Latest / Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More / Episode 17 | PWHL Playoffs Are Set, NWSL Week 5, WNBA Preseason Begins

Transcript

Episode 17 | PWHL Playoffs Are Set, NWSL Week 5, WNBA Preseason Begins · Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More

• 0:00
  They have figured out a great way to make the season down to
• 0:05
  the last day, every game be entertaining and meaningful and
• 0:09
  it's so smart and I love it. Hi, I'm Caitlin.
• 0:19
  Hi, I'm Alex. And this is Raising the Game, a
• 0:22
  women's sports podcast covering primetime performers, the
• 0:25
  business behind the athletes in the leagues, and what the growth
• 0:29
  of women's sports means for the next generation of women's
• 0:32
  athletes. We're back, we have PWHL,
• 0:36
  Playoffs are upon us. I am so excited that my Everyone
• 0:42
  watches women's hockey shirt. For those listening, she's
• 0:45
  showing it off. Together collab with Together is
• 0:50
  here just in time for the playoffs.
• 0:53
  I will say Together, if you're watching, I'm also wearing your
• 0:58
  hat. Sponsor her.
• 1:00
  And I think that you should sponsor me.
• 1:01
  I also think that you should do a collab like you're doing going
• 1:06
  to do with the NWSL with the PWHL.
• 1:08
  Team. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:09
  So I can get a purple one? Yep, that would match my frost
• 1:12
  hat which I was planning to wear tonight.
• 1:14
  Yes, but it didn't match this red, white and blue nonsense.
• 1:19
  That I we did a pre show fit check and it wasn't yeah.
• 1:21
  It wasn't there that I wanted to roll with here.
• 1:25
  We also have NWSL returning from an international break.
• 1:28
  Yes, lots, lots to talk about there, yeah.
• 1:31
  We have a lot and a look back at the first week of WNBA pre
• 1:35
  season. The WS, it's back.
• 1:37
  Maybe it's back. We didn't really watch any of
• 1:41
  it. Oh, we were busy A.
• 1:42
  Little bit we were busy, cut a little bit of that Fever Liberty
• 1:47
  game, which was interesting. So we're going to talk about
• 1:49
  that, what we're watching for before the season tips off.
• 1:52
  Yes, a week from Saturday. Absolutely.
• 1:56
  So would your favorite thing. Let's get into it.
• 2:00
  I'll start so I have a couple. One of my favorite things was
• 2:06
  coaching my daughter. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 2:08
  In our first game over the weekend.
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  It was. It was a wet one.
• 2:13
  We had practice during the week and then we had a game.
• 2:16
  It was very rainy. Yeah, the girls tell me that
• 2:19
  they lost 11 to 13. I stopped keeping track after
• 2:24
  like four goals were scored because I realized how high
• 2:26
  scoring it was going to be. It was a lot of goals, but some
• 2:30
  good things. We've got a good foundation to
• 2:32
  work on. Coach Caitlin is in full force.
• 2:35
  There are some fast girls on that team there.
• 2:38
  There's a couple that just cruise around the pitch.
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  And we talked last episode about how you you have speed always.
• 2:46
  Now I've got to work on possession.
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  Yes, yes. OK, my other one.
• 2:51
  This is like late breaking news that we just were talking about,
• 2:55
  but Team USA track superstar legend Alison Felix just
• 3:01
  announced that she is planning to make a run to return, no pun
• 3:05
  intended, to the LA 2028 Olympics.
• 3:10
  And I was reading her post about it and she was like, this isn't
• 3:16
  about ego. It's not about me winning more
• 3:19
  gold medals. It's about like, what am I
• 3:22
  capable? Yeah, can you prove it to
• 3:24
  yourself like? Exactly.
• 3:25
  And like I'm a mom now. I'm over 40.
• 3:28
  Women at all ages, but especially as we get older, are
• 3:32
  kind of encouraged to shrink and like take up less space.
• 3:36
  And she's like, Nah, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for it.
• 3:41
  So I love everything about that. It'll be really interesting to
• 3:45
  watch. Even if she qualifies and and
• 3:48
  gets there, that's a huge thing. But the fact that she's even
• 3:51
  doing it is fantastic. So that's awesome.
• 3:54
  Sorry, I had two favorite things.
• 3:56
  Yeah, my, I mean my favorite I think was so Skull the other
• 3:59
  day. I saw it on your sheet, but also
• 4:02
  Trinity Rodman's reaction to it on social media.
• 4:05
  It was really, yeah, it was really nice.
• 4:07
  I thought that was really cool. I'll talk a little bit more
• 4:09
  about soph school when we do the NWSL segment, but it first of
• 4:13
  all, beautiful. Goal the that little touch be
• 4:17
  right before to just get past the.
• 4:18
  Space, yes, the space, but I'm going to talk a little bit about
• 4:23
  what you know, the emotion may be behind it too, from the
• 4:27
  perspective of. A mom.
• 4:29
  A mom, Yeah. All right, let's go into
• 4:33
  headlines. I thought we're going to dive
• 4:34
  right into PWHL, but we're going to go into headlines, which is
• 4:38
  PWHL to start out. So here we go.
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  The PWHL playoffs are set with top seed Montreal selecting to
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  face off against three seed Minnesota, leaving two seed
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  Boston to take on last day qualifier and fourth seed
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  Ottawa. I have some thoughts about that.
• 4:53
  I have pondered this so much, we'll talk in this segment.
• 4:57
  I will add, though, that Vancouver, so it's really funny,
• 5:01
  we've talked about this, like you win the playoffs or you win
• 5:04
  berths to the playoffs, but the other teams who get eliminated
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  are trying to earn points to get that first draft pick.
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  And so Vancouver won the golden draft point thing despite being
• 5:15
  eliminated with fewer games to go than Seattle.
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  So Seattle actually had an opportunity to gain more points
• 5:21
  in total, and they just did it. This is big.
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  We'll talk a little bit about the draft in that segment too,
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  and kind of the players we've mentioned before, players
• 5:31
  responsible for this shirt being made.
• 5:34
  And WSL was back in action this weekend after the international
• 5:37
  break. We'll do a breakdown a little
• 5:39
  later in the episode. Yep.
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  And we kind of talked to you about WNBA already as well,
• 5:45
  which was back. So we'll hit on that in a few
• 5:49
  minutes here. The NWSL will add an 18th team
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  in 2028 in Columbus, OH after the Haslam Group puts up a
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  record $205,000,000 in expansion fees.
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  So this is wild. This is coming about a year
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  after the Arthur Blank Group in Atlanta put up $165 million for
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  expansion team in Atlanta due to also start in 2028.
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  Putting this in and that was like a lot of the time, right?
• 6:20
  Putting this in perspective for a second, when Angel City FC,
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  which is currently the highest valued team in the NWSL came
• 6:29
  into the league in 2021, they were bought.
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  They the expansion fees were termed or figured out in twenty
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  $22 million. That's insane.
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  So 5-6 years ago, right? We've gone up 100 X, which just
• 6:46
  again, we keep talking about like the trend, right and there
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  everything is up and to the right.
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  Yeah, everything is up and to the right.
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  So really cool to see. I know we'll talk a little bit
• 6:57
  about this in the NWSL segment. It of course does not come
• 7:01
  without. Without controversy, yes, US
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  women's national team draws El Salvador for World Cup
• 7:08
  qualifying match in CONCACAF Women's Championship in
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  November. So this was convenient.
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  Last week we talked about what was lying ahead, but we didn't
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  have really any details as far as that World Cup qualification
• 7:19
  went for CONCACAF. The tournament bracket has now
• 7:24
  been released, the draw, and so the US will play, like Alex
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  said, El Salvador. They essentially just need to
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  win that match and they qualify. They qualified for the
• 7:36
  tournament by their ranking within FIFA, and then they get
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  ranked according to those or they get seated, excuse me,
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  according to those rankings. This tournament I was reading
• 7:49
  also serves as an Olympic qualifier with the top three
• 7:53
  teams. So essentially you get to the
• 7:55
  semifinals. It's going to be the winner of
• 8:00
  the two semifinals plus whoever wins the 3rd place game once
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  they get into that tournament. Now what's funny is the US auto
• 8:09
  qualify for the Olympics because they're host nation.
• 8:13
  So we were actually wondering. We'll look into the rules.
• 8:16
  Drop it down. Yeah.
• 8:18
  Do they still, does CONCACAF still get to qualify three
• 8:21
  additional teams or is the US taking up a slot?
• 8:25
  Right. So that game will be on November
• 8:29
  27th in Texas. And yes, we already said, you
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  know, they already qualified for the Olympics as a host nation.
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  The US Women's National Team team also announced Brazil as
• 8:40
  its June window opponent and will head to Brazil for games on
• 8:43
  June 6th and 9th. This is amazing.
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  This is such great prep and so freaking smart.
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  Yeah, we're not. Gonna turn into the Emma Hayes
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  power hour. Again, I, it's really hard for
• 8:56
  me not to, but getting to play in Brazil in front of fans that
• 9:02
  are not your fans and not friends of yours against a
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  really, what I think is gonna be a really contentious Brazil
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  content contender in Brazil, I should say not contentious.
• 9:14
  Well, maybe that too. We're seeing a lot of their
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  talent, young talent on display in the NWSL right now.
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  And I just I, I'm really looking forward.
• 9:22
  To these things, WNBA announces record broadcast deal with 216
• 9:28
  games being nationally televised, including all 44
• 9:31
  Indiana Fever regular season games.
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  Yeah, I think, Alex, I'm gonna mention this in our last episode
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  that like there's no excuse for you not to watch.
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  Not watch it. This season will be broadcast
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  across NBCCBSESPNABC, which is one thing USA ION, Amazon Prime
• 9:50
  Video, NBATV Plus. You've got teams like the Lynx
• 9:55
  who just signed a full deal where you can watch all their
• 9:57
  games on Victory Plus, which is free right now.
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  And so I just like it speaks to the market capture that they're
• 10:07
  going after to really drive that viewership.
• 10:10
  They're clearly banking on Caitlin Clark staying healthy,
• 10:14
  broadcasting all of her games. So it's great to see and I think
• 10:19
  again up until the right. USA Basketball gets its straw
• 10:24
  for FIBA World Championships coming this September will play
• 10:27
  China, Chechia and Italy in the group play with top three teams
• 10:32
  advancing to knockout stages. Yeah, so that tournament,
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  there's a break in the WNBA season this year for that.
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  It runs from September 4th to the 13th.
• 10:43
  This is the team will be led by Kara Lawson, again, the Duke
• 10:47
  women's basketball coach. And then Sue Bird as the
• 10:50
  managing director of Team USA women's basketball will actually
• 10:54
  select the team, which she's she did that for camp that we talked
• 10:57
  about a few weeks ago. So that will be fun to watch
• 11:02
  for. I'm I'm curious if there are any
• 11:04
  other like prep windows and what that also means for the West.
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  Yeah, right. So.
• 11:13
  Jess Fishlock announced his retirement at the end of this
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  NWSL season. Man, what?
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  An emotional week. Yeah, yeah, this is, I saw this
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  come across. This was big.
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  So Jess Fishlock has been in the league since its inception in
• 11:29
  2013. She's one of only three players
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  still playing alongside Alyssa Nair, who is a goalkeeper for
• 11:36
  the Chicago Red Stars, and then Sydney LaRue, who plays for
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  Angel City FC. She is the only player to play
• 11:46
  like all full 13 seasons, right? So those other players have had
• 11:51
  injuries or what have you. She's won 3 championships.
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  She's played all years with Seattle.
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  Just like what a like she's such a legacy there.
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  She's such a great leader. I remember when I first watched
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  an NWSL game with the rain, I remember her like standing out
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  to me as just like this works super hard, always talking to
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  her teammates. Like she just like, she's just
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  embodies like what's great about football.
• 12:19
  Unfortunately, we saw her take a really, really bad injury on
• 12:23
  Sunday that looks like her retirement may have been
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  accelerated, which is really, really sad to see it.
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  I think we were seeing the emotion of that realization
• 12:34
  coming. Yeah, to the fore for her.
• 12:36
  So wish her the best. NWSL and NWSLPA joins Project
• 12:42
  ACLA research initiative focused on reducing ACL injuries in
• 12:46
  women's soccer. Yeah, this is big.
• 12:48
  We, we, we should do a deeper dive on just ACL injuries and
• 12:55
  prevalence in women and, and how that is such an impact on all
• 12:59
  the different sports, but specifically soccer.
• 13:02
  I think this initiative was launched in 2024 in the WSL,
• 13:07
  which is the, your, the English Super League, Super League, the,
• 13:12
  and it's a, it's meant to be a three-year study that's planning
• 13:15
  to start this year where they're looking at like, how does travel
• 13:20
  schedule, workload, game minutes, sleep, all sorts of
• 13:25
  different things impact your risk of ACL tear.
• 13:32
  So far, you know, women, it's been found that women are two to
• 13:36
  six times more likely, which I'm like that range, even as crazy
• 13:40
  says they, they don't haven't looked closely enough at this.
• 13:43
  They're two to six times more likely to tear their ACL than
• 13:46
  male soccer players. But only 8% of research has been
• 13:51
  done on female athletes. So there's a huge gap there.
• 13:54
  I think we're seeing a trend in this where, you know, we know
• 13:58
  like Michelle King and Kinesia or or whatever, I can't remember
• 14:02
  exactly the name of her thing. And then we just listened to a
• 14:06
  podcast of an interview of Clara Wussai, who's an owner of the
• 14:10
  New York Liberty. She has a whole venture for
• 14:14
  research and it's yes. And it's amazing.
• 14:17
  I think we saw that too, even with the WNFC, the Football
• 14:21
  League, where they're doing a lot of research on how do we
• 14:23
  support women, female athletes, right?
• 14:27
  So love seeing this kind of investment to not just creating
• 14:32
  teams to make money off of, but like, how do we, yeah, maintain
• 14:36
  the durability of these players 'cause that's their livelihood.
• 14:38
  I wonder if there's, because I know in soccer there's a lot of
• 14:42
  additional data that they gather, like through games.
• 14:44
  Yeah. And all the different wearables
• 14:46
  and things like that. If there's going to be any use
• 14:47
  of AI to help like spot 100% trends where ACL injuries do
• 14:52
  happen like. Yeah.
• 14:53
  I mean, in that interview we're kind of going on a little bit of
• 14:55
  a tangent. Yeah, but it's worthwhile.
• 14:57
  In that interview with Clara, which I where they're at the
• 15:01
  research initiative that she is funding, they were talking about
• 15:05
  the use of digital twins and how they can use that information to
• 15:10
  create a digital twin of the player, right?
• 15:14
  And ultimately they can run scenarios on the digital twin to
• 15:18
  determine like, OK, what stress essentially or what variable
• 15:22
  would would be manipulated to result in this injury, right.
• 15:26
  And the cool part about that, the other thing that they were
• 15:29
  talking about was like this like deep personal of training plans
• 15:33
  because still, still professional athletes go in to
• 15:38
  do their weight training or whatever it might be,
• 15:41
  mobilization with their strength and conditioning coaches.
• 15:45
  And they're all kind of doing the same thing.
• 15:48
  And especially at that level and depending on what minutes you're
• 15:52
  doing and things like that, like everyone should probably be
• 15:54
  doing something different. Yeah, 100%.
• 15:56
  So that's really cool to see. It actually got me hyped.
• 15:59
  I was like. I should do this.
• 16:00
  You should. Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:03
  All right. Arsenal beats OL Leonis 2 to one
• 16:06
  in the UWCL to take the lead in the two legs semi final, while
• 16:10
  Barcelona drew 11 with Bayern Munich.
• 16:13
  Yeah, so this is the Champions League in Europe, so taking all
• 16:17
  of their professional leagues and they create a tournament.
• 16:20
  They're the semis will wrap up this weekend.
• 16:23
  So they play 2 games and then it's on aggregate goals.
• 16:28
  Sometimes it's on like home goals too.
• 16:32
  So the finals then are scheduled for the end of May.
• 16:35
  So they'll have, you know, 3 1/2 maybe 4 weeks before they play
• 16:40
  that game. Some U.S.
• 16:42
  National team talent on those teams.
• 16:44
  Lindsay Heaps, silly Johannes on Olympic, Leonaceous, Emily Fox
• 16:48
  on Arsenal. So.
• 16:51
  At the 2026 Madrid Open, players are battling through a stomach
• 16:54
  virus that's knocked a few big names out.
• 16:57
  This just looked like a big bummer.
• 17:01
  We saw Ego Swantec was she had to withdraw like mid match
• 17:05
  because she was I'll Coco Goth somehow got through her match,
• 17:10
  but she was like vomiting during the match.
• 17:14
  Somehow though, Arena Sabalenka has managed to avoid the virus
• 17:19
  she did get. She did drop a set to Naomi
• 17:22
  Osaka in her her match over the weekend, but then end up
• 17:28
  rallying to to beat Osaka and make it to the round of. 16 I
• 17:30
  don't remember if it was Sabalenka or not, but I think
• 17:32
  there was also a big controversy on a on a in an out call at one
• 17:36
  point. During one of those I didn't see
• 17:37
  that. Yeah, Nelly Corda wins the first
• 17:41
  LPGA major of 2026 at the Chevron Classic.
• 17:46
  Yeah. So this is we'll we'll cover
• 17:48
  more of these like major tournaments for LPGA tennis to
• 17:52
  to a degree, but this is Nellie's second trophy at this
• 17:56
  tournament in three years. So she won, you know, not last
• 18:00
  year, but the year before that. And this also puts her into the
• 18:03
  number one ranking in the world. I didn't look too much into, you
• 18:10
  know, how other players did, but we're going to start keeping an
• 18:12
  eye, a little bit of an eye on that, I think all.
• 18:14
  Right, All right, let's, let's talk about these PWHL playoffs.
• 18:18
  It's the best time of the year hockey playoffs is and we have
• 18:24
  Montreal versus Minnesota Frost and this is Montreal picking the
• 18:30
  Minnesota Frost. Yeah, so another cool wrinkle
• 18:34
  I've seen some speculation on, like what if they did this in
• 18:37
  like the NHL or the NBA? So in the PWHL, the number one
• 18:43
  seed gets to pick who they play first in the playoffs.
• 18:47
  And so backing up cuz we're gonna talk about the playoffs.
• 18:50
  But this weekend, the games, despite the fact that you only
• 18:55
  had one game where teams were playing for a playoff spot, but
• 19:00
  everyone else was playing for something too, because Montreal
• 19:03
  had to win in order to lock up the number one spot.
• 19:08
  So they would get this pick, which means Boston also wanted
• 19:11
  to win. Yeah, because they wanted the
• 19:13
  number one spot. And then you had Vancouver and
• 19:15
  Seattle, who were duking it out for the golden draft plan
• 19:19
  points. So, like, they have figured out
• 19:21
  a great way to make the season down to the last day, every
• 19:27
  game, be entertaining and meaningful.
• 19:30
  And it's so smart and I love it. OK, sorry for that little
• 19:33
  precursor, but it's important. Yeah, it is.
• 19:37
  So this will be the first time that Montreal and Minnesota play
• 19:40
  each other in the playoffs. They have both made the playoffs
• 19:43
  now all three seasons. They just have never played.
• 19:47
  Montreal has in fact been the number one seed before.
• 19:52
  I believe last year they were also the one seed, but they
• 19:54
  lost. And we're going to talk about a
• 19:56
  fun fact there in a minute. So, do we want to get into our
• 20:02
  hypotheses about these picks or should we do a continue our
• 20:05
  overview? I mean, I think we should get
• 20:07
  into it because I don't think it's, I don't think it was the
• 20:10
  smart play. So Montreal beat Minnesota all
• 20:15
  four games during the season and head to head matchups.
• 20:19
  I think they were a little short sighted in saying hey, we've got
• 20:23
  this team's number, we're going to play them.
• 20:28
  They also, I saw had, they didn't say they didn't see this,
• 20:33
  but Ottawa seems to have had Boston's number this season.
• 20:38
  And so I think they're like playing the game of relying on
• 20:44
  Ottawa to maybe. Beat Boston and them to.
• 20:47
  Be and then they. Yes, and.
• 20:49
  Then they have the easier team in.
• 20:50
  Potentially, but it feels risky. It does feel risky.
• 20:54
  I don't. I think I would always pick the
• 20:56
  weakest team. I don't care about how the
• 20:59
  number four team always ends up winning the championship.
• 21:02
  I would how you've had the number at when you have like
• 21:05
  someone's number, I always think that that luck's going to run
• 21:08
  out eventually and and it could right now a. 100% is.
• 21:14
  I remember during the NCAA women's college basketball
• 21:18
  tournament, I forget it must have been, it's probably UConn
• 21:23
  when UConn was playing South Carolina or yeah, that was that
• 21:27
  game. And one of my coach friends text
• 21:30
  me and is like whoop, it sucks to have a winning streak because
• 21:35
  it's just how it goes in sports. Like eventually you're gonna
• 21:37
  that's not gonna work out in your favor.
• 21:40
  And when Alex is talking about weaker team like.
• 21:44
  Ottawa. The Charge have nine wins on the
• 21:46
  season to Montreal and Boston's 16 and the Frost 13 Like they
• 21:53
  did not win games, they had an outsized number of overtime
• 21:57
  wins, which. Huge 12 overtime wins.
• 22:00
  Oh, sorry, eight over time wins. Sorry.
• 22:03
  So like they're not as good as these other three teams.
• 22:08
  But you did mention that history would show us that the lower
• 22:13
  seeds advance, they have advanced every year in the
• 22:18
  semifinals and that the four seed has won.
• 22:21
  Yeah, the championship, because the four seed has been the
• 22:24
  frost. Yes, it has every year.
• 22:27
  So we're hoping to change history here.
• 22:29
  We are Minnesota Frost fans. So I think going to that Boston,
• 22:34
  Ottawa match up here, you know, I think Boston's probably
• 22:40
  stoked, right? Because they're also saying you
• 22:43
  think you have our number where you know, that's not happening.
• 22:48
  This is their first time playing in the playoffs, second playoff
• 22:51
  appearance for both teams, so at some point they didn't make it.
• 22:55
  And then all four of their regular season games head to
• 22:58
  head required overtime, which is pretty impressive.
• 23:01
  And Ottawa took three of those four in shootouts.
• 23:06
  I'm just imagining a situation where Ottawa actually beats
• 23:10
  Boston and we beat Montreal, so we have to play Ottawa for the
• 23:14
  Cup and make it really easy for us.
• 23:16
  I, well, then I would be worried kind of the other thing that we
• 23:20
  were talking about, like when prepped for this was I think the
• 23:25
  Frost are going to challenge Montreal.
• 23:28
  I think they're going to make them really work to beat them.
• 23:32
  I, I, if I were Montreal, I would have preferred to put that
• 23:37
  work against my 2 top contenders.
• 23:41
  Like I would have preferred to pit those two against one
• 23:44
  another and just taking care of business against Ottawa.
• 23:47
  Now no shade to Ottawa, they could be on a surge.
• 23:50
  I think they are on like a three-game or 4 game-winning
• 23:54
  streak right now. So they may be peaking at the
• 23:56
  right time, as we like to say in sports, but it just seems, it
• 24:01
  seems interesting. I think the best championship is
• 24:03
  probably Montreal versus Boston or Minnesota versus Boston.
• 24:07
  Yeah, I don't think there's any or Yeah, I already said that.
• 24:11
  That's the combinations. Yeah, those are the two best.
• 24:14
  If those if one of those two combinations happens, I think
• 24:17
  you're going to get a very good series in the championship.
• 24:22
  If it's anyone against Ottawa, I think it's gonna be potentially
• 24:25
  boring. Yeah, the only thing, the last
• 24:28
  thing I'll say, though, in Ottawa's defense is they have
• 24:33
  Gwyneth Phillips, who I remember watching her in the playoffs
• 24:38
  last year. And that goaltender can stand on
• 24:42
  her head. Yeah.
• 24:43
  And she has been. I've we've.
• 24:45
  Watched. That's who we played in the
• 24:46
  championship, wasn't it? Yeah.
• 24:47
  Yes, and we've had, I've watched them play the last couple of
• 24:52
  weekends because it's like those games have mattered for them.
• 24:55
  And she is sort of like starting to get into that.
• 24:58
  Like I see everything mode and a really, really good goaltender
• 25:03
  can disrupt. Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:05
  You know, flow. So all of that to say, we are so
• 25:09
  excited for this to start and it kicks off when Alex for.
• 25:14
  Saturday, Saturday, oh wait, sorry, Thursday, Thursday at
• 25:17
  6:00 PM. But or not Boston versus Ottawa.
• 25:20
  And then we have, I remember from the what to watch, we'll
• 25:22
  talk about this, but a double header on Saturday.
• 25:26
  Boston, Ottawa play their second game late, while Montreal and
• 25:29
  Minnesota play earlier that day. Yeah, so catching y'all up on
• 25:32
  the format, it's a 5 game series.
• 25:34
  They'll play 2 games at the top seeds place and then then you'd
• 25:38
  go to the lower seeds arena for the next two games if necessary.
• 25:44
  Obviously the third one's necessary but and then the final
• 25:47
  game would go back to the top seed if they need the 5th game.
• 25:53
  And then the finals are the same way.
• 25:55
  So all of the dates and stuff are going to be TBD past these
• 25:58
  first two games. What is also really interesting
• 26:02
  with the schedule, I don't know if you're.
• 26:04
  I know what you're thinking. Is all of these teams had an NHL
• 26:10
  team in the playoffs Three of them still do Still do yes.
• 26:14
  One of them does not, and that is Ottawa.
• 26:16
  And so the Ottawa charge, the Ottawa Senators were exited I.
• 26:22
  Think they were swept? Possibly.
• 26:23
  With a broom. Yeah, I was about to say of the
• 26:26
  NHL playoffs. And so the Ottawa Charge
• 26:29
  actually will play all of their games, however many of that may
• 26:33
  be at Canadian Tire Center, which is approximately 18,000
• 26:38
  capacity venue, which is double what they typically play at at
• 26:43
  TD Place in Ottawa. So that's really exciting.
• 26:47
  I also, I was reading some stuff, I don't think that they
• 26:50
  get to play there because the sends got knocked out.
• 26:53
  To be clear, I think this was always part of the plan, but
• 26:57
  it's still fun to say. Well, and and and at least maybe
• 27:01
  now they'll get the center ice logo repainted quick.
• 27:03
  Yes, yes, they can take the sends off and put the charge on
• 27:06
  there. You want to do any predictions
• 27:10
  before we get into some other storylines here?
• 27:13
  I think I kind of, I think I kind of said what I think the
• 27:17
  best games are going to be. I would love to see a rematch of
• 27:22
  Boston versus Minnesota from that first year.
• 27:25
  Yeah, two years ago. I think that would just be
• 27:27
  really fun and just to see who comes out on top there it it'd
• 27:30
  be kind of a a rivalry game almost just to see that happen
• 27:36
  again. And you've got some like real
• 27:38
  star power in on these teams. We mentioned Gwyneth Phillips in
• 27:42
  goal, but like Montreal has Marie Philip Poulin who's back,
• 27:47
  Laura Stacey, you know others on that team.
• 27:51
  They've got Anna Renee Debian in net, who actually she was one of
• 27:55
  the top stat getters. I'll go through here in just a
• 27:59
  second. And then like Boston, you've got
• 28:01
  Megan Keller, you've got Haley Win, you've got Jennifer
• 28:05
  Gardner, you've got Aaron Frankel who set the league
• 28:09
  record in shutouts this season. So like, and then you've got the
• 28:13
  Frost who have like, you know, six players in the top 10 for
• 28:17
  scoring or something and Kelly Panic, who now holds the league
• 28:21
  record for points in a season. With 33.
• 28:25
  And lo and behold, her teammate Taylor Heisey also beat the
• 28:28
  last, you know, the previous record with 30 points.
• 28:31
  So it's just, I think it's gonna be some of the, it'll be really
• 28:37
  good. Hockey.
• 28:40
  My prediction is that we beat Montreal because it's our time.
• 28:46
  Yeah. And I actually, I don't know, I
• 28:50
  kind of like this whole, like, underdog vibe.
• 28:53
  I feel like if the charge can take one of the games in Boston
• 28:58
  and they get to play those two games in that bigger venue,
• 29:03
  there could be a thing there. I'm also a sucker for a good
• 29:06
  goaltender, so not that I don't like Aaron Frankel.
• 29:09
  It's really interesting that the the Frost winning would put us
• 29:12
  into a rematch. A rematch, one of the last.
• 29:14
  And so yeah, I was thinking like the Frost winning puts us into a
• 29:17
  rematch no matter what. But last year they beat Ottawa
• 29:19
  for the Cup. So that's that's my my ringer.
• 29:24
  So we mentioned a couple of the kind of season record so far.
• 29:28
  So not only are like attendance records being broken and revenue
• 29:31
  records being broken, but play records are also being broken.
• 29:35
  So I mentioned single season points record for Kelly Panic.
• 29:39
  16 goals, 17 assists, y'all. This is 22 more points than she
• 29:46
  scored all last season. Wild So.
• 29:50
  She about to get drug tested. What is it going on here?
• 29:54
  Well, as she'll say in an interview and she's like, I'm
• 29:56
  just getting to the right spots. I feel like that's what every
• 29:59
  hockey player. Says front of the net.
• 30:01
  Yeah, they're like, I just get to the right spot.
• 30:05
  We had Aaron Frankel I mentioned with the most shutouts on Renee
• 30:08
  Debian with a .955 save percentage wild and a 1.11 goals
• 30:14
  against average, which is fantastic.
• 30:16
  Insane Kendall Coyne Schofield had a record plus 22 plus minus
• 30:24
  rating. That's.
• 30:25
  Wild. And then the fastest hat trick.
• 30:29
  I didn't look this up in like the NHL.
• 30:31
  I'm curious what it is. But in 2 minutes and 44 seconds
• 30:34
  of game clock, Haley Skamara scored three goals.
• 30:37
  That's barely enough time to like set up in the zone 3 times.
• 30:41
  That's so crazy and they lost that game.
• 30:46
  I would be so mad if. I were somehow, and she plays
• 30:49
  for Montreal, also part of Team USA.
• 30:53
  So, you know, I mentioned the play records and we've talked
• 30:57
  Edna's yeah, yeah, about the attendance records.
• 31:00
  But we we've got to kind of call those back up here because then
• 31:03
  we're going to talk about expansion.
• 31:05
  Yeah, right. The PWHL surpassed a million
• 31:10
  fans for the first time. The last count I just saw before
• 31:13
  this was about 1.1 million fans it.
• 31:16
  Was earlier too, then it was way.
• 31:19
  Earlier than projected, yes, this resulted in about a 9300
• 31:25
  average attendance, which is a 28% year on year increase.
• 31:29
  So almost 30% more people are going to the games, right?
• 31:33
  They had a record single day attendance on that final day of
• 31:36
  the season. So they had 42,000 fans, almost
• 31:40
  43,000, I should say, across four games for those final games
• 31:44
  there in the Takeover tour. We've talked about that here.
• 31:48
  Those games averaged almost 12,500 fans at each one of
• 31:53
  those. And then you had, you know,
• 31:58
  moving venues where you've got Boston going to play in TD
• 32:01
  Garden and getting 17,850 fans or whatever it was.
• 32:06
  You had the New York Sirens playing Madison Square Garden,
• 32:09
  18,000 fans. And so it bodes well that like,
• 32:16
  people want to be watching this. You know, we keep saying it
• 32:21
  here. It's like we need the broadcast,
• 32:24
  you know, because I think you would see viewership from home
• 32:27
  also parallel, you know, some of these attendance numbers.
• 32:31
  I just, I, we've said it so many times, I think it's so smart
• 32:34
  what they're doing with the takeover tour to kind of bet
• 32:36
  these potential expansion cities and just being able to see sell
• 32:40
  outs or, you know, near sell outs in those cities is just
• 32:43
  super smart. Right.
• 32:44
  There's demand. They're like, let's do that.
• 32:47
  I mean, they kind of did that a little bit.
• 32:49
  NWSL, we mentioned that Columbus got that expansion team they've
• 32:53
  been playing the tournament games and things in Columbus not
• 32:58
  always for NWSL national team soccer as well, but they kind of
• 33:03
  test it's like market testing, right.
• 33:06
  So, Speaking of expansion, we. Don't have an announcement yet?
• 33:10
  We thought we might. And we, but we found out why
• 33:14
  it's delayed a little bit. So I read a really good article
• 33:17
  about this today, trying to like understand all of it.
• 33:20
  I kept thinking like, oh, we're gonna find out.
• 33:22
  We're gonna find out. Because there were some really
• 33:24
  important meetings that were scheduled.
• 33:25
  So the league and the players association was supposed to meet
• 33:29
  last night to talk about the plans, which then would you
• 33:32
  would assume once they're informed, they can go public
• 33:36
  with that information. Other wrinkle that I did not
• 33:41
  think about is that the NCAA is apparently apparently voted
• 33:47
  today. I don't know if it's decided yet
• 33:49
  on a fifth year of eligibility for college hockey.
• 33:53
  And so that was something that was delaying the timing because
• 33:58
  they need to know if that's going to happen before they do
• 34:03
  anything with expansion. You don't want to over expand
• 34:05
  and not have the talent. Exactly.
• 34:09
  Now we talked about kind of the proof point and and building a
• 34:14
  little bit on that for expansion.
• 34:16
  We had two expansion teams this year.
• 34:18
  They finished deadlock bottom of the table, but these teams drew
• 34:23
  some of the highest attendance numbers consistently in the
• 34:26
  league. So you had Seattle multiple
• 34:29
  17,000 plus games. From an attendance perspective,
• 34:32
  they averaged 12,500 people per game and then Vancouver multiple
• 34:38
  13,000 plus games. Their capacity is a little lower
• 34:41
  than Seattle at Climate Pledge Arena, but they averaged over
• 34:45
  12,000 per game. And so even teams that are not
• 34:50
  even performing that well, but like the demand was there.
• 34:54
  The I I just think that like. People are showing up.
• 34:56
  Yeah, they did. They did their research and
• 34:57
  they, they knew which cities to expand into.
• 35:00
  And it's not like they're going to pick, we have a list here.
• 35:03
  We they're not going to pick two of these teams, these cities at
• 35:05
  random and say, go have a PWHL team.
• 35:08
  They're going to say you 2 are the most likely to be
• 35:12
  successful. We're picking you.
• 35:14
  Right now what's really interesting, we've talked on the
• 35:19
  pod about how like we think Detroit is a lock.
• 35:22
  Basically we think Denver is probably a lock because they
• 35:26
  really need that middle time zone situation.
• 35:32
  And then we were talking about some of the Canadian cities,
• 35:35
  Hamilton or Halifax that also provide, I think there's some of
• 35:39
  them that will provide some of that like West Coast mountain
• 35:43
  balance that we that the league kind of needs right now.
• 35:47
  So wrinkle the article I read was like, no, no, no, no, none
• 35:55
  of those. We're going Vegas in San Diego.
• 35:59
  And I was like, excuse me, I. Don't know.
• 36:04
  So, so I was I, so it it, it will be interesting to hear the
• 36:09
  announcement 'cause it sort of flies in the face of the logic
• 36:12
  that we've kind of somebody's. Popping a Kaushi bed I think.
• 36:17
  But it's so what's interesting though is the barriers they've
• 36:22
  run into. We talked about some of the
• 36:24
  timing barriers, but what some of the other barriers that
• 36:27
  they've run into with kind of deciding on where they're going
• 36:32
  to go is there is the issue of venue.
• 36:38
  So where do the teams play? We've talked on the pod before
• 36:43
  about like logically makes sense to kind of partner with an NHL
• 36:46
  team. Well, turns out that not every
• 36:50
  NHL team wants to do that because they wouldn't own the
• 36:54
  team. So the Walter Group right now is
• 36:56
  saying we want to continue to own the whole league.
• 37:01
  And the reason for that is that we can grow it at a consistent
• 37:05
  rate. You're not going to end up with
• 37:07
  overstacking on one side where you have deeper pockets than
• 37:10
  another side, right? And so they are really hope like
• 37:14
  looking to grow the league to a certain point.
• 37:17
  They also probably want it to value at a certain level before
• 37:21
  they offer, breaking that up into other buckets.
• 37:24
  I also think that, you know, the the NHL teams might come to come
• 37:28
  into it going. We know how to, we know how to
• 37:32
  run a team like look how successful we are.
• 37:35
  But I think that PWHL ownership is saying you know how to run a
• 37:38
  men's team, you do not know how to run a women's league, and we
• 37:42
  actually maybe don't trust you to run a women's league.
• 37:45
  I think that is 100% also one of the challenges I think and and
• 37:51
  in my mind, I haven't had a ton of time to think through this.
• 37:53
  To me, it seems smart both from like I think they really believe
• 37:58
  in their product, right? I think they genuinely want this
• 38:02
  to be something that is long lasting and successful for these
• 38:08
  women, for the fans, for the cities that they're going into.
• 38:12
  I also think that they see the up and to the right movement and
• 38:16
  they're like, we are not willing to sell this now because we see
• 38:21
  this is going way up and way to the right and we can stand to
• 38:25
  make a lot of money on it. So the Vegas and San Diego kind
• 38:31
  of insertion into the conversation was interesting.
• 38:34
  But those are two cities where so Vegas obviously has the
• 38:38
  Golden Knights. It sounded like their ownership
• 38:41
  is not like doesn't want to own the women's or didn't.
• 38:44
  They don't need to, right? There's also multiple venues in
• 38:48
  Vegas where they could play. They don't have to share an
• 38:50
  arena with the Golden Knights. And then San Diego is
• 38:53
  interesting. They have a AHL team called the
• 38:57
  Gulls where the women's team could play and there, but
• 39:01
  there's no like ownership group vying for that space.
• 39:04
  Plus these two teams help to like bring more of that West
• 39:08
  Coast and San Diego. The what I was reading about was
• 39:13
  like one of your largest markets for any sport is LA right that I
• 39:18
  mean they have got like four teams in each league, right not.
• 39:20
  Far away from. It's two hours from San Diego.
• 39:24
  So I think the thinking is we have a huge market to tap that
• 39:28
  we haven't tested, right. But I mean, it's California,
• 39:34
  right? And what player doesn't want to
• 39:37
  go? Play.
• 39:38
  For especially San Diego. So I thought that was really
• 39:41
  interesting. We will be on the lookout.
• 39:45
  Last year's announcements came on April 23rd and the 30th.
• 39:49
  Alex just said playoffs drop the puck on the 30th.
• 39:53
  Yeah, Thursday, Thursday the 30th, they're probably
• 39:55
  announcing it as we record this. Like I'm not literally I.
• 39:59
  Know we have our we'll be all news.
• 40:01
  Our phones are on camera mode, we can't see what's going on.
• 40:04
  The the final thing I'll say about it is it does sound like
• 40:08
  they're talking about four teams and two to join next season, 2
• 40:13
  to join the season after. So we had thought 4:00.
• 40:17
  We we just thought 4 maybe all at once.
• 40:19
  And it sounds like they're gonna phase it, which I think makes
• 40:21
  smarter. You smarter?
• 40:22
  Yeah, play. All right.
• 40:25
  Should we move on to NWSL? Let's talk NWSL.
• 40:30
  We had a big return after an international break here.
• 40:34
  Please walk us through the weekend results.
• 40:36
  Yeah, we had racing. Louisville notched a first win
• 40:41
  with a 32V over Orlando. We had Spirit stomping KC4 to
• 40:47
  nothing. What's happening in Kansas City?
• 40:49
  I think you talk. You do talk about that Gotham
• 40:53
  look revived in a three nothing win over Bay FC Legacy still
• 40:58
  struggling, losing 2 nil to flailing Chicago team and I
• 41:02
  think you said listener was not not playing that game.
• 41:05
  Not play that game. Courage takedown strong Houston
• 41:08
  team one to nothing summit squandered two goal lead, losing
• 41:13
  32 to San Diego Wave in front of a sellout crowd.
• 41:16
  I thought that game was over at half and then suddenly it was.
• 41:22
  San Diego's scary, man. I'm going to talk about that
• 41:24
  too. Thorn's top Angel City FC 2 to
• 41:28
  one behind Sophia Wilson's first goal back from maternity leave
• 41:32
  and the Utah Blank. Seattle 3 nothing and rain.
• 41:35
  Sea captain Jess Fishlock stretchered off.
• 41:38
  Yeah, we talked about that. Really unfortunate.
• 41:40
  So I think what's what I when I look at this and like a lot of
• 41:43
  goals, which is good. Yeah, right.
• 41:45
  Like I think that obviously keeps fans engaged.
• 41:47
  So we like to see that. But a lot of shutouts too,
• 41:50
  right. So it's like, Oh yeah, higher
• 41:51
  scoring, but not from the other team.
• 41:55
  Want to kind of it's more fun when they're a little bit more
• 41:58
  competitive. Like the Summit Wave game was
• 42:00
  like really fun to watch. So I think where this leaves us
• 42:05
  from a standings perspective at the end of this weekend is San
• 42:09
  Diego's top of the standings 5011.
• 42:12
  They've got 15 points. They look in really good form.
• 42:18
  Yeah, I'm going to talk about that in a second.
• 42:20
  They'll be followed. They're followed up by Portland
• 42:22
  with 13 points, Utah with 10, Seattle with 10, and then Angel
• 42:26
  City rounding out the top five with 9 points.
• 42:30
  One thing I noticed in looking at the stats here is these teams
• 42:33
  are all scoring goals like they're, you know, averaging two
• 42:37
  goals a game basically right below them.
• 42:40
  You've got Washington, you've got Houston, you've got Orlando
• 42:43
  kind of rounding out that top 8. And then what's really
• 42:48
  surprising to see is a team like Gotham not in the top eight
• 42:52
  teams and then Kansas City in the bottom 3.
• 42:57
  Like that's not where anybody had that team.
• 42:59
  And frankly, like looking at the roster, like thinking about the
• 43:02
  investments that they make there and things like that, Like I
• 43:05
  don't I don't think they expect no, you know, and then poor
• 43:10
  Boston. I'm.
• 43:11
  Cringing, I cringed reading ahead on this.
• 43:14
  This expansion team, they had the big 30,000, you know, person
• 43:19
  attendance for their inaugural match.
• 43:22
  They have scored one goal in five games.
• 43:26
  That is very bad. I was reading a little bit about
• 43:31
  it because I'm like, what's going on here?
• 43:32
  I got to go figure out some more and do some sleuthing.
• 43:36
  They relied really heavily on international players coming
• 43:39
  over, as we hear with many different leagues, right?
• 43:44
  NWSL is a different kind of style of soccer than the
• 43:49
  European league. So if these players were coming
• 43:51
  over from European leagues to play and on this expansion team,
• 43:55
  you got some time to like settle in and adjust.
• 43:58
  The other thing is, is their coach came over from Europe and
• 44:02
  so their coach has them playing a very conservative five in the
• 44:06
  back. And so you're really looking to
• 44:10
  like kind of control the ball out of the back.
• 44:14
  Usually then you're going to have your wingers kind of
• 44:16
  flexing and running up the side, but it leaves your middle can
• 44:20
  get kind of exposed, Yeah, and empty.
• 44:25
  And I think we're seeing teams take advantage of that.
• 44:28
  And so I don't know if it's going to be like the next couple
• 44:30
  weeks, if it's going to be like, do we change tactics?
• 44:33
  Yeah. Do we change players and
• 44:34
  positions? Do we change coaches?
• 44:37
  Is that kind of like you just going to hold back and wait to
• 44:40
  see if you can get a fast break kind of or?
• 44:42
  It can be, yeah, it can be it sometimes it's more to like,
• 44:47
  yeah, can we use the wide channels?
• 44:48
  But what I've seen from them is they're not getting the ball
• 44:51
  into the wide channels. So like it defeats the purpose
• 44:54
  of that. It also it is just like a more
• 44:57
  defensive posture, right? You, you're putting more people
• 45:00
  back behind the ball intentionally.
• 45:03
  Does that lead to more more the ball being in your backfield
• 45:07
  more right? 100%, if you're not controlling
• 45:10
  the midfield, you are going to be playing more defense.
• 45:15
  And the other thing that's interesting to like think about
• 45:18
  with that kind of a scheme is a that is not common in American
• 45:24
  soccer, tend to see more four in the back, even some three in the
• 45:28
  back, but very rarely do see 5. So again, that like translation
• 45:32
  of international European to the NWSL.
• 45:37
  The other thing is, is like, do you actually have the personnel
• 45:40
  to play that scheme, or are you just choosing to impose a scheme
• 45:44
  on the players you have? And like, yeah, it's not going
• 45:47
  to work out well for you. So yeah, you can talk about
• 45:53
  Boston. The XS and OS there a little
• 45:54
  bit. Let's talk a little bit about
• 45:57
  your storyline, because this is. Interesting.
• 45:59
  Yeah. So like we said, Columbus
• 46:01
  getting a team in 2028, two $105 million fee.
• 46:06
  Just some other quick numbers here about that.
• 46:10
  They're going to play at the 22,000 seat, Scott's Miracle
• 46:13
  Grove Field, which will be renovated to add a NWSL locker
• 46:17
  room ahead of that season. The group that is bringing them
• 46:22
  in is the, like we said, Haslam Sports Group.
• 46:25
  They own the Cleveland Browns, Columbus Crew Co, owners of the
• 46:28
  Milwaukee Bucks. We also have Columbus based
• 46:31
  insurance giant Nationwide doctors Christine and Pete
• 46:36
  Edwards, who I was like who are these people?
• 46:38
  They are also Columbus Crew investors since 2019.
• 46:42
  So that's who's bringing them in there.
• 46:46
  We said that Columbus has a lot of games.
• 46:48
  And when we were talking about this probably 3 or 4 episodes
• 46:51
  ago, we said it makes sense. the US national women's national
• 46:55
  team plays there all the time. I looked it up, 13 games they
• 46:58
  have played there. So they play a lot there.
• 47:02
  But like we said, not without controversy, of course.
• 47:06
  We had a City Council vote five to three with one abstention
• 47:11
  after a contentious public hearing.
• 47:15
  They are building a training facility on something called
• 47:17
  McCoy Park. This park was meant to serve
• 47:21
  kind of this underserved area. It was supposed to be for a very
• 47:27
  inclusive park, one for even people with like disabilities
• 47:31
  and things like that. And the council members said
• 47:35
  that the plan was essentially submitted by the mayor and the
• 47:38
  NWSL before the council ever saw it.
• 47:42
  It's like it kind of they kind of like circumvented the City
• 47:45
  Council a little bit. Let me get this quote here.
• 47:48
  And this is This might be a. How do the residents feel about
• 47:52
  this? Well, let's see what one of the
• 47:53
  council members said. OK?
• 47:55
  I'm yeah, yeah, I'm angry that we're even considering giving a
• 48:00
  public park to billionaires. So that's how the City Council
• 48:07
  felt about it. They did add an amendment
• 48:10
  requiring the city to produce a replacement park plan within 60
• 48:13
  days and break ground by year's end, with the ownership group
• 48:17
  contributing 3 million to help find a replacement location.
• 48:21
  So I don't know if a replacement location is still within the
• 48:24
  same area that it's going that park originally served.
• 48:29
  But yeah, I think the interesting part the the thing
• 48:32
  that I read is that they want this this team, they want the
• 48:36
  team to be there. It's just this park was supposed
• 48:39
  to basically be untouchable and it just got railroaded.
• 48:43
  Yeah, so. It's also like, I'd be curious
• 48:45
  to like, learn more about like, why there?
• 48:48
  Like why did you have to build it there?
• 48:50
  Especially if this was like so kind of sacred to that
• 48:53
  community. You just you.
• 48:56
  You run the risk of alienating potential fans, right?
• 49:00
  Well, and even as a player, do you want to be like, this is our
• 49:02
  training facility, we tore down a park for disabled folk.
• 49:06
  Like exactly. Doesn't sound, doesn't.
• 49:09
  Really feel great. Yeah, that's a bummer.
• 49:14
  Hopefully they are able to rectify with a park that is
• 49:19
  serves that community the same similarly to the way that McCoy
• 49:24
  Park did and put money behind it.
• 49:27
  So it's also just like weird. Why not get like the buy in from
• 49:31
  the people, Like get your stakeholders bought in.
• 49:33
  Like I do this. It's like, was there, was there
• 49:35
  a rush? Like I'm just I'm.
• 49:37
  So maybe, I mean, Jessica Berman, the commissioner of the
• 49:40
  NWSL, had come out. I mean, she's been saying this
• 49:43
  for a little while, but like, there's a line basically that
• 49:46
  you have to get in. Yeah, to be considered the
• 49:51
  NWSLI. Think we were talking about this
• 49:53
  a few episodes ago that like, they just take bibs whenever
• 49:57
  there's no, like, set timing that you can do that.
• 50:00
  So like, it makes me feel like there isn't a rush, like there
• 50:03
  wasn't really a deadline. Well, I wonder if it was more
• 50:05
  deadline of the price, the price, right?
• 50:07
  So that I was just going to say like as we've seen we went from
• 50:11
  165,000,000 last year to now 205.
• 50:15
  Like if you if they didn't get the two O 5, someone else was
• 50:18
  going to get the two O 5 and now you're looking at what, 245?
• 50:21
  Yeah, something like. That 285 you know, whatever it
• 50:24
  ends up being. So I wonder if the the ownership
• 50:27
  group went to the mayor and said this gets done now or we need
• 50:32
  like, we need you to help us pay for like give us some tax money
• 50:36
  to help pay for the whatever it is, right?
• 50:38
  Like we can't, we can't pay. We can pay 2O5.
• 50:40
  We're not going to pay 285 to bring it in.
• 50:42
  So it's now we're nothing maybe. Maybe we'll find out maybe or
• 50:47
  maybe we won't. All right, from expansion NWSL
• 50:54
  team to just a little bit about how the the season's going so
• 50:59
  far. We, you know, I've alluded to a
• 51:01
  couple of these already, but San Diego had a real rough season
• 51:08
  last year and then they had a real rough offseason, like they
• 51:12
  were losing players left, right and center.
• 51:14
  But it kind of has been sort of wheels falling off the bus since
• 51:18
  Alex Morgan retired, just slowly.
• 51:22
  It didn't happen all at once. But, and I mean, I came into
• 51:26
  this season being like, you know, there ain't no way.
• 51:29
  Good. They are so good.
• 51:31
  Yeah, they're really good. They have so many great players.
• 51:35
  Yep, they rely on a lot of like creativity and like giving space
• 51:41
  you on a side of all their head coach like seems to have created
• 51:45
  a system where these these really creative players, really
• 51:48
  skilled players just have free reign to like do whatever they
• 51:53
  need to do. And that is so freeing as a
• 51:56
  player when like you're not worried about like, you know,
• 51:59
  staying in your lane or whatever.
• 52:03
  It's been really fun to watch, frankly.
• 52:06
  They're anchored by Kennedy Wesley, who we just saw in the
• 52:08
  US women's national team. A lot last.
• 52:10
  Week, yeah, at centre back, she scored another goal with her
• 52:14
  head. Beautiful header goal over the
• 52:17
  weekend. She really likes that field that
• 52:20
  she was playing on. And you know, you've got some of
• 52:24
  the Brazilian talent, talent and Eugenia and Lujmila up top, who
• 52:29
  are just, they're so powerful, they're so shifty, they're just
• 52:33
  so creative with the ball. Kenza, Dolly in the midfield.
• 52:37
  And then we Cat Macario, yeah, who signed that big $5,000,000
• 52:42
  deal with them. She apparently was on the bench
• 52:46
  available and didn't play. She's coming back off of a heel
• 52:49
  injury. But you throw her in the mix.
• 52:51
  It's gonna be. I don't know if they for.
• 52:53
  The team to beat. Yeah.
• 52:55
  I don't know how you break that down or how you defend it.
• 52:57
  Frankly, I don't think it's really about breaking their
• 52:59
  defense down at this point. So that's really fun.
• 53:02
  That was like our our team when we first started watching NWSL.
• 53:06
  So good to see them, you know, looking strong.
• 53:14
  I also I just I do want to talk a little bit about Sophia
• 53:16
  Wilson's first goal. Alex mentioned there's like a
• 53:20
  split screen of Trinity Rodman, like watching so score the goal
• 53:24
  on at first. She's like, that's a really good
• 53:26
  goal and it is beautiful. You talked a little bit about
• 53:30
  that. I want to talk about just the
• 53:32
  emotion of like, I saw a quote from her that was like, I didn't
• 53:37
  want to put pressure on myself to score, but man, I really
• 53:41
  needed that goal, right? And like, now I would be so
• 53:47
  worried lining up across the pitch from Sophia.
• 53:50
  Oh. Yeah, like she's still got it.
• 53:51
  Uh oh. Yeah, and and it's going to roll
• 53:54
  now, right? And as an opponent thinking, Oh
• 53:57
  no, she still has it. Oh no, she knows she still has
• 54:02
  it. Scary.
• 54:03
  Exactly. So I'm excited to see her kind
• 54:06
  of continue to grow into that. And like, what a moment you saw
• 54:09
  her. You could see in the video her
• 54:11
  turn to where she probably knows Gigi is and like doing, you
• 54:15
  know, kisses into the stands. And she was a little emotional,
• 54:18
  like, yeah, that's it was a feels moment.
• 54:22
  It was as a mom too, just like you've, like you did it.
• 54:27
  You're you, you did the thing you like, birthed a human.
• 54:31
  You brought life into the world, which is already incredible.
• 54:35
  And now you're back playing at like the elite level.
• 54:39
  So happy for her. So happy for what that means for
• 54:42
  the US women's national team. And then my last thing is just
• 54:46
  like what is going on in Kansas City?
• 54:49
  There is no excuse, frankly, but I have a couple that are
• 54:54
  plausible. All right, let's hear.
• 54:55
  OK, new coach. So Chris Armas came in, Vladko
• 55:00
  and Vodkovsky moved into kind of a sporting director role for the
• 55:03
  club after being head coach the last couple of seasons.
• 55:07
  And I just kind of wonder sometimes, not always, but
• 55:13
  sometimes with new coaches, we just talked about this with
• 55:15
  Boston. It's like we're still trying to
• 55:17
  figure out like each other. Like it's like when you're
• 55:21
  dating early days. So you're kind of like, I don't
• 55:23
  understand your communication style.
• 55:25
  They seem to be working that out while we watch.
• 55:30
  And I think the other thing is, is they have a little bit of
• 55:33
  like a spoil of riches from a talent perspective.
• 55:36
  And I feel like he doesn't quite know in that spoil of riches,
• 55:42
  like where each player is going to work best with one another on
• 55:46
  the pitch. Yeah, I, I kind of wonder, I
• 55:48
  don't, I don't know the coach at all.
• 55:50
  Is there any, is there any truth to the fact that like, or the
• 55:53
  idea that sometimes a coach can come in and just decide to
• 55:57
  impose their will on a team that's not ready for that style
• 56:01
  like, yeah, totally. And if it's something like that
• 56:03
  too? I would, I would like to assume
• 56:07
  that coaches, most coaches this day and age are not that
• 56:11
  authoritarian. Yeah.
• 56:13
  Because I think they successful coaches understand that they
• 56:17
  have to bend to the player skill sets and talents they have just
• 56:24
  as much as they need the players to work into their system.
• 56:27
  Yeah, I know we said that this isn't an Emma Hayes Stan show
• 56:31
  today, but she is a great example of a new coach coming
• 56:36
  in. We talked in the last episode
• 56:38
  about how she's changed the style of play for the US Women's
• 56:42
  National Team. She is 2 years into coaching
• 56:46
  that team, so she took a long ramp period to understand her
• 56:51
  players, look at her depth of talent, right?
• 56:55
  Yep. And start to get them warming to
• 56:58
  that idea. Now, Chris Armas doesn't have
• 57:00
  the luxury of that time, right? But I'm sure that what it is is
• 57:05
  it's more of a friction between like, I see what I have, I know
• 57:10
  what we could do with it. We have to all kind of get In
• 57:13
  Sync. Yeah.
• 57:14
  And we're not quite In Sync yet. So it's a long season.
• 57:18
  I, you know, we've got a lot of games ahead, but they're
• 57:20
  definitely one where like week over week, I'm sort of like, OK.
• 57:24
  Better pick it up. Have you won yet?
• 57:26
  You got to pick it up. And then obviously, Boston, I'm
• 57:28
  going to be like, if anybody's losing to Boston at this point,
• 57:31
  not good. Get out of here.
• 57:34
  All right, we had our first few WNBA preseason games here.
• 57:41
  You want to walk us through these results?
• 57:44
  So we had four games over the weekend.
• 57:47
  We had the Fever in New York City playing or Brooklyn, I
• 57:50
  suppose, playing the Liberty. They won 109 to 91 behind 18
• 57:55
  points from Kelsey Mitchell and I can't remember her first name,
• 57:59
  but Walker Kimbrough. So two players with 18 points
• 58:03
  and then the the Liberty, it looked like, you know, Stewie
• 58:06
  was playing, UNESCU was playing, but Hans Yu from she's a Chinese
• 58:12
  international. I was watching.
• 58:14
  I was like, good Lord, this girl is tall.
• 58:16
  She's so tall. She put up 20 points for the
• 58:19
  Liberty. So it looked really good.
• 58:21
  I feel like these pre season games, it's always like a little
• 58:24
  hard to tell because no one's playing full minutes like, you
• 58:28
  know, whatever. Weird.
• 58:31
  I will add, Caitlin Clark had seven points, 4 assists in her
• 58:35
  first action WNBA action since last summer.
• 58:39
  So it's good to see her back out on the court.
• 58:42
  I'm going to talk a little bit more about her in a in a few
• 58:45
  here. And then we had the Lynx,
• 58:48
  Minnesota Lynx playing the Washington Spirit.
• 58:50
  So the Lynx beat the Spirit 7766.
• 58:55
  Really interesting about the Lynx.
• 58:57
  Nobody scored in double digits, but everybody scored.
• 59:02
  Yeah. So everyone who played scored
• 59:03
  points. Yeah, except for Amaya Battle.
• 59:06
  She played one minute. I'm assuming she got some
• 59:08
  garbage time right at the end, but that's a really.
• 59:12
  That's impressive. Yeah.
• 59:13
  Frankly, that means. Yeah, they were dishing it
• 59:15
  around. Right.
• 59:16
  That means everybody has to be scoring like around 678, Yeah,
• 59:21
  right. Roughly in order for you to get
• 59:24
  to that total. With the players that they, they
• 59:26
  had the spirit, I was looking at their starting lineup.
• 59:30
  Their starting lineup has got to be the youngest starting.
• 59:33
  Lineup it is. Yeah, you can do so they had
• 59:37
  Sonia Citron and Georgia Amor who were drafted last year.
• 59:43
  Now Georgia Amor didn't play last season because she tore ACL
• 59:48
  in pre season, right? So she's back so so 22025 draft
• 59:53
  picks and then you had Lauren Betts.
• 59:55
  Yep, Cody McMahon and Angela Jugalich, who I always got,
• 1:00:02
  what's her name starting for them.
• 1:00:05
  So they are going to be very young like. 2223 out there at
• 1:00:10
  age. If they can, if they can click
• 1:00:14
  and like it works, that could actually be a really interesting
• 1:00:18
  team. But again, as you'll hear a lot
• 1:00:21
  of folks say, like I just don't think over the duration of AW
• 1:00:27
  season that that level of inexperience gets you.
• 1:00:30
  No, I don't think so. So all right, Mercury beat the
• 1:00:34
  Sky 108 to 104. They played this game at the
• 1:00:37
  Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, SD.
• 1:00:40
  I grew up close to Sioux Falls and I did not know what the
• 1:00:42
  Sanford Pentagon was. So I had, I had to look it up.
• 1:00:45
  There is the Sanford Center, which is kind of like the hockey
• 1:00:48
  slash basketball, like the larger center.
• 1:00:50
  Yeah, I didn't realize they had a Pentagon there too.
• 1:00:52
  They called it a Pentagon. I don't know, maybe it's the
• 1:00:54
  different department 4 is at it again.
• 1:00:59
  The So the Sky Chicago Sky got 20 points from Haley Van Lift
• 1:01:05
  which is pretty cool and 15 from rookie at Jackson who they
• 1:01:08
  acquired in a big trade with LA. And then Cock Copper hit 19 for
• 1:01:14
  the Mercury and they got 16 from Keanu Williams.
• 1:01:18
  And then final game of the weekend Valkyries beat the So
• 1:01:22
  Golden State. Valkyries beat the Seattle Storm
• 1:01:25
  7876 close game. Flaje Johnson led the Storm in
• 1:01:31
  scoring with 12 points which is pretty cool.
• 1:01:33
  And Golden State got good production from their superstar
• 1:01:37
  Veronica Burton. Caitlin Chen actually had a good
• 1:01:40
  showing of Yukon alum from Paige Paige's graduation year.
• 1:01:46
  And so that was the first, you know, first couple of games,
• 1:01:50
  like I said, hard to like really know what to expect.
• 1:01:54
  But I think what I noticed right off the bat is like you see
• 1:01:59
  rookies contributing and producing right away in getting
• 1:02:04
  minutes, right, whether they're starting or they're, you know,
• 1:02:06
  playing. I did read something interesting
• 1:02:09
  about how like does that work? Like they literally come from
• 1:02:16
  the college season. They get like a hot 2nd of rest
• 1:02:20
  and then they go play a full pro season.
• 1:02:22
  I'd. Be worried about that.
• 1:02:23
  Yes, what is like the what's the durability like and will we
• 1:02:29
  start to hear about, you know, Caitlin Clark, great example,
• 1:02:33
  right, but like injuries and these are your most marketable
• 1:02:37
  place. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:38
  Like you kind of. You can't market them if they're
• 1:02:42
  not, if they're not playing right.
• 1:02:44
  All right. Yeah.
• 1:02:46
  So well before we dig into this, we're going to bring it back to
• 1:02:49
  to the links to to what we like. I want to say I went on this is
• 1:02:56
  sidebar, total sidebar to what I want to talk about.
• 1:02:58
  But I went on threads like quarter, maybe like quarter way
• 1:03:04
  into the game, halfway into the game, and the links were down 21
• 1:03:06
  to 12. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:08
  And you would have thought the fans wanted to sell the team.
• 1:03:11
  Like it was absolutely insane. They're like, call Tasha Clout.
• 1:03:14
  We got to get somebody in here. Like Cheryl, Get out of here.
• 1:03:17
  And they like didn't realize, like you don't got fee playing.
• 1:03:20
  You don't have McBride didn't play.
• 1:03:23
  It's preseason. They have a bunch of their like,
• 1:03:25
  international talent is over, still playing over.
• 1:03:30
  You got. To learn her name.
• 1:03:31
  Yeah, but it was just wild to me.
• 1:03:35
  But I do think it's very interesting.
• 1:03:37
  What I wanted to get to was that.
• 1:03:38
  Can we just quick say that that is so for those who.
• 1:03:43
  I know. I know most of our listeners are
• 1:03:45
  Minnesotans, but like that is the most Minnesota sports fan
• 1:03:48
  thing to do. To quote my dad, it's over.
• 1:03:50
  Like it's over. But yeah, I think so we there
• 1:03:55
  was a lot of talk around, a lot of talk around Minnesota during
• 1:03:58
  free agency about why aren't they doing anything?
• 1:04:02
  They didn't do anything. And I actually kind of think
• 1:04:05
  that right now they're a little bit of a sleeper team because
• 1:04:07
  they thought we've they thought we only lost talent, which we
• 1:04:10
  lost a lot of talent we did, but because we had to.
• 1:04:16
  And I think what we've actually done is kind of built a little
• 1:04:18
  bit of a sleeper team here. I think especially when you talk
• 1:04:22
  Midwest basketball, you've got you're going to talk fever for
• 1:04:26
  obvious. Reasons.
• 1:04:27
  You're going to talk Chicago because it's the big city and
• 1:04:31
  usually, I mean, even last year Minnesota's still a flashy team,
• 1:04:34
  but now everyone's like, well, they lost everyone, what are
• 1:04:36
  they going to do? They didn't pick anyone up in
• 1:04:38
  free agency. They sure they had the number
• 1:04:40
  two pick, but it's also a college kid.
• 1:04:42
  Like how much can they contribute?
• 1:04:44
  I think that they are going to be a sleeper team in a as soon
• 1:04:48
  as you have someone like Kmac playing, you have Fee coming
• 1:04:51
  back from or Andrea, hopefully pretty quickly.
• 1:04:54
  Yeah, I think, I think they're gonna be a force to be reckoned
• 1:04:57
  with. I like.
• 1:04:58
  It I'm not Minnesota negative right now, I am.
• 1:05:02
  I'm full on. I like it.
• 1:05:03
  I think you're right that like DNA of winning doesn't just go
• 1:05:08
  away. I mean, they've shown that
• 1:05:09
  they've literally won four trophies, the most of any.
• 1:05:12
  Cheryl is like the Strand that runs the main.
• 1:05:17
  So I think I think you could be on to something there and like,
• 1:05:20
  just to put a little finer point on it, they have four players
• 1:05:25
  playing overseas right now who are like would be some of their
• 1:05:29
  starters. So, you know, between the
• 1:05:32
  injuries and that, it's like it's fine.
• 1:05:35
  They're playing Nigeria right now in Kansas City, which is
• 1:05:39
  pretty cool. Bringing bringing the Lynxies
• 1:05:42
  down to Saint Louis. I was going to talk about these
• 1:05:50
  rookies. Yeah, the rookies.
• 1:05:52
  And how the rookies are showing up.
• 1:05:53
  I already taught, you know, we already mentioned just like that
• 1:05:55
  durability piece, but like they showed off, Yeah, in these first
• 1:06:00
  couple of games. So Raven Johnson had a really
• 1:06:03
  good showing for the Fever. She may be the kind of like
• 1:06:08
  point guard or or somebody who can help handle the ball so that
• 1:06:13
  your your real scorers, Kelsey Mitchell and Caitlin Clark can
• 1:06:17
  be open and and have less time. Take up some time away from the
• 1:06:21
  thunders. The other thing I love about
• 1:06:23
  Raven Johnson is her defense. She can defend anybody on the
• 1:06:28
  court. So like we saw this in UConn.
• 1:06:31
  She she drew the short stick somehow.
• 1:06:34
  Well, probably cuz she's really good at her job of guarding
• 1:06:37
  Sarah Strong, arguably the best yeah college player in the
• 1:06:40
  nation. And she shut her down.
• 1:06:42
  Yep, in that in that semi final game.
• 1:06:45
  So you have somebody who's really versatile from a
• 1:06:48
  defensive perspective. She's just like seems like a
• 1:06:50
  great teammate. Yeah, right.
• 1:06:52
  Just wants to be there, wants the team to do well, wants to
• 1:06:55
  contribute however she can. Her coach, head coach Stephanie
• 1:06:59
  White, was really high on her defensive side of the ball and
• 1:07:02
  she's like she'll learn the offense well.
• 1:07:05
  Girl in 18 minutes had six points on three for three
• 1:07:08
  shooting and eight assists. So I think she learned the
• 1:07:11
  offense. Yeah, I think she got it.
• 1:07:12
  She's getting there, so I'm excited to watch that.
• 1:07:16
  That also makes the Fever, frankly, like a scary team to
• 1:07:19
  me. Her in addition to some of their
• 1:07:21
  other players. We'll do a little too early to
• 1:07:23
  predict situation here in a second.
• 1:07:26
  Then you had Olivia Miles. Alex mentioned her.
• 1:07:28
  She was drafted to the links to the number two overall.
• 1:07:31
  She had a good showing. I was I was looking on threads
• 1:07:35
  before we started recording and there was some chatter around
• 1:07:38
  the game against Nigeria and they were like, they were like
• 1:07:42
  Olivia girl, like they just ain't ready for your Dimes yet.
• 1:07:45
  Because I think she's she's a very creative passer.
• 1:07:48
  Yeah. The thing about a creative
• 1:07:50
  passer is like you have to have receivers who are anticipating
• 1:07:54
  creative passes and if they're not, it's just a turnover,
• 1:07:58
  right? So we'll see how that clicks.
• 1:08:01
  We had, you know, Lauren Betts and Cody McMahon show up really
• 1:08:04
  well for the Mystics, 24 points between the two of them leading
• 1:08:07
  the team and then flage we already mentioned.
• 1:08:10
  So I I'm excited to see that. I think again, I going to my
• 1:08:16
  business lens now, right? It's like the more that these
• 1:08:20
  players can be successful where they have the marketability and
• 1:08:25
  the nil deals coming in, the better that is for the West.
• 1:08:29
  Yeah, absolutely. So I think that's cool.
• 1:08:33
  Another thing I like, I really probably need to look into it
• 1:08:39
  more, but I really don't understand all the clamour
• 1:08:44
  around Caitlin Clark. There's like 2 very distinct
• 1:08:48
  groups that form around her and I get, I get the overarching
• 1:08:55
  themes. Yeah, I get them.
• 1:08:58
  Caitlin Clark. My personal opinion on Caitlin
• 1:09:00
  Clark, I think she is a phenomenal basketball player.
• 1:09:04
  Do I think she is the best basketball player from like all
• 1:09:08
  around skills perspective? No, I don't.
• 1:09:11
  She would have played a full season.
• 1:09:12
  Maybe we'd know more. Maybe we'd know more.
• 1:09:14
  I don't think that she is a great defender.
• 1:09:17
  Like, I don't think she's ever. Been a great defender.
• 1:09:18
  I don't think so. I don't think that's been a part
• 1:09:20
  of her game that she's needed to work on.
• 1:09:23
  She may find in the West she needs to work on it.
• 1:09:26
  Yeah. I personally don't love how she
• 1:09:32
  comports herself. Yeah, on the court.
• 1:09:36
  I don't know anything about how she carries herself.
• 1:09:39
  Yeah, off the court, I don't really care about that unless
• 1:09:42
  she's being like blatantly, yeah, awful to people or groups
• 1:09:46
  of people or whatever. But I she just doesn't, she
• 1:09:50
  doesn't have that. Like she doesn't give off and I
• 1:09:54
  don't know Caitlin Clark, but she doesn't give off that like
• 1:09:57
  true teammate vibe to me. There's also, I mean there's
• 1:09:59
  also been a few videos of her like upset at cameramen for
• 1:10:03
  getting too close while they're doing their job even though
• 1:10:05
  they're like not. Yeah, she gets like a little.
• 1:10:08
  So I think there's I think that what the interesting thing is,
• 1:10:12
  is you can take somebody who is super flashy and maybe rude and
• 1:10:17
  you kind of just go, well, that's who they are and that's
• 1:10:19
  who they always are and have been and you just that's fine.
• 1:10:24
  But then like someone with with Caitlin Clark, it kind of feels
• 1:10:26
  like she's so good and you kind of don't see it until you see
• 1:10:32
  it. And then it's like, wait, what's
• 1:10:33
  this Is this is weird. It's I don't know.
• 1:10:35
  It's yeah. So I don't know.
• 1:10:38
  I there's like a whole section of the Internet that like thinks
• 1:10:42
  that they're trying, there's someone they trying to like
• 1:10:46
  sabotage her career right by, you know, drafting Raven
• 1:10:51
  Johnson, like things like that. Like, it's so freaking weird.
• 1:10:55
  But at the same time, like, I don't want to make.
• 1:11:01
  So we're big on this podcast about just, like, being a kind
• 1:11:04
  human being and like, just like we don't let any men slide for
• 1:11:09
  like, oh, you're good. So like, we're just going to let
• 1:11:11
  your behaviour slide. It's hard for me to sit and
• 1:11:14
  watch the way she does react to cameramen, whoever, and be like,
• 1:11:21
  oh, it's just who she is. Like, no, be nice.
• 1:11:23
  Yeah. Exactly.
• 1:11:25
  Be nice. So I I will say that she is a
• 1:11:31
  very good thing for the league, 100% She's a very good thing for
• 1:11:35
  the game of basketball. She is a very good thing for
• 1:11:38
  young girls. My daughter, we had to go buy
• 1:11:43
  new soccer coats before our game last Saturday and we're in the
• 1:11:48
  sports section and she's like, can I also get a basketball?
• 1:11:52
  Because basketball has now become the biggest.
• 1:11:55
  Thing. And so there's like a million
• 1:11:56
  basketballs and I'm like trying to get her to get like a nice
• 1:11:59
  leather one, like a indoor outdoor, like leather ball.
• 1:12:02
  She's like, no, I want this Caitlin Clark branded.
• 1:12:05
  Ball. And I was like, all right.
• 1:12:08
  That works. That works like and that's kind
• 1:12:11
  of the beauty of it, right? Like she has created this
• 1:12:15
  movement and momentum and we'll we'll talk about it in our next
• 1:12:19
  pioneers episode. But like there, it's undeniable
• 1:12:25
  her influence. And so we can't take that away
• 1:12:27
  from her. It's just kind of like is, is
• 1:12:31
  there like manufactured controversy?
• 1:12:33
  Because she does attract attention, you know?
• 1:12:36
  I think I think we the other thing we need to think about is
• 1:12:38
  that some of some of this is we're getting this from the
• 1:12:43
  Internet and the Internet is crazy when it comes to the WNBA
• 1:12:48
  players. That's true.
• 1:12:49
  Like they're insane. You got to be watch out on
• 1:12:51
  threads. They there's a lot of opinions
• 1:12:53
  about a lot of things on. I actually don't even recommend
• 1:12:56
  going and looking. Any text and for some reason any
• 1:12:59
  text based, Yeah. They're X.
• 1:13:01
  They're a little nuts. Threads.
• 1:13:02
  It's a little, it's all a little nuts to me.
• 1:13:04
  A. Little bit wild out there.
• 1:13:06
  All right, let's move it on. What to watch.
• 1:13:08
  We talked about this already a little bit, but PWHL starting
• 1:13:12
  Thursday night, we have Ottawa Charge at Boston.
• 1:13:17
  I don't think we need to tell you why you need to watch this,
• 1:13:20
  just that it's Thursday at six on all the normal places.
• 1:13:23
  YouTube, I guess we got Northeast Sports Network and
• 1:13:26
  TSN. Then we have our Saturday
• 1:13:28
  doubleheader, Minnesota at Montreal.
• 1:13:32
  We have them playing at 1:00 PM Central on Script Sports
• 1:13:36
  Network, Prime Video and YouTube.
• 1:13:40
  And then that doubleheader, Game 2, Boston Ottawa again at 6:00
• 1:13:44
  PM. All games in the final series of
• 1:13:48
  the PWHL will be nationally broadcast too, so we'll we'll
• 1:13:52
  let you all know is. That ion it's.
• 1:13:54
  Gonna be on Ion? Yeah, all.
• 1:13:55
  Right. Got it.
• 1:13:56
  So it'll be easier to watch once we get to the final.
• 1:13:59
  Although YouTube broadcasts are great.
• 1:14:01
  Yeah, they're, yeah. They have a lot of little trivia
• 1:14:03
  in between things and they have a little bouncing logo.
• 1:14:06
  It's. Really good.
• 1:14:07
  Yes, they like spot the difference.
• 1:14:08
  Yes, yes, I love. It your kids will enjoy it.
• 1:14:10
  Yeah, we enjoy it. We we're kids too.
• 1:14:14
  So NWSL, there's a lot happening this week in the NWSL.
• 1:14:18
  Wednesday night we have 4 different games, but the one to
• 1:14:21
  watch, it's going to be late for some of you folks.
• 1:14:25
  Portland Thorns at San Diego Wave.
• 1:14:27
  Oh, I can't stay awake for. This Yeah, It starts at 9:00 PM
• 1:14:30
  Central and is on CBS Sports Network.
• 1:14:33
  So yeah, watch 15 Minutes for that and then pass out.
• 1:14:37
  That's right. And then the weekend, this
• 1:14:39
  weekend we have Angel City FC versus Utah Royals.
• 1:14:42
  We talked about the Utah, Utah versus Seattle game.
• 1:14:46
  Utah blanked them three, another NIL.
• 1:14:49
  Yeah, and it's it is in. West Coast teams, man well.
• 1:14:51
  It's 7:45 central. OK, OK.
• 1:14:54
  You can you can say for. That it's the weekend too.
• 1:14:56
  It's the weekend. It's on Oh I didn't I've lost my
• 1:14:59
  day in here. I believe that is on Sunday.
• 1:15:01
  OK on ion so cool. And then popping into WNBA pre
• 1:15:07
  season, we have the Fever versus the Wings.
• 1:15:10
  This is the Wings first game. Arizona Fudd making her debut
• 1:15:15
  alongside Paige against Caitlin Clark.
• 1:15:17
  So very anticipated game. This is also a preview of that
• 1:15:23
  the league opener on May 9th. That's right, it's on Thursday
• 1:15:27
  at 6:00 PM Central on Ion. And apparently a lot of these
• 1:15:31
  are also free on the WNBA app if you make a WNBAID is what I've
• 1:15:36
  been told I. Have seen a lot of things on
• 1:15:39
  threads about how the app sucks so.
• 1:15:42
  So maybe don't do that. So maybe just watch on Ion?
• 1:15:45
  And then we have one on Friday at 7:00 PM Central Minnesota
• 1:15:49
  Lynx versus Toronto Tempo Olivia Miles, first home game and going
• 1:15:54
  to be Toronto's Kiki Rice, their first round pick makes her debut
• 1:15:57
  as well. Oh, I.
• 1:15:58
  Love it. Again, free, I think that might
• 1:16:03
  be on ION as well, but also free on the WNBA app.
• 1:16:06
  Make your ID, get over there. And one last thing, we have
• 1:16:10
  women's elite rugby starts season 2 this Saturday.
• 1:16:14
  We have Boston Banshees versus the New York Exiles at 4:00.
• 1:16:18
  Central yes to these names. Yes, these are all, by the way,
• 1:16:23
  these are all on Women's Sports Network Chicago Tempest versus
• 1:16:26
  the Twin Cities Gemini, 7:00 PM Central.
• 1:16:29
  Yes, please. And then the Bay Breakers on
• 1:16:31
  Sunday versus the Denver Onyx, 6:00 PM Central.
• 1:16:35
  They could have done better. All right, let's wrap this thing
• 1:16:38
  up. We got winners and losers.
• 1:16:40
  Let's do their losers first. Oh man.
• 1:16:44
  I have one loser and one it's more sad than it's a loser.
• 1:16:50
  Yeah, I, I mean, let's see. Yeah, it's the one that's
• 1:16:55
  popping into my head is just fish lacks injury is like so
• 1:16:59
  heartbreaking. Definitely not a loser, just.
• 1:17:02
  She's not a loser. Really sad to see it go that
• 1:17:04
  way. Just very, very unfortunate.
• 1:17:08
  My loser is Kansas City Current. The soccer team.
• 1:17:13
  Sorry, not the city. Kansas City.
• 1:17:16
  I am so sorry. You're a loser.
• 1:17:18
  No, sorry. City I I just like I, I think,
• 1:17:22
  like I said, lots of time to go, but like the players you have
• 1:17:28
  and like the support you get. It just should be better.
• 1:17:32
  Like we need more quality. Potentially we'll be calling
• 1:17:34
  them the most improved at some point later this season.
• 1:17:37
  They hope so, they hope so and they'll, I, I have no doubt
• 1:17:41
  they'll turn it around. I think it's just shocking
• 1:17:43
  coming off of like how dominant they were in the regular season
• 1:17:47
  last year. They won the the like the
• 1:17:50
  regular season trophy. That's the shield in like record
• 1:17:56
  number of names. Like they had locked that up
• 1:17:58
  with like 8 games to go or something.
• 1:18:00
  And so just to like see that turn around and you know, they
• 1:18:05
  lost some players. Claire Hutton moved to BFC, but
• 1:18:09
  they brought in Kroy Bethune. Like, it's not like they lost
• 1:18:11
  like. Yeah.
• 1:18:13
  Core players really that coaching change and so I don't
• 1:18:17
  know we'll. See how it goes.
• 1:18:18
  Mine mine was the Denver summit collapse.
• 1:18:21
  Oh God, Like just up two nil at half and then it was a 332.
• 1:18:26
  That was it was fun to watch. I got to be.
• 1:18:29
  The other one that I just thought of too, was we watched
• 1:18:32
  the Spirit Kansas City game. OK, I actually think something
• 1:18:38
  that they need to assess their goalkeeping.
• 1:18:40
  Do you remember that the Spirit this the KC goalkeeper, the
• 1:18:45
  Spirit scored like two goals on like totally.
• 1:18:48
  Fumble. Oh yeah, yeah, like.
• 1:18:50
  Had the ball in her hands and then dropped it type of thing
• 1:18:53
  and like you. Just can't do it.
• 1:18:56
  Got to clean that up. Just can't do it.
• 1:18:57
  All right, winners. I didn't see it.
• 1:19:03
  OK, you can go first. I don't want.
• 1:19:06
  TO minus PWL is a league like very successful regular season.
• 1:19:11
  We had, I mean the last three or so weeks was just every game was
• 1:19:17
  mattered whether you're in first or whether you're trying to
• 1:19:22
  yeah, get that 4th place spot or even if you're not even in the
• 1:19:26
  playoffs. Yeah, I get those draft points.
• 1:19:27
  So the 1,000,000 fans, the 12 1/2 K average attendance just
• 1:19:33
  we're we are going to have an expansion maybe next week we'll
• 1:19:36
  announce it again. We'll say that every week until
• 1:19:39
  they do, but I think they're just doing great.
• 1:19:41
  Yeah, it's a good one. My winner is going to be trying
• 1:19:55
  to be a little bit more original.
• 1:19:57
  So Trinity Rodman, she. So I complained.
• 1:20:03
  About her form a couple weeks ago I was like, can somebody
• 1:20:07
  talk to her? I think someone talked to her.
• 1:20:09
  Yeah, someone talked to her. So she ended up having what I
• 1:20:11
  think like 2 assists in the national team international
• 1:20:15
  window and then she came back and her first game back for the
• 1:20:18
  Spirit had a goal and an assist. Good, great play.
• 1:20:22
  Like kind of did what we expect trend to do.
• 1:20:24
  She looks like she's having fun, so I it's again, exciting to
• 1:20:32
  see. I really like her as a player.
• 1:20:36
  But it's great for the league, yeah, when stars that are
• 1:20:41
  marketable, that connect with fans are successful.
• 1:20:44
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 1:20:45
  So I love to see it. Another winner, Team Wildfire
• 1:20:50
  this weekend, even though they didn't.
• 1:20:51
  Win Team Wildfire. Yes, my daughter's team came up
• 1:20:55
  with their their team name. They have red jerseys, so they
• 1:20:58
  went with Wildfire. She's very cute.
• 1:21:02
  I think that's all we got. We'll give an update next week
• 1:21:04
  after our next game. We'll.
• 1:21:05
  Keep a little tally going. Little tally RTGRTG under score
• 1:21:10
  pod on Instagram threads, YouTube, RTG pod.com,
• 1:21:16
  raisingthegamepod@gmail.com and then raising the game on sub
• 1:21:22
  stack. Reach out to us.
• 1:21:24
  Yeah, till next week. Till next.
• 1:21:27
  Week. All right, bye, bye.