
1:07:16
I think the question will be the chemistry, but Emma Hayes is a
1:07:22
genius. Yeah, I think she, I feel like
1:07:24
she's been in the lab too. I think she knows.
1:07:26
Yeah, she knows. She knows.
1:07:28
So we can we can gut check this once it drops.
1:07:31
It's due to drop this week. So we you may even know what it
1:07:36
is. We we might do a like a social
1:07:38
media like how right were you? How right was I?
1:07:41
All right, let's move it on here.
1:07:44
What to watch for this week, like we said with Unrivaled,
1:07:49
there is 2 games on Tuesday evening, which is different than
1:07:53
normal. And then I think there is the
1:07:57
normal, I think it's like Friday through Monday.
1:08:01
I think one of the ones that we were talking about was and the
1:08:03
one that I want to watch the most is the missed.
1:08:06
Is it the missed breeze? Yeah, they are three and four
1:08:09
respectively and trying to wrap up a playoff spot.
1:08:13
So I think that's 7:45 on Monday, something we didn't talk
1:08:17
about in our basketball segment. We will talk about it soon.
1:08:20
Athletes Unlimited Basketball. They're actually in their third
1:08:23
week of their season and they have six games a week.
1:08:28
It looks like they play Wednesday, Friday and Saturday
1:08:32
night. There's one midday Wednesday,
1:08:34
one Wednesday evening, and then then Friday and Saturday evening
1:08:38
they have two games each. So I think we'll try to check
1:08:41
that out. If we can pull that up on the
1:08:43
it's on ESPN app, we'll take a look and and maybe we'll try to
1:08:48
highlight that in the more next episodes.
1:08:51
Looking at NCAA basketball #6 Michigan versus #13 Iowa 11 AM
1:08:58
on Fox. And if Big 10's not your jam,
1:09:01
then we have #17 Ole Miss versus #3 S Carolina, 11 AM on ESPN.
1:09:08
And then we also have newly ranked #23 Minnesota hosting #18
1:09:14
Michigan State, 5:00 PM on FS1. We'll see what they can do.
1:09:18
As you can tell, Big 10 is our jam here, Minnesota.
1:09:22
And then NCAA hockey, we have, I think the biggest series is this
1:09:28
in state, in state rivalry, UMD, University of Minnesota Duluth
1:09:32
versus the University of Minnesota, University of
1:09:37
Minnesota Duluth #10 Minnesota's number 3.
1:09:40
But don't discount the in state rivalry.
1:09:43
You're going. To have you're going to have
1:09:45
Bulldog fans down here in Minneapolis checking it out.
1:09:48
It's going to be it's those in State Games are always just,
1:09:52
yeah, a lot of fun so. You know, it's really confusing
1:09:54
though when they play each other's, their colors are the
1:09:57
same. Yeah, you're just like I don't.
1:09:58
Know, and they're both the University of Minnesota.
1:10:00
It's like, what What are we doing here?
1:10:03
That's 6:00 PM on Friday and 2:00 PM on Saturday on the Big
1:10:08
10. Nice.
1:10:11
Yeah. So that's what we got for what
1:10:12
to watch this week. Moving on to winners and losers.
1:10:17
But losers go first. Losers go first.
1:10:20
Do you have a loser? I got to think for a second.
1:10:24
I, both of mine are kind of half winners, half losers, but I said
1:10:31
not a loser per SE, but the Olympics is really cramping kind
1:10:34
of the PWHL momentum for those teams that we had going.
1:10:38
Like I think we had some really good games happening, a lot of
1:10:40
fun storylines there. And it's just like, I want to
1:10:43
get back. The hockey is phenomenal in the
1:10:46
Olympics, but I want to get back to seeing what happens in the
1:10:49
PWHL. Yeah, that's true.
1:10:51
That's true. It will be interesting to see
1:10:54
where the Olympics momentum takes the teams cuz you can have
1:10:58
teams that really rise out of that or players who kind of
1:11:02
maybe weren't hitting their stride in the PWHL.
1:11:04
But like now on that something, I know Alex Carpenter was the
1:11:09
leading the tournament and goals for a little while there.
1:11:12
She plays for I believe the Seattle Torrent, that expansion
1:11:17
team and they've been struggling.
1:11:19
So it'll be interesting her and Hillary night, like going back
1:11:21
to that team along with some other players from other
1:11:24
countries. Will that turn their trajectory
1:11:28
around? Or you mean talking about the
1:11:30
teams who had some upward potential?
1:11:33
Are they tired now? Is it?
1:11:35
Yeah, we talked about Russ versus Russ, all that type of
1:11:37
stuff. So for sure to see where it
1:11:39
goes. For sure.
1:11:40
I do want to say because we were watching the hockey game, the
1:11:44
Team USA hockey game against Sweden today, the broadcasters
1:11:48
spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the men's
1:11:51
hockey team. Yeah, well, the women's hockey
1:11:53
team was playing. They even interviewed some of
1:11:57
the men's hockey team players while they were broadcasting the
1:12:01
game. And it's, it gets frustrating
1:12:06
when we media can't find a way to like lean into the women in
1:12:17
the sport a little bit more. Like I get hype around like
1:12:21
wanting to support the two teams across the men's and the women's
1:12:26
team, but to really spend as much time as they did talking
1:12:29
about legacy on the men's side while you have some amazing
1:12:35
legacy on the women's side. It was just.
1:12:37
I'm sure I'll be interviewing the women's hockey team while
1:12:39
the men's are I'm. Sure they will.
1:12:41
I'm sure they will. So that's those are my losers
1:12:45
winner. My winner is Rose BC.
1:12:51
For picking up. Angel Reese remains to be seen
1:12:56
what impact she can be had but actually Rose BC but also
1:13:00
unrivaled. This is huge for that.
1:13:02
Angel Reese is incredibly marketable, good and bad like
1:13:06
she's she's totally like a all all press is good press type of
1:13:10
gal. And so for Unrivaled to get her
1:13:13
to come back in even this late in the season, just wanting to
1:13:17
kind of get her game going as we hopefully head towards the WNBA
1:13:21
season is really, really good for everybody.
1:13:25
My winner and I was, it's kind of barely a winner because they
1:13:28
haven't gotten anything done. But I feel like there is
1:13:33
momentum in the CBA. So my winter was that whole
1:13:36
situation. I feel like we're starting to
1:13:39
inch towards something finally happening.
1:13:42
And I'm hoping that as that kind of as it inches forward, it's
1:13:48
just going to eventually break and and things are going to
1:13:50
happen and we're going to have a season, maybe not as good as
1:13:54
like you said with the product, but hopefully we get something.
1:13:57
We'll see. I mean, like we've seen with the
1:14:01
unrivalled, like whatever, like all these women are playing
1:14:04
right now, right? They're not, it's not like
1:14:06
they're sitting on their butts and like waiting for the season
1:14:08
to start. So and they're the just the
1:14:11
quality and level of play is so much higher than it's ever been.
1:14:16
Like I think it could still be still be pretty good.
1:14:20
All right. I think that's it for this week.
1:14:23
Well thanks for being here with us y'all, we know that was a lot
1:14:27
of information coming at you. We had a quite a few things to
1:14:29
catch y'all up on. Come back next week for more on
1:14:33
all things women. 'S sports.
1:14:37
Don't forget to look at us at RTG Under Score Pod on socials
1:14:42
and YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts.
1:14:46
And if you have any suggestions or things you think we should be
1:14:48
covering, e-mail us at raisingthegame.com.
1:14:51
Just kidding. Raisingthegamepod@gmail.com.
1:14:55
That's why he's here. That's why I'm here.
1:14:58
I remember those things. That's the one thing I do
1:15:00
remember, all right. All right.
1:15:02
Thanks y'all. Bye bye.