Latest / Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More / Episode 9 | PWHL is Back, WNBA CBA Crunch Time, She Believes Cup, NCAA Tourney Preview

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Episode 9 | PWHL is Back, WNBA CBA Crunch Time, She Believes Cup, NCAA Tourney Preview · Raising the Game: Covering WNBA, NWSL, PWHL & More

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  We should have also been celebrating both teams and we
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  ended up talking about this like sideshow thing and like we need
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  to talk about the sideshow now because it's been turned into
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  something that is worthy of talking about.
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  Hi, I'm Caitlin. Hi, I'm Alex.
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  And you're listening to Raising the Game, a women's sports
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  podcast covering prime time performers, the business behind
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  the leagues, and what the growth of women's sports means for the
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  next generation of women's athletes.
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  We did it trying that new intro on for size 0 only that was
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  second take only. He was going to say like the 8th
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  take, but yeah, that was take #2 I think I did OK.
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  Pretty good. I'm good.
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  How are we doing? I'm doing pretty good.
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  I'm actually really, I'm really excited for the show today, just
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  like last week, I think we're coming in with lots of amazing
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  stuff to talk about. And then we are now in March,
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  how we? Could do a show every other day
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  if we had the time. Did that happen?
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  And yes, March, we're going to talk, we'll start talking about
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  it this week, but we have so much to cover in March.
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  You've got international teams playing, you've got leagues
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  starting, leagues ending, like all the things are happening in
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  March. And lo and behold, it is women's
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  history. It is.
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  So what a great month for us to really be leaning in, having all
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  these opportunities to really celebrate women's achievements,
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  successes, the growth of the game, all that good stuff.
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  So it's buckle your seatbelts. Folks, Yeah, let's do it.
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  It'll be a lot. We want to get into a favorite
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  thing. Yeah, let's do a favorite thing.
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  Do you want me to go? I'll start.
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  I think my favorite thing this past week was I went down to my
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  parents house with the girls and I got to introduce them to
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  Unrivaled, which I'm not sure they watched because they didn't
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  know all the rules. So I think it was their first
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  time watching. So that was fun just to kind of
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  show them that and have them ask questions.
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  And I seemed like the expert because I watch it all the time.
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  That probably felt good. That was fun.
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  Yeah, I love that. I love that.
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  I think any opportunity we have to expose a new fan to something
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  that they maybe didn't know existed is pretty cool.
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  And we get to do that by virtue of researching all the things we
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  do here. And I think one thing they did
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  say is that they enjoy watching women's basketball more than
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  than men's, like, especially when it comes to like college.
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  So it's just like another Ave. For them to like kind of dig in
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  and in the offseason and get after it.
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  Yeah, that's a common refrain I've been hearing these days.
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  Maybe we'll talk about that at some point.
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  So my favorite thing, the US women's national team was back
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  in action over the weekend, but their game was not my favorite
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  thing. We'll actually talk.
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  We'll talk about it. What was my favorite thing is
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  Emma Hayes, the head coach of the national team in the wild.
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  She really makes a point. Any city that they go to, to
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  really go and like get into the cultural elements of that city.
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  She often does it with her son Harry, but there were videos
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  over the weekend of her getting her own customized cowboy hat.
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  They were in Nashville. She got to see kind of behind
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  the scenes at the Grand Old Opry and introduce a a musical artist
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  on the stage there, which is like a huge thing to be able to
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  do. And I just, I love her embrace
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  of different cultures and her willingness to go explore.
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  She's just such like a genuine comes across like such a genuine
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  curiosity for the people in the place that she's in.
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  And that actually really translates into how she shows up
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  as a coach. She is genuine curiosity and
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  care for her players and I think you see that and in how the team
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  shows up. Yeah, and then she gave all the
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  announcers and the pregame show their own hats, which was
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  amazing. And pregame broadcast, they were
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  all wearing cowboy hats, so it was very.
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  And then the best part was at the end of the game, some of the
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  reporters were still wearing them.
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  Yeah, during their interviews. I mean, Emma Hayes gives you
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  you. Got to wear it.
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  Authentic cowboy hat like I think you have to wear.
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  It I think you got to all right, let's dig into the top headlines
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  Flavour Flav to host celebration in Las Vegas in July for all
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  women's medal winners from 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
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  Nice that he's kind of waiting to see how the Paralympics kind
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  of find their way there and get done and get them over there
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  instead of just like saying it's just for the for the main.
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  Yeah, yeah, there's a really interesting storyline to follow
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  here too, just in how he recruited businesses to help
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  support this effort. And then also his call to action
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  to billion dollar businesses to not just send products to these
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  athletes, but like sponsor them, like be a be a legit like
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  advocate for these athletes, not just a performative 1.
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  So that is going to be cool. I think it'll be fun to see what
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  comes of that in July. Montreal, Victoire leapfrog
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  Boston and Minnesota to top to the top of the standings as PWHL
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  returns to play after the Winter Games.
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  They crush the frost. 4 zeros hard to watch.
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  Oof. Yeah.
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  In she believes cup opening games, US women's national team
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  notches A20 win over Argentina. Canada thrashes Colombia 4 to 0.
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  We'll talk a little bit about the US game and what's coming up
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  in that tournament a little later in that episode.
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  Unrivaled playoffs heat up, head to Brooklyn for semis as we are
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  recording this episode. Winning teams to play for
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  championship on Wednesday back in Miami.
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  So we actually just watched Phantom BC the half game Alex is
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  wearing. If you're watching us win in a
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  in very dramatic fashion over vinyl BC.
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  So the second game is probably started by now.
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  Breeze against mist. Kind of hoping for a breeze
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  versus phantom. I'm wrapping my page Becker's
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  T-shirt tonight. I got my breeze hat on if it
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  isn't clear who I'm cheering for.
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  Phantom versus Breeze is the game we all deserve.
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  That is the game we all deserve, yeah.
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  UCLA, Vanderbilt, South Carolina all won over the weekend,
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  including UConn wrapping up a perfect regular season #12 Duke
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  lost to Interstate rival #21 UNC.
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  Yeah, Duke, the ACC was interesting.
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  We'll talk a little bit about the tournament, but unranked
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  Notre Dame also beat like #12 or 10 #10 Louisville.
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  So there's, yeah, we'll get into that in a bit here.
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  But big wins for the big teams. In women's college hockey
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  postseason play, Badgers, Buckeyes advance in two games,
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  Gophers and Mavericks advance in three, setting the stage for the
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  WCHA final face off tournament weekend.
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  Yeah, I think we'll talk a little bit about that maybe
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  later here. Did you know?
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  At the LA 2028 Olympics, women's soccer is expanding from 12 to
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  16 teams, while the men's tournament is shrinking from 16
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  to 12 teams. Just a little fun factor.
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  A little fun factor next episode.
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  We'll talk about that at some point.
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  Oh, we will. Together and Horizon Sports and
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  Experiences announce 9 to 5A women's sports media venture.
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  Yeah. So this is really cool together.
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  And HSNE focused on creating, developing and commercializing
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  premium storytelling, unique intellectual properties,
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  signature live experiences and high value brand partnership.
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  So another collab they're they're talked about bringing in
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  content creators like the stud buds from the WNBA, so Courtney
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  Williams and Atisha Heideman, who kind of gained fame last
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  year with their pink hair and their, you know, their podcast
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  and whatnot, among many others. And I think this is another just
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  legitimizing of the business of women's sports and understanding
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  that like there's multiple angles where there's opportunity
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  to back. Yeah, absolutely.
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  Get your popcorn. ESPN Original Series NWSL The
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  Final Third premiered last week on ESPN Plus, and the ESPN app
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  follows the Washington Spirit, Kansas City Current and Angel
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  City FC as a battle for supremacy.
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  Yeah, and here in March it's going to be coming to Disney
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  Plus. So I would say watch it with
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  your kiddos like. The expansion Atlanta NWSL team
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  signed a record $20 million seven-year jersey sponsor
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  sponsorship with deal with Aflac.
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  Yeah. So the expansion Atlanta NWSL
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  team that starts competitive play in 2028.
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  So Affleck's already signing up $4 million a year to be the name
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  kind of front of the jersey sponsor for this unnamed Atlanta
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  team, which is really awesome to see.
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  That's awesome. The NWSL has launched a bid to
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  launch a second division in a major signal that the league is
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  continuing to grow. I think that speaks for itself.
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  All right. Those are just a few of our top
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  headlines. There are obviously more stories
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  that we'll get into here. We're going to cover a little
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  bit of the PWHL return. We're going to get into the
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  WNBACBA negotiations. We didn't get to talk about that
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  as much last week as we would have liked to, and there were
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  some major developments. Talk a little NCAA basketball
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  tournament, a little NCAA hockey tournament and get us into what
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  to watch. So let's start with.
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  PWHL Yeah. What's back?
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  I'm happy. It is back, y'all, and they are
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  riding the wave of Olympic success.
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  So setting the stage here, we talked a little bit about how
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  the teams performed. Montreal really just literally
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  leapfrogged right over Boston and Minnesota right as they came
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  back. They won 2 immediately off the
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  bat, really put a drubbing on Minnesota as we mentioned.
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  But the play on the ice great. I think what's more telling is
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  this story of like, how have they captured like the hearts
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  and minds of people who may not have been PWHL fans prior to the
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  Olympics but now are looking for where do I watch these women
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  play hockey? I mean, for if you're on
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  threads, like my whole feed was just like, it's crazy these
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  women play professional hockey where yeah, everyone's like the
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  PWHL and there's so many. I also have ones that are just
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  like, who do I cheer for? Who should who, which team
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  should I cheer for? There's a lot of people trying
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  to jockey for getting more fans, like, hey, come over to our
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  side. We're like, we're the best one.
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  So it's around this time of year that we tend to start to hear
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  about where they might expand to next and well, they might do 2.
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  There's also been chatter prior to the Olympics that they could
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  do 4 new teams. And now I'm thinking I'm going
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  to read some data here coming out of StubHub just based on
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  ticket searches and stuff. But I feel like the league has
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  to be looking at it going like if we're going to do 4IN a year,
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  we might as well do it this year.
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  Yeah, yeah. This would be the year.
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  So we'll see. But speaking on that Olympic
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  effect, this is data from StubHub on ticket sales,
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  purchases, things like that, right?
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  So there was a 50% increase above January baseline ticket
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  searches overnight after the women won the gold medal, after
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  the women's gold medal game and and just to be clear to USA and
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  Canada played in the gold medal game.
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  All 23 Canadian players play in the PWHL and there were 16 it.
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  Was like 39 total players in that game.
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  Yeah 39 total players but there were other PWHL players on other
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  countries teams too so that's cool to see.
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  Searches just for PWHL related events spiked 216% after the
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  Olympics wrapped. So immediately afterwards,
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  right, everything's done and dusted.
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  People are like, oh I want to go like figure out where the close
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  like you said, like where's the closest game to me basically.
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  And then US based PWHL purchases are up 42% year on year.
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  Yeah. That's good.
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  So they're seeing a surge. I mean, we could make the
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  argument that maybe that's just attributable to a momentum in
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  the league, not just the Olympics, but we we can't
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  discount the effect the Olympics has had in addition to that.
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  So there were I think there's been six games total played
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  since coming back from the Olympics in the league.
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  If you haven't seen yet the Seattle Torrent, which is an
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  expansion team, it's the team that Captain America Hillary
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  Knight plays on. She was not playing.
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  We'll talk about that in just a second, But they had a 17,000
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  plus crowd come out for their first game back, which set the
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  US attendance record. There were a couple other games
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  over the weekend where it was over 10,000 fans showing up and
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  then the Ottawa charge had a sell out.
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  They play in an arena that's got about 8600 for capacity and they
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  had 87135 or something like that.
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  So like everyone watches women's hockey and so it's cool to see.
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  It'll be interesting. Obviously this is the first
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  weekend since the Olympics. It'll be interesting to see if
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  that trend. That was that was kind of my
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  thought is what is that going to do the rest of the season?
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  Are we going to see, we'll probably see a little bit of a
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  drop off, but is it going to continue to stay higher than we
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  saw, you know in a in a normal year like last year?
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  Yeah, well, it'll be interesting.
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  So we talked before the Olympic break that the timing was tough
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  for the PWHL teams, but I actually.
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  So the season ends at the end of April essentially they have
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  about two months left. Yep, I actually could see
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  momentum staying with them because now people get, if you
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  get invested in a team and they're maybe going to win or be
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  in the play offs, top four teams of the 8 make the play offs.
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  It's tight right now. Like anybody's game, like
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  nobody's mathematically eliminated.
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  They have a cool rule about the draft.
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  It's called like the golden draft plan or something where
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  like you can't tank your season. So like people have to continue
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  to compete to get good draft picks.
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  So I don't know, I I think it could carry I've.
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  Been getting an e-mail every other day for three-game ticket
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  packages for the Frost like so I'm sure they're all pushing
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  that really hard and trying to get as many people to these last
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  two months of games as they can so.
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  Yeah, yeah. So that'll be really interesting
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  to watch. We'll definitely have our eyes
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  and ears on it. One other quick note, we did
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  learn that there were a a handful of players that were put
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  on, you know, injury list, long term injury or other.
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  So Canadian captain Marie Philip Poulan, who actually sustained a
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  pretty significant injury in the group stages in the Olympics,
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  she was out. Hilary Knight was put on an
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  LTIR. Turns out she played the entire
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  Olympics with a torrent MCL. Yeah.
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  So she's not likely to be back this season for the Torrent and
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  then here in Minnesota for the Frost.
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  Kendall Coyne Schofield, who was leading the league in points
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  heading into the Olympic break, was also placed on LTIR with an
• 15:47
  upper body injury that she sustained at the Olympics.
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  So that'll be a bummer. It's one of those things where
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  it's like if the Olympics wasn't here or some of our top players
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  would still be playing, but the Olympics were really fun and it
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  was a great yeah. Like, yeah, you wouldn't trade,
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  you wouldn't trade it. And neither, I doubt the
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  players, Yeah, right. They're they're looking at that.
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  They're happy to be coming back into a.
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  League yeah, exactly you're. Not having to wait four years to
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  watch women's professional hockey.
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  Yep. So professional hockey.
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  We're going to, yeah, we're going to talk about this.
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  So if you haven't seen or heard, there was a lot of swirl, I
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  think last week around the men's and women's US hockey teams as
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  it relates to they both won gold.
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  There was now a very infamous phone call to the men's team
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  from the president of the United States who made a joke kind of
• 16:45
  at the women's expense. And it was, it was like at a
• 16:51
  very heightened point when we recorded last week and we chose
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  not to address it at the time. And primarily the reason why we
• 17:00
  did that was because I think Alex and I have both been in
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  environments where maybe your judgement isn't as clear as you
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  want it to be and you don't necessarily show up the way you
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  want to, right? And in retrospect, you
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  acknowledge that. Yeah.
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  Apologize for what you did. Yes.
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  So we wanted to give time for that to happen.
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  Yeah. Because we thought that it
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  should happen. Yeah.
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  And it mostly didn't. There were maybe attempts.
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  Yeah, maybe, maybe. So I just, I want to say a
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  couple things. We went back and forth about
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  this a lot, and I and I realized that maybe this is like old news
• 17:51
  at this point, but I feel really strongly about this as a former
• 17:57
  female athlete who has been the butt of those kinds of jokes,
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  who has had to laugh along with the people who are making the
• 18:09
  joke for safety. Yeah, and as the mom of two
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  young girls and really wanting to see a world where someone
• 18:19
  speaks up in the moment, ideally, if not in the moment
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  afterwards, owns their mistake and apologizes, it's not hard to
• 18:33
  apologize. And the fact that it has seemed
• 18:38
  quite challenging for most of the men in that locker room to
• 18:41
  apologize is pretty disappointing.
• 18:45
  So we're, I have a couple things, couple additional things
• 18:49
  to say here. I, I do, I, I do want to make
• 18:52
  sure too, that we say like, I do not view this as political at
• 18:58
  all. I would be upset about this
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  regardless of who called the team.
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  And so I really, I really discourage the argument that
• 19:12
  like we're making this political.
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  To me, this is actually about treating people with respect.
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  Being decent. And being a decent human.
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  And we'll talk a little bit about that.
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  So I think that this is really important.
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  I'm going to share my thoughts and then Alex will share his.
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  But we need to stop normalizing bullying behavior.
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  I went to dinner with some friends last week and they were
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  all talking about different incidents with bullies with
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  their kids. And it's not just girls to boy
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  or boys to girls, it's boys to boys.
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  And when we laugh at things like what the president said on the
• 19:52
  phone, we make it OK for those kinds of comments to be said,
• 19:58
  and even if it's a joke. It has lasting effects.
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  I like I said, I have been in situations where boys are just
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  joking and you leave feeling demeaned, you leave feeling less
• 20:15
  than you leave feeling like degraded and we just we need to
• 20:22
  stop that where where it stands. The story too, to me was less
• 20:31
  about like what was actually said and the fact that we now
• 20:36
  are spending a ton of time including like national news
• 20:41
  media talking about the behavior of these men and not
• 20:48
  highlighting the successes of these amazing women.
• 20:52
  Once again, a women's team went in.
• 20:56
  They dominated that tournament. They had historic
• 21:00
  record-breaking performances. They won their third gold medal
• 21:05
  and we are talking about the men's team.
• 21:08
  And it makes me mad because this is a pattern.
• 21:14
  If you pay close enough attention, you will see that it
• 21:17
  is a pattern. So just really quickly, we
• 21:20
  should have also been celebrating both teams and we
• 21:24
  ended up talking about this like sideshow thing and like we need
• 21:28
  to talk about the sideshow now because it's been turned into
• 21:31
  something that is worthy of talking about.
• 21:34
  But let's talk about the success of this women's team really
• 21:37
  quick. Team USA women had a perfect
• 21:39
  record in the tournament. They were not beat.
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  They scored 36 goals. They allowed to.
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  They set the shutout record for both consecutive period shutout
• 21:48
  number of games, number of minutes like they were a force
• 21:52
  they. Were dominant.
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  Right, they competed in their 7th gold medal game out of
• 21:59
  eight. Women's hockey has been in the
• 22:01
  Olympics for 28 years, 28 years. They have won three gold medals
• 22:08
  in that time. The men have also won 3 gold
• 22:11
  medals. Men's hockey has been part of
• 22:14
  the Olympics for 102 years, so if we actually want to compare
• 22:21
  achievements, the women have actually done more in less time,
• 22:25
  with far fewer resources, far less support than the men's
• 22:31
  team. I could go on, but somebody who
• 22:36
  has become a role model and icon of women's hockey for sure to me
• 22:46
  and many, many others, especially over the course of
• 22:48
  this last tournament, but over many, many years.
• 22:50
  I actually, I didn't know her, but I went to college with her.
• 22:56
  Captain America. Hillary Knight said it best.
• 22:59
  And I am going to read the quote that she said when she was asked
• 23:02
  about this at her press conference when she returned to
• 23:07
  Seattle. So Hillary said the joke was
• 23:12
  distasteful and unfortunate. I think the way women are
• 23:15
  represented, it's a great teaching point to shine light on
• 23:17
  how women should be championed for their amazing feats.
• 23:20
  And now I have to sit in front of you and explain someone
• 23:24
  else's behavior. It's not my responsibility.
• 23:28
  But what is is shifting the focus and shifting the narrative
• 23:32
  to this amazing accomplishment that we all did together.
• 23:35
  The men's and women's team did it together, and that is super
• 23:38
  special. It's never been done in program
• 23:40
  history. These women are amazing, and
• 23:43
  whatever's going on should never outshine or minimize their work
• 23:47
  and our success on the world stage.
• 23:50
  This was the best American women's hockey team, the best
• 23:53
  American team we've ever put together.
• 23:57
  When the lights have been the brightest, drop them.
• 24:01
  Off. So I think, you know, there's,
• 24:08
  you know, there's a couple of, yeah, couple of reasons they're
• 24:13
  right around why this was really important to me to say
• 24:17
  something. I think we need to do better.
• 24:23
  The reaction online, frankly, to anybody who has spoken up and
• 24:28
  I'm, I'm expecting that this may come our way too, has frankly
• 24:34
  been gross as well. And it is systemic of a joke
• 24:39
  like the one that was told because now what you see is a
• 24:44
  woman speaks up and says that's not OK.
• 24:47
  And a bunch of men come into her comments or wherever and insult
• 24:52
  her looks. They talk about how no one would
• 24:56
  want to date her or otherwise. They talk about how she's fat
• 25:02
  like anything but substance, right?
• 25:05
  And this culture of misogyny, frankly, we need to do better.
• 25:12
  Yes, absolutely. And so that's why we are calling
• 25:15
  this out. Absolutely.
• 25:17
  What are your thoughts? There is not much I can say that
• 25:22
  you haven't already said. I think that I don't have the
• 25:29
  life experience of any woman, purely biology.
• 25:36
  So I cannot say. I mean, I think everyone at some
• 25:40
  point has been bullied and knows how that feels.
• 25:43
  I cannot say that I've been bullied because of the gender
• 25:47
  that I am. So I don't have, I really let
• 25:49
  you lead on this because I don't have that experience.
• 25:51
  I don't get to know that experience.
• 25:56
  I think the, I know that the men in that locker room failed, at
• 26:05
  least from what we saw, the fact that there was no effort around
• 26:13
  any sort of apology or any sort of making it right.
• 26:19
  And every time that they did say something, it was completely
• 26:23
  avoidant or whatever, just like that wasn't right.
• 26:29
  And it just, it kind of blew my mind a little bit of, of how
• 26:33
  they how they treated it after the fact, because like you said,
• 26:36
  you can always apologize. It's always there.
• 26:42
  I think the last thing I'll say on this is that the biggest
• 26:47
  surprise and that I don't know if anybody talked about is from
• 26:52
  the leadership of USA Hockey. Yeah.
• 26:55
  That's like they have. Very true. 0 PR people there, or
• 27:02
  even the people who are in charge didn't look at this
• 27:04
  situation and say we've got to do something here to make this
• 27:09
  right, and they just kind of let it go.
• 27:13
  Yeah, it feels like there was, it was like the initial couple
• 27:18
  of incidents, right. But then it like it kind of
• 27:24
  compounded, like there was all the videos from the strip club,
• 27:28
  like day after and all of this kind of stuff.
• 27:32
  You can celebrate however you want.
• 27:34
  I'm just going to go out and say that you insult female athletes
• 27:38
  and then you go do that. It doesn't like.
• 27:41
  The optics aren't right. And everybody has a camera these
• 27:46
  days. So that's also a lesson to take
• 27:49
  away here, that really nothing that you do doesn't get filmed
• 27:55
  and then shared everywhere. Yeah.
• 27:57
  So you got to be. And I also, I do want to say
• 28:01
  when I say USA Hockey leadership, I don't mean the
• 28:03
  women's team, coaches and staff, strictly whoever is the head of
• 28:09
  USA Hockey and the men's team. Like was there not a meeting at
• 28:14
  all after this happened? So I just want to make that very
• 28:16
  clear. Well, thank you.
• 28:19
  I think that's important. So that's our take on that.
• 28:25
  We did see the clip from the SNL skit this past weekend and it
• 28:29
  was. It was funny.
• 28:31
  Funny. Still disappointing that the
• 28:37
  Hughes brothers weren't the ones to apologize.
• 28:43
  Just stood there and took the joke, all right?
• 28:47
  All right. Moving on.
• 28:48
  Move on here to the She Believes cup.
• 28:51
  Moving on to one of my favorite teams in the entire land.
• 28:57
  US Women's National team opened their She Believes Cup match
• 29:01
  play yesterday at the time of taping against Argentina #30
• 29:07
  team in the world. US currently ranked #2 in the
• 29:10
  world behind Spain. We have a couple just like
• 29:14
  notable things as we're getting started here and we'll talk
• 29:17
  through the results of the game, some of the good, some of the
• 29:21
  bad, some of what we will be watching for next week we plan
• 29:25
  to do. I plan to do a little bit more
• 29:27
  of a robust talk through of how they looked the whole
• 29:31
  tournament, decisions Hayes made and her staff made, things like
• 29:35
  that. But we have some storylines
• 29:37
  coming out of yesterday. So notable.
• 29:40
  She Believes Cup is also known as the Sonnet Cup.
• 29:43
  The Sonnet Believes Cup because Emily Sonnet, who did not
• 29:46
  feature in yesterday's game. She is a center back for the
• 29:52
  national team. She has played in every single
• 29:55
  she believes cup in existence. That's eleven years in a row.
• 30:00
  She's also amazing. So I'm I'm I'm assuming she's
• 30:03
  going to be in the starting line up against Canada on Wednesday
• 30:07
  when we were day of the release of this podcast.
• 30:10
  So go watch her. She's one of my favs.
• 30:13
  We'll also add youth really headlines Hayes first starting
• 30:17
  line up here at she believes. So I think initially I was a
• 30:21
  little like, what is this starting line up?
• 30:23
  And then I realized they're they were really laying their cards
• 30:29
  to be ready for the number 10 Canada on Wednesday.
• 30:32
  So they were going to give a little bit of the youth some
• 30:34
  time against the lowest ranked team in the tournament and
• 30:40
  really under going into it. The strategy that the game
• 30:43
  against Canada is likely going to be the decisive game on who
• 30:45
  wins the tournament and then you can kind of see where the cards
• 30:48
  fall for Columbia on Saturday. Right.
• 30:50
  That was I think that was my question coming into this
• 30:52
  section was where we looking at and I think you're going to get
• 30:55
  it to a stat here about Lindsay Heaps.
• 30:57
  Where you going to put one or two veterans out there to kind
• 31:00
  of manage the youth and say this is a lower stakes game.
• 31:04
  Let's see if we can get out of this with a win or just a good
• 31:08
  performance and just kind of. Yeah.
• 31:13
  So they chose no veterans to put around Lindsay Heaps.
• 31:16
  I think the total caps. So caps in, in professional
• 31:20
  soccer is the number of times you play, you get minutes.
• 31:23
  The total number of Caps in the roster starting roster on Sunday
• 31:27
  was 200 and 72172 of those caps were Lindsay Heaps by herself,
• 31:33
  which left 100 Caps for 10 other players.
• 31:37
  So 10 of each, yeah. Right.
• 31:39
  And you have players who have been in camps, Jaden Shaw,
• 31:42
  Olivia Moultrie, Tara Rudd, like there were players who have been
• 31:48
  there before, but 10 caps is very different than 30 caps is
• 31:53
  very different than 50. So they started in a 442 and
• 31:59
  that was interesting. Typically we see the US come out
• 32:02
  in a 433. That's been kind of their bread
• 32:04
  and butter for the longest time. Now there's different styles you
• 32:07
  can play within a formation. I'm not going to nerd out on
• 32:10
  that today. But again, I think we we saw
• 32:15
  Emma continuing to test going into this game.
• 32:18
  There was a lot of talk about how like, oh, there's no
• 32:20
  uncapped players for the first time.
• 32:22
  And you know, however long since the last she believes cup.
• 32:25
  And now it's like, well, she's still testing, right?
• 32:30
  And she should be. We're we are the furthest away
• 32:32
  we're going to be from the World Cup.
• 32:34
  They've got qualifying at the end of the year.
• 32:36
  She is really you can see her masterminding this,
• 32:40
  masterminding this whole thing. OK, we talked about this in top
• 32:44
  headlines. They won two to zero.
• 32:48
  It was fairly convincing. Argentina maybe had two
• 32:51
  significant chances. We actually scored four goals.
• 32:55
  Two were called back for what I would say are both very
• 32:59
  questionable. Offsides calls.
• 33:01
  I think that first one, the announcer was like, that's not.
• 33:03
  Offsides. They were both not offsides.
• 33:07
  You go roll the tape. But like they were not offsides.
• 33:10
  Unfortunately, the officiating was part of the storyline of
• 33:14
  this game. And I will always say that if
• 33:16
  you want to be a good official, you do not want anybody to talk
• 33:19
  about you, right? You want to control the game but
• 33:23
  not make yourself the headline. The center ref did not control
• 33:27
  the game. There was a lot of physical
• 33:29
  chippy play. There was a hair pull at one
• 33:31
  point on Jaden Shaw. We saw Trinity Rodman get kneed
• 33:36
  in the back at the end of the game.
• 33:38
  And things like that don't happen when the referee is
• 33:42
  willing to dole out penalty, right?
• 33:45
  So cards and soccer for those, those actions.
• 33:48
  And there were multiple times where she kind of like, let it
• 33:52
  go, let it go, let it go. And then she'd call a foul on
• 33:55
  something that was like way less harsh.
• 33:57
  Weird makeup foul that. Yeah, so it was confusing.
• 34:01
  As a player, that's really frustrating because it's hard
• 34:03
  for you to understand like now, how can I play the game within
• 34:06
  the bounds that the referee is creating?
• 34:08
  You kind of feel like you can get away with anything and then
• 34:10
  suddenly you do small and you can't.
• 34:11
  Yeah, exactly. Heaps, Lindsay Heaps and Jaden
• 34:17
  Shaw both scored. Honestly, I am not the biggest
• 34:22
  fan of Lindsay Heaps style of play.
• 34:25
  I never have been. I thought this was one of her
• 34:28
  better games. I thought she showed up really,
• 34:30
  really well. I thought she came was in the
• 34:34
  spaces she needed to be into and and then when it came to attack
• 34:38
  she scored the first goal, she assisted on the second goal.
• 34:41
  I do love her leadership on the pitch and off the pitch.
• 34:44
  I think she's an incredible leader.
• 34:45
  It's just like her style of play has never really clicked for me,
• 34:50
  and I really liked how she looked in this game.
• 34:52
  That's awesome. So I also will say I could
• 34:58
  understand the strategy they were trying to employ.
• 35:03
  Argentina sort of creates a gap between their back line and
• 35:06
  their midfield line, and they were trying to play into that
• 35:09
  gap and then play out of it. They didn't execute it well and
• 35:13
  I think that was part of the youth.
• 35:15
  They didn't have a true 6, which is like a holding center
• 35:19
  midfielder in soccer jargon and I think that really hurt them.
• 35:24
  Heaps tends to attack more. Lily Johannes is more of a box
• 35:27
  to box center midfielder. So anyways, they they struggled
• 35:32
  to really control possession through that midfield and then
• 35:34
  break from there. I feel like we saw that in the
• 35:37
  first like 15 to 20 minutes or so, it was really loose and just
• 35:42
  not connecting on passes. And then it feels like we kind
• 35:46
  of saw them start to slowly tighten up as the game went on.
• 35:49
  Yeah, I do think it got better. Again, that was one of our
• 35:52
  questions going into this week was like how long was it going
• 35:54
  to take them to settle? This game proved to take a
• 35:57
  little bit of time. I would also say that my two
• 36:00
  other big questions going to this tournament are still very
• 36:03
  open, which is who's going to play left back.
• 36:06
  For this team. They had Maddie Dahleen, who in
• 36:08
  last camp was listed as a forward starting at left back.
• 36:12
  She did fine. That whole back line what had
• 36:14
  never played together before. It was I am a former goalkeeper,
• 36:19
  y'all and I would have been freaking out like they were not
• 36:24
  the most organized. Claudia Dickey was the the
• 36:27
  goalkeeper who started the game, played the whole game.
• 36:30
  She was also kind of newer, like not not too many caps and so
• 36:35
  just a lack of experience in that back line.
• 36:37
  We will see that change against Canada.
• 36:39
  So they I assume that we're going to see Germa and Sonnet
• 36:42
  paired up in that center back pairing.
• 36:43
  That is a ton of experience. You're going to see Emily Fox
• 36:47
  who came in late to the game. I don't think they were actually
• 36:50
  planning to play her. Lily Reel came in for left back
• 36:54
  and she got clocked on a tackle. So, Speaking of some chippy and
• 37:00
  really physical play from Argentina.
• 37:02
  I was kind of wondering if the obviously we have the 10 caps
• 37:07
  average of the youth on the team, if some of that early on
• 37:12
  or maybe even some of the quote UN quote offsides was kind of
• 37:15
  more of a chemistry factor of just not having that, that, you
• 37:20
  know, pass to pass chemistry that the the veterans might have
• 37:23
  out there. Yeah, I think so.
• 37:25
  There's a little bit of like ageist experience in reading the
• 37:28
  game generally, and then there's the experience of the women who
• 37:31
  have played together. Like this was a very like.
• 37:33
  Where can I make this pass? Is she fast enough to get this?
• 37:36
  Like that type of thing. So what we're watching for
• 37:41
  coming out of this, we talked a little bit about it already, but
• 37:45
  Trinity Rodman got hurt right at the end of the game, I think
• 37:49
  just as stoppage time was about to start and she was screaming
• 37:54
  like it. Yeah, I was very, very worried
• 37:57
  for a couple minutes and then she was able to get up and walk
• 38:00
  and she was moving a little bit. She had a really challenging
• 38:06
  season last year, primarily due to lower back issues.
• 38:11
  She actually, I heard that she talks about in that NWSL ESPN
• 38:17
  series about how it's a lot of that is just like managing load.
• 38:21
  So just like the amount of training, the amount of games
• 38:23
  that she's doing affecting her, her back.
• 38:28
  And, and so seeing that after she'd like signed this big
• 38:31
  contract and came back in and captained the team and like
• 38:34
  finally kind of seemed like she was on the upswing again, it was
• 38:38
  hard to watch. So we'll be watching for
• 38:40
  headlines around like what that is.
• 38:42
  If she thinks she's OK, does she even play against Canada?
• 38:45
  I feel like they don't. They would need her, but.
• 38:47
  I don't think she plays I with NWSL season starting, I'm sure
• 38:52
  that her her management has already called and said like.
• 38:55
  Yeah, probably not. You're not playing her, so
• 38:59
  that's unfortunate. You know, she's just such an
• 39:02
  icon out there, too big draw for fans to come and watch and
• 39:08
  whatnot. But that does open the door as
• 39:11
  we talk about like the number 9 now, Trent is not a #9 but she's
• 39:14
  a scoring threat for Jamice Joseph, who did score or a
• 39:19
  start. Excuse me?
• 39:20
  She scored at a goal. One of the goals that was called
• 39:23
  back was scored by her against Argentina.
• 39:25
  And so I'm still watching for that.
• 39:27
  I don't really think we've seen that that nine come through and
• 39:31
  it was pretty apparent in that game that we didn't really have
• 39:35
  a consistent scoring threat up top.
• 39:39
  So we got USA versus Canada. The age-old rivalry.
• 39:45
  Classic match up here. Coming up here on Wednesday,
• 39:49
  release day for this podcast in Columbus, OH.
• 39:53
  This time I believe that kicks off at 5:45 Central.
• 39:58
  Time. Central Time, right?
• 40:00
  I think it's those are usually TNT, Tru TV somewhere in that
• 40:04
  region. HBO Max, Peacock, Universo if
• 40:08
  you want your Spanish. Some of them are on Telemundo as
• 40:10
  well. Yes, nice in Canada.
• 40:15
  Canada looked great against Colombia.
• 40:17
  They came out strong. They had a disappointing year
• 40:19
  last year and I think they brought a new leadership.
• 40:22
  They've got Casey Stoney, who's former English national team
• 40:25
  player, former San Diego Wave head coach at the helm for that
• 40:29
  group. They've got a lot of experience.
• 40:31
  So I think that's going to prove to be a pretty difficult test.
• 40:35
  I hope we show up better than we did against Argentina.
• 40:38
  My question for here, and it's maybe becoming a theme with our
• 40:42
  US women's national team segments, but can we get a
• 40:44
  podcast prediction of the score of that Canada game?
• 40:53
  She's going deep into thought here.
• 40:56
  She's she's got a lot. Look, I I think it goes to pens,
• 41:07
  so and she believes if it's tied at the end of regulation, it
• 41:11
  goes immediately to penalties. And I just don't see either team
• 41:18
  really having the scoring threat.
• 41:23
  Christine Sinclair doesn't play for Canada anymore.
• 41:26
  She's the top goal scorer of all time of all people.
• 41:32
  You got Jordan Hytema over there.
• 41:33
  But like, I just, I don't necessarily see it being high
• 41:37
  scoring. I think maybe a 11. 0011.
• 41:40
  I would be really happy to be proven wrong 'cause I hate
• 41:43
  watching penalty shootouts as a former goalkeeper, but I I could
• 41:48
  see this one going to pens. Yeah.
• 41:50
  All right, Well, hold on. It goes to pens.
• 41:53
  Who who wins it? You don't get off that easy.
• 41:57
  Called me out. Look y'all, this pains me to say
• 42:05
  this, but Canada has one of the best goaltender goalkeepers in
• 42:09
  the world and Caitlyn Sharon and she's experienced.
• 42:11
  She's been back there. We've got we don't know who our
• 42:16
  number one is right now. If we still had a listen there,
• 42:19
  I would say us in a heartbeat. Woman can stop.
• 42:21
  She's a brick. Wall and she scores so that's my
• 42:25
  take on that. Plus, you also have, albeit no
• 42:29
  uncapped players, but a lot of youth on the USA side and like,
• 42:33
  penalty shootouts are a lot of pressure.
• 42:35
  I think you have more veteran leadership on that Canadian
• 42:37
  side. I hope I'm wrong.
• 42:39
  Yeah, I hope I'm wrong. I hope you are too.
• 42:41
  I really hope all right. It'll be hard to celebrate if
• 42:46
  you are right. You can still rub it in my face.
• 42:52
  I doubted my team. I'm just trying to be realistic.
• 42:56
  All right. We're going to move on here.
• 42:57
  I think we got some more WNBACBA updates and there is potentially
• 43:03
  a future state where we are no longer talking about the CBA, at
• 43:06
  least for a few years. Oh my gosh, I think we actually
• 43:09
  might be close. This might be our 8th of 10th
• 43:12
  episode where we. Discussed this.
• 43:14
  One of the big things, right is that the deadline that the
• 43:18
  league put forth is March 10th, yes, which is next Tuesday.
• 43:22
  Right, the day we'll be editing this the next episode.
• 43:25
  And so ideally. They figured out this.
• 43:27
  Week it actually is done by the time we we maybe are celebrating
• 43:33
  and agreed upon CBA in our next episode.
• 43:36
  And frankly, I think regardless of how this goes it, it will end
• 43:41
  up being a win for the players. But let's talk a little, let's
• 43:46
  back up a little bit and and get into it.
• 43:48
  So how we got here. So the WNBA Players Association,
• 43:55
  we also refer to it as the players association and the
• 43:58
  union and the league. So this is going to be WNBA
• 44:03
  leadership, the commissioner Kathy Engelbert and then team
• 44:07
  ownership across the league, right?
• 44:10
  They have been negotiating on a new CBA for the better part of
• 44:14
  17 months. I know the call shoot says 16,
• 44:16
  but I I looked it up today at 17 months.
• 44:21
  The last week there were five major things that happened.
• 44:27
  There were probably more, but there were five major things
• 44:29
  that happened. So as we stepped in to record
• 44:32
  last week and we were able to share this with our listeners,
• 44:36
  the league set that deadline of March 10th and this is so that
• 44:39
  they can get all of their pre season activity done, which
• 44:42
  we're actually going to talk about what that timeline would
• 44:44
  look like at the end of this segment.
• 44:48
  They also announced that they actually unlocked revenue
• 44:54
  sharing for the first time in the 2025 season.
• 44:57
  And what that meant is that $8 million, after all the splits
• 45:01
  were accounted for, was to be distributed amongst the 13
• 45:06
  teams. So that is huge.
• 45:11
  If you go back and listen to our deep dive on the the CBA, you
• 45:15
  will learn that unlocking revenue sharing is no small feat
• 45:19
  because there are very specific benchmark thresholds that have
• 45:22
  to be hit for multiple years. And then there's a divvying up
• 45:27
  of how those percentages get sliced amongst the league
• 45:31
  ownership, the NBA and some private investment that holds a
• 45:36
  16% stake in the league. Half of me thinks that with the
• 45:41
  momentum they've had, maybe they actually did.
• 45:43
  But half of me is like, this is a negotiating tactic.
• 45:45
  Like, look, you did. You unlocked it finally.
• 45:49
  You could do this again next year.
• 45:50
  That is interesting, I hadn't thought about that, but I could
• 45:53
  see that. Although at the same time, I'm
• 45:56
  like, I don't think so. If you were anywhere near the
• 45:59
  WNBA last year, you know that it was on fire.
• 46:02
  It was huge. Like sell out crowds moving to
• 46:05
  bigger arenas for previously scheduled games.
• 46:08
  The players also unlocked $9.25 million in earnings, basically
• 46:17
  from like jersey sale sales and merchandise sales going back to
• 46:20
  the 2020 season. Which I'm like, how have you not
• 46:24
  been paying that out? Like how does that work?
• 46:27
  We'll be talking about those books every once in a while.
• 46:29
  We we talk about those books in a few minutes here and it so
• 46:33
  what's crazy though about all of that, the revenue sharing is the
• 46:37
  league didn't announce that they told the union and the union
• 46:42
  shared it with the players like you want to talk about like just
• 46:46
  weird behavior would. It be a win for you to announce
• 46:48
  that yourself. They're so weird.
• 46:52
  It's so weird. OK, so that happened then.
• 46:58
  So the league met with the players union on Monday and
• 47:01
  that's when they communicated all this information.
• 47:04
  Players union shared out the revenue sharing thing.
• 47:07
  Then on Tuesday, the players, all the players were invited to
• 47:12
  a Zoom call with the players association executive
• 47:16
  leadership, right? So in these negotiations, the
• 47:20
  players association has an executive leadership board,
• 47:23
  seven players that are voted on by the players.
• 47:26
  And then there are player representatives from each team
• 47:29
  as well. They occasionally will have
• 47:32
  meetings where they pull the whole league together, like back
• 47:34
  in December when they authorized the strike to happen, right?
• 47:38
  And what's interesting is the players association presented to
• 47:42
  that, you know, the rest of the players on this Zoom call on
• 47:45
  Tuesday last week, what the current league offer is.
• 47:50
  And it created what is what was listed in articles and things
• 47:55
  like as like heated debate, passionate discussion, right?
• 47:58
  Things like that. Disagreement even as a word
• 48:01
  used. And coming out of it, what I
• 48:05
  could glean was I think some players are in the position of
• 48:09
  being like, whoa, like we're actually getting a lot here.
• 48:13
  Like if you recall some of the math, we're essentially 5X ING a
• 48:17
  lot of these different, you know, salary caps, minimums,
• 48:20
  maximums, averages, things like that, right?
• 48:24
  And there's been some concessions on some of the other
• 48:27
  elements. The expenses we've talked about
• 48:29
  before. It seems like the league's
• 48:30
  willing to move on expense but not revenue sharing.
• 48:34
  And so I think there was a cohort of players that was like,
• 48:37
  hold on, time out. We don't know if we want to
• 48:40
  strike. Anymore, Yeah, I was wondering
• 48:41
  if that strike is still legit for new terms.
• 48:45
  So I would I would hope that the Players Association leadership
• 48:51
  would take a revote. On that at this point.
• 48:53
  Because it's evolved so much, right?
• 48:55
  If you recall, when they did the the authorized vote to strike
• 48:59
  last time, the league hadn't responded in like 4 weeks at
• 49:02
  that point. It took them six weeks to
• 49:04
  respond to the Players Association's last, last offer.
• 49:10
  And so I think the question mark that came up in that was are we
• 49:17
  still good with a strike? The next day, agents of top
• 49:23
  players reached out to the Players Association and said,
• 49:26
  hey, you need to clue us in more on what's going on here because
• 49:31
  we're now on this like crunch time deadline.
• 49:34
  I'm sure some of them are like, I don't get paid if my girl
• 49:36
  don't get paid. And so we got to figure this
• 49:39
  out. And so we need you to bring us
• 49:41
  in. We also are going to help
• 49:43
  facilitate this survey you want to send to the players of the
• 49:47
  current agreement. So I think what happened last
• 49:50
  week, I don't know this for sure, but that the current
• 49:52
  agreement from the the league was sent out to players to then
• 49:56
  review with their agents and create a survey saying, do we
• 50:00
  like this? Do we not like this?
• 50:01
  How are we feeling about it? Which is how democracy should
• 50:05
  work, right? Like they should be doing that.
• 50:07
  And I think on the table, one of the questions in that survey was
• 50:10
  like, do you still feel strongly about striking if we just if we
• 50:14
  don't meet terms? And my guess is like, I was
• 50:21
  thinking about this, right? A lot of these women are playing
• 50:26
  in other leagues right now, right?
• 50:28
  You've got Unrivaled. We've talked about that a lot.
• 50:30
  We had the Athletes Unlimited League.
• 50:32
  We've got players playing overseas and there are
• 50:36
  definitely some players who also are more marketable than others
• 50:40
  right there. They've got sponsorship deals,
• 50:42
  whatever. A strike doesn't hurt them, but
• 50:47
  you have a whole cohort role players of players who just
• 50:52
  aren't necessarily like making a ton of bank with their, you
• 50:58
  know, name, image, and likeness type.
• 50:59
  Stuff. This is their job.
• 51:02
  This is their job. And then the other thing that I,
• 51:05
  I read a little bit about from some of the players was like,
• 51:08
  they've got families. They want to know where they're
• 51:10
  playing, where their job's happening for the next couple
• 51:14
  for the next season at least, right?
• 51:16
  And so they want to, they want to settle.
• 51:17
  Yeah, I mean, if you're down, if you're a top player, you can't
• 51:20
  hold out, hopefully make an extra 100, a 150,000, when the
• 51:26
  person who's a role player can make an extra 40 to 60,000 and
• 51:29
  be really happy, which. Is game changing?
• 51:31
  For them, yeah. Yeah.
• 51:33
  So the final big headline is the just to catch everybody up, the
• 51:39
  latest Players Association counter reduce revenue sharing
• 51:44
  to 25% of gross revenue shared. This is down from 30%, which was
• 51:50
  where we had started and but it's still 10 percentage points
• 51:55
  off of what the league's offer is, right?
• 51:58
  And I saw a quote today from Kelsey Plum, who we just watched
• 52:03
  like. Yeah, that last shot.
• 52:05
  Going crazy in the in the unrivaled game, man, you guys
• 52:09
  should check her out. She's such a good baller, but
• 52:12
  she's the executive vice president.
• 52:14
  I think 1st vice president or something of of the players
• 52:17
  association. And she had a quote out there
• 52:19
  that was like a strike would be the worst thing for everybody
• 52:22
  involved here. And she's like, I am all about
• 52:25
  like fighting, continuing to negotiate, continuing to fight,
• 52:29
  continuing to push the envelope. But she's like, I'm more of a,
• 52:33
  what's the gain versus what's the gap kind of girl?
• 52:36
  And like, what have we gained in this?
• 52:39
  And so if the first executive vice president or whatever her
• 52:44
  title is association is saying that, there's a part of me
• 52:48
  that's like. They might be.
• 52:50
  Really close. Yeah.
• 52:51
  I think that's an interesting way to look at it.
• 52:54
  I think we talked about Lab many episodes ago about you could
• 52:58
  also do something where maybe it's not there yet, but let's
• 53:01
  set a shorter duration on the CBA and see where we're at in
• 53:05
  two or three years like. Yeah, like we.
• 53:07
  Re evaluate. Growth and things like that,
• 53:09
  'cause we were talking about how the league may not feel
• 53:11
  confident that the growth numbers are sustainable, that
• 53:14
  they're just kind of a Halo effect from Caitlin Clark.
• 53:17
  And it would be good for either way.
• 53:18
  If they don't, then the WNBA gets to pull it back a little
• 53:21
  bit. And if it does, then the players
• 53:23
  can say we gotta, we gotta up again like.
• 53:25
  Yeah. And then like easy button too,
• 53:27
  if everything's kind of like working out great and they the
• 53:29
  revenue sharing. The other thing too is that what
• 53:32
  I've learned is that in this new model with the revenue sharing,
• 53:35
  regardless of what percentage split you're getting, it's no
• 53:39
  longer as complex to unlock. So my, my guess is that
• 53:44
  regardless of which direction they end up going, there's,
• 53:48
  there's going to be that unlock as long as the growth continues,
• 53:52
  right? So that's good.
• 53:55
  I still do think the league is super shady.
• 53:57
  And I still think that if you really wanted to make your
• 54:01
  point, you just open your books. The players have said, I've seen
• 54:06
  this in podcast interviews. They're like, open them.
• 54:09
  If we are proven completely wrong in our perspective on
• 54:13
  these numbers, we will own it. We will own it, But you haven't
• 54:17
  shared with us in good faith. So like, how are we supposed to
• 54:21
  come to the table with the quote UN quote realistic deal if you
• 54:26
  aren't giving us all the information?
• 54:29
  So anyways, I still think that's shady.
• 54:32
  I want to call him out. We're going to wrap this section
• 54:34
  up just by talking about what this timeline.
• 54:37
  This timeline is crazy. So if they meet that they they
• 54:41
  backed into this March 10th date because the belief is if they
• 54:46
  can get a verbal agreement by March 10th, they can have a
• 54:49
  signed agreement by March 31, right?
• 54:52
  I think there's 31 days in March, right?
• 54:54
  Yeah, that's right. I think that's right.
• 54:56
  So then you can hold the expansion drafts for Portland
• 55:00
  and Toronto between April 1st and April 6th.
• 55:03
  Remember, you have two teams that you still have to get
• 55:06
  players for. Free agent qualifying offers,
• 55:10
  including franchise tagging can be sent out the 7th and the 8th.
• 55:13
  So after that draft happens, free agency negotiations can
• 55:17
  then happen April 9th through the 12th, signing period from
• 55:20
  the 12th to the 18th, college draft on the 13th.
• 55:23
  So in that window also part of the signing period and then
• 55:27
  training camp opens on the 19th. All I know is I am glad I am not
• 55:32
  involved in this because that is a lot of work.
• 55:34
  Like, Can you imagine an urgent? Yeah, it's insane, but it's
• 55:37
  also, I'm looking at this like so podcast every other night in
• 55:41
  April. We're just going to have special
• 55:44
  episodes on WNBA signings. This live breaking of us.
• 55:49
  Teams will grade them like who'd you get?
• 55:53
  Yeah, it's it's been a trip. But we are very hopeful that by
• 55:56
  the time, but potentially by the time we record next week, that
• 56:02
  we actually know what's going to happen with the season.
• 56:05
  So that is exciting. I hope there's a season.
• 56:09
  Yeah, I. Really do the Lynx last year, it
• 56:13
  was so fun. So, and I will say Unrivaled has
• 56:17
  really exposed me to a lot of other players that.
• 56:19
  You want to watch now? So let's talk a little bit about
• 56:22
  where we're at with Unrivaled. Play offs, let's do it.
• 56:28
  Let's see, quarterfinals were over the weekend.
• 56:31
  We saw some really good games. I think we saw two upsets.
• 56:36
  Both of the lower seeds beat the high seeds, so the vinyl beat
• 56:41
  the three seed laces and the breeze dominated.
• 56:47
  Yeah, they did they. Dominated defending.
• 56:49
  Pagebackers dominated. Pagebackers had a night.
• 56:54
  I hope she's having a night right now.
• 56:56
  And so it's going to be fun. Obviously they've already kicked
• 57:00
  off the the play here tonight in Brooklyn.
• 57:03
  So they took the semis to Brooklyn.
• 57:05
  I think another testing ground for the for unrivaled in
• 57:09
  different markets, right. I heard before we started
• 57:13
  recording that they had a near sell out crowd of 18,261 at the
• 57:19
  game and it was rocking. So a little bit less than what
• 57:23
  they had in Philly. I think Philly was a little over
• 57:25
  21,000, but it was a higher capacity arena, Buckleys, Holtz
• 57:28
  about 18,000. So that is fun to see.
• 57:32
  Barclays in Brooklyn, also the home of the New York Liberty.
• 57:35
  So I think Brianna Stewart, one of the Co founders of Unrivaled,
• 57:39
  she kind of got to kick off the events tonight.
• 57:43
  They had Sabrina Anescu, who's a star guard for the Liberty.
• 57:47
  On the call. On the call.
• 57:48
  No, she was on the call. Tonight.
• 57:51
  So we will be watching the final.
• 57:57
  Wednesday night. Wednesday night, yes, they will
• 58:00
  be back in Miami. We'll find out afterward.
• 58:04
  We get. Off the mic here, who was in it?
• 58:07
  I I think the one thing I wanted to say about this whole season
• 58:10
  is like it was very interesting where the teams all fell and
• 58:14
  that we had this. I don't know if it was like we
• 58:17
  have kind of true parody in that league or it was just kind of
• 58:21
  how things fell perfectly that we didn't know the last seed
• 58:24
  until like essentially the final day of the regular season, which
• 58:27
  is wild. Yeah, and, and anyone could win
• 58:29
  on any night. It was kind of, it was
• 58:31
  surprising. Like you, you tend to think in
• 58:35
  leagues, even smaller leagues, that there's like one or two
• 58:38
  teams that are completely dominant.
• 58:40
  And the Phantom even weren't that dominant until halfway
• 58:44
  through the season. They were struggling at the
• 58:45
  beginning and they kind of found their groove.
• 58:49
  So yeah, I mean, I think it's part of it's the parody.
• 58:51
  We were talking about this too. It's like any given night you're
• 58:56
  literally watching Olympians, like 4 or 5 or 6 Olympians on
• 59:01
  the court between the two teams. And so tell me where else you
• 59:06
  can do that. So we are unrivaled fans for
• 59:12
  life now. I think next year we're going to
• 59:14
  have to try to figure out a trip down to.
• 59:16
  Miami 100%. Watch Watch these ladies fall
• 59:19
  out live. Stick.
• 59:22
  In a ball. NCAA basketball tourney is
• 59:25
  beginning soon. We have conference conference
• 59:30
  finals coming up this next weekend or this weekend
• 59:32
  actually. Yes, yeah.
• 59:33
  I think the official national tournament will start like next
• 59:38
  Wednesday if there's some play in games, something like that.
• 59:41
  But conference tourneys are kind of where March Madness starts,
• 59:47
  and we have a few where we're going to be.
• 59:51
  We're just going to have. It on the weekend?
• 59:52
  Yeah, it's going to be all weekend here.
• 59:55
  Which ones do you think we should be watching?
• 59:58
  I mean, I think it's the Big 10 and and the SEC are the big ones
• 1:00:00
  here. I like how the Big East puts
• 1:00:04
  their by the championship on Monday night.
• 1:00:07
  Like there's some big deal with their one ranked team which we
• 1:00:12
  all know is going to win anyways.
• 1:00:13
  I know I was, I wrote in our notes.
• 1:00:16
  Excuse me, I wrote in our notes. I was like, you don't even need
• 1:00:19
  to watch the Big East. That Yukon will win, that they
• 1:00:22
  they're undefeated. Yeah, they're beating teams
• 1:00:24
  regularly by 30 points. It's, it's like not even funny.
• 1:00:28
  We will actually talk about like who do we think could, could
• 1:00:31
  challenge them here in a second? What one thing that I think will
• 1:00:35
  be interesting. So if you go watch the SEC,
• 1:00:38
  they've got 9 top 25 teams right now.
• 1:00:41
  That is going to be a bloodbath, frankly.
• 1:00:43
  Like really, really good teams. You've got Texas in there,
• 1:00:47
  you've got South Carolina, you've got Vanderbilt, like
• 1:00:50
  really quality play. And then in the Big 10 side,
• 1:00:53
  you've got 725 teams. I mean, together right there,
• 1:00:56
  that's 16 of the top 25 teams between those two conferences.
• 1:01:02
  What's interesting though, we called this out in top
• 1:01:05
  headlines, The ACC in my mind, could be completely up for
• 1:01:09
  grabs. Like you have some ranked teams,
• 1:01:13
  right? You've got Duke, you've got
• 1:01:14
  North Carolina, you've got Louisville.
• 1:01:16
  But like I we talked about before, unranked Notre Dame, who
• 1:01:20
  has one of the best players in the country, and Hannah Hidalgo
• 1:01:22
  on that team, beat #10 Louisville.
• 1:01:25
  Over the weekend, Duke got upset by UNC.
• 1:01:29
  Yeah. And I mean, I, I don't know the
• 1:01:31
  exact rankings, but I would assume a lot of those rankings
• 1:01:34
  in the ACC are probably lower like 10 and up 10 to up to 25
• 1:01:40
  more than anything. So you get to that point, it's
• 1:01:43
  kind of is like a any, any game, anybody's game, anybody's game.
• 1:01:46
  So that one could be interesting to watch too.
• 1:01:50
  I I just, it's, it's that's a hard one to predict.
• 1:01:54
  And then the SECI think what's interesting too coming out of
• 1:01:57
  these conference tournaments is, you know, Uconn's not really
• 1:02:01
  going to get tested, at least not in the way that some of
• 1:02:05
  these other teams are. Whereas like South Carolina is
• 1:02:07
  going to have to battle through eight other rank, I mean, not
• 1:02:10
  play all of them, but like, you know what I mean, other ranked
• 1:02:13
  teams, UCLA is going to have to battle through that in the Big
• 1:02:16
  10. So I will say one more note just
• 1:02:20
  on UConn, right? We were talking about this, We
• 1:02:22
  were watching them last night and they win by a lot.
• 1:02:28
  They're so disciplined and so well coached, but they get
• 1:02:33
  everyone's best game because everyone wants to be the team
• 1:02:39
  that says I beat UConn. Yeah, You would kind of think
• 1:02:42
  that the way that they dominate, that they're not getting
• 1:02:46
  challenged in a way that is going to prepare them for the
• 1:02:50
  tournament. But if you're up against them,
• 1:02:53
  you want to be the winner and and you're just going to go hard
• 1:02:56
  against them as as hard as you can.
• 1:02:58
  Yeah. All right.
• 1:03:01
  So we've talked, I think we've kind of alluded to like top
• 1:03:04
  contenders for the tournament. I think, you know, Yukon is
• 1:03:10
  likely to continue on their magical run.
• 1:03:13
  I think a team that could really challenge them is UCLA.
• 1:03:18
  They have another kind of different discipline, but of
• 1:03:22
  discipline team. They've got Lauren Betts, who's
• 1:03:24
  a senior. She played in the tournament
• 1:03:26
  last year. She's got size that I don't know
• 1:03:30
  if Yukon Sarah Strong, as good as she is, can really like if
• 1:03:37
  Lauren Betts is on and can really get Sarah Strong off her
• 1:03:40
  block and off her position. Like that could be challenging,
• 1:03:43
  right? They've got a match up for
• 1:03:46
  Arizona Fudd and Kiki Rice. Like I think there's ways that
• 1:03:50
  they match up pretty well with the Huskies.
• 1:03:53
  Outside of that. I don't even think, like, I
• 1:03:59
  mean, South Carolina's going to bring it to you, 'cause I mean
• 1:04:02
  Don Staley, just like that's her DNA.
• 1:04:04
  That's how it works, but. They don't have the same level
• 1:04:08
  of discipline. Like that's the thing with
• 1:04:10
  Gino's teams, like they're so disciplined.
• 1:04:13
  And like they were talking to AZ after the game yesterday and
• 1:04:18
  they brought up something about how like, practice is really
• 1:04:23
  hard in AU Conn Jersey. Practice is harder than some of
• 1:04:29
  the games, right? And Gino does that on purpose.
• 1:04:32
  There's a reason. So I I expect that we're going
• 1:04:37
  to see another national championship for the Huskies,
• 1:04:40
  but they got to earn it. Yep, they do.
• 1:04:43
  Everyone's got to go through the same tournament.
• 1:04:46
  A couple players to keep your eye on as you head into
• 1:04:48
  conference tournaments this weekend.
• 1:04:51
  Michaela Blakes plays for Vanderbilt.
• 1:04:53
  I've watched her play a couple times this season.
• 1:04:55
  She's incredible. She has put up 30 points per
• 1:04:59
  game in SEC play, which is we just talked about how
• 1:05:02
  competitive that league is. She's averaging 27 points per
• 1:05:05
  game, leading the nation in scoring.
• 1:05:08
  She can get it anywhere, right? Threes, twos, drive to the
• 1:05:11
  bucket, pull up mid range, like anything.
• 1:05:14
  What really impressed me in the game I watched over the weekend
• 1:05:17
  was her defense though. Like you think of these players
• 1:05:19
  as scorers and like I thought she did a really good job of
• 1:05:23
  disrupting play, getting people off their spaces, things like
• 1:05:27
  that. So we already mentioned her, but
• 1:05:29
  AZ Fudd, the five fifth year senior, likely top WNBA draft
• 1:05:35
  pick out of UConn, Madison Booker from Texas.
• 1:05:41
  She's so clean, like just such a clean style of play.
• 1:05:46
  Her mid range game is fire, which that's always really tough
• 1:05:50
  to. Guard.
• 1:05:52
  She's got a lot of length, so it's effective defensively to
• 1:05:56
  talked about Hannah Hidalgo top three in the nation in scoring.
• 1:06:00
  She leads the nation and steals. I think she had a game over the
• 1:06:03
  week, the game against Louisville, she had like 30
• 1:06:06
  points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, 5 steals.
• 1:06:08
  Like that's a. That's wild.
• 1:06:11
  And then Sarah Strong, we mentioned from UConn, right?
• 1:06:15
  So she's their big post presence.
• 1:06:17
  She's really versatile. She can shoot from three as
• 1:06:20
  well. We saw her lighted up last year
• 1:06:22
  in the tournament and then I threw, I threw Fly J on here.
• 1:06:27
  So Fly J's a senior. Fly J Johnson from LSU, she's a
• 1:06:31
  senior. She's got a little bit of a chip
• 1:06:33
  on her shoulder always for whatever reason.
• 1:06:36
  And I just see like she comes alive in tournament time.
• 1:06:40
  LSU is always a great program. They've got Kim Mulkey.
• 1:06:44
  At the helm. You can never count her out of
• 1:06:47
  anything. You can definitely count on her
• 1:06:49
  to yell a few. Things at you, but.
• 1:06:53
  It's good cinema, so keep an eye on those players on those teams.
• 1:06:57
  We're really looking forward to it.
• 1:06:59
  All weekend so. We will do a bracket.
• 1:07:02
  We'll get one out there. We'll do a competition.
• 1:07:04
  We'll each do our own. We'll do a competition, we'll
• 1:07:08
  post some updates for y'all so you can play along with us if
• 1:07:11
  you want to all. Right, all right, on to what to
• 1:07:13
  watch. What to watch?
• 1:07:16
  Because we haven't told you enough.
• 1:07:17
  Yes. We have the Para Olympics Don't
• 1:07:20
  sleep on the Para Olympics kicking off March 6 until March
• 1:07:25
  15th, but with wheelchair curling starting on the 4th I
• 1:07:31
  believe. Yeah, release day.
• 1:07:32
  Yes. And you can find these on I
• 1:07:36
  think NBC and Peacock is kind of doing very similar type
• 1:07:39
  coverage. So kind of however you watched
• 1:07:41
  it, the regular Olympics, these will be in the same spot there.
• 1:07:45
  Nice, nice. We have some athletes here to
• 1:07:51
  look for. We have Lori Stevens, a five
• 1:07:53
  times Paralympian, seven time medalist on Para Alpine.
• 1:07:58
  Yeah, I think she was like a top medal winner in Alpine, Para
• 1:08:03
  Alpine for all, like men or women, so.
• 1:08:08
  We have Brenna Huckabee, 3 time gold medalist in Paris.
• 1:08:11
  Snowboarding one more makes her the most gold medal wins in the
• 1:08:14
  discipline. Amazing.
• 1:08:16
  So that'll be fun to watch. Oksana Masters most decorated US
• 1:08:20
  Paralympian returns to para biathlon and para cross country
• 1:08:24
  skiing. I, I can't do this normally.
• 1:08:28
  So like the the strength of these people have to just to go
• 1:08:32
  out there and do that is just amazing to me.
• 1:08:35
  Yeah, I think we talked a lot about like the mental toughness
• 1:08:38
  of the athletes in the Olympics, right, a few weeks ago and like
• 1:08:44
  want to talk about grit and mental toughness.
• 1:08:46
  Like these folks for whatever reason, right, have have
• 1:08:51
  disabilities, motor disabilities, neurological in
• 1:08:55
  some cases. And so it's incredible to think
• 1:08:59
  what they've overcome to be able to compete and and all the
• 1:09:05
  competitors, right, who are who are coming up.
• 1:09:08
  So put forth a fight for sure. All right, we have Kendall
• 1:09:12
  Gretsch, first American woman to win a pair of biathlon gold
• 1:09:15
  medal, and we have Oyuna Orachi, Meg, it's.
• 1:09:21
  Pretty good. Started competing in Para
• 1:09:23
  currently at 43 and is now 52 and back for her second
• 1:09:26
  Paralympics, aiming for a medal. Here we go.
• 1:09:29
  You can't count us out. You could always be there.
• 1:09:33
  I watched actually the most incredible curling shot from
• 1:09:37
  apparel. I think I saw, I saw that one,
• 1:09:39
  yeah. Crazy.
• 1:09:41
  She like did a perfect little push.
• 1:09:43
  So they like do it cuz they're in wheelchairs.
• 1:09:45
  They kind of push the stone. Obviously they can't.
• 1:09:47
  Yeah, put it on. And so they push it.
• 1:09:50
  And she did like this perfect little bump and then it landed.
• 1:09:53
  Like right in the center, dead center.
• 1:09:55
  Right on the button it was so. Exciting.
• 1:09:57
  It was amazing. I thought I was done with
• 1:09:58
  curling but. Nope, we're back.
• 1:10:00
  Back into it maybe? All right, moving on to Shiba
• 1:10:02
  Leaves Cup, we've talked about this Wednesday, 5:45 PM central
• 1:10:06
  against Canada on TNT, TRU, TVHBO, Peacock and Universal,
• 1:10:12
  and then Saturday at 2:30 PM central against Columbia on all
• 1:10:17
  the same channels. Yes.
• 1:10:20
  All right, NCAA hockey, we are into the semifinals and finals
• 1:10:23
  for the conferences. For the women's conferences,
• 1:10:29
  WCHA can be found on Big 10 Network this weekend, starting
• 1:10:33
  Thursday evening, we're going to have Minnesota #13 Minnesota
• 1:10:36
  State take on your my #13 Minnesota State.
• 1:10:40
  They got your #1 Wisconsin. These are no longer best of
• 1:10:45
  games. This is 1 and done so I was.
• 1:10:49
  I was talking to the girls about this today when I was bringing
• 1:10:52
  them to swimming lessons and they were like, but what if The
• 1:10:56
  Mavericks win mom? And I was like, well, that would
• 1:10:59
  be amazing. Like we are very much fans of
• 1:11:03
  Minnesota State Mavericks, but I it's highly unlikely and, and
• 1:11:08
  our oldest kept being like, but what if they do?
• 1:11:10
  And I was like, you know what, that's the beauty of sports.
• 1:11:14
  Anyone can win on any given night.
• 1:11:16
  You just need a couple bounces and you got to go out and play
• 1:11:18
  hard so. And yeah, you, you talk, you
• 1:11:21
  said the right things. If I would have said that to
• 1:11:23
  you, it would have been like, Nah, I'm open to it.
• 1:11:27
  I I have a personal connections on that team.
• 1:11:30
  I don't have personal outside of me having gone to Wisconsin, and
• 1:11:33
  I don't have personal connections to the team.
• 1:11:36
  We have them in the we have #4 Minnesota versus number #2 Ohio
• 1:11:40
  State Thursday at 7:00 PM with the and then a final of the
• 1:11:44
  winners of those two games Saturday at 2:00 PM.
• 1:11:47
  OK. We.
• 1:11:49
  That's also being played for our local audience, that's being
• 1:11:53
  played at Saint Thomas. Yeah, up in Saint Paul.
• 1:11:55
  Up in Saint Paul, yeah. Continuing on, we have the EE
• 1:12:02
  CAC conference, which I believe they play on sports net New
• 1:12:07
  York, if I'm not incorrect there number 11 Cornell versus #7 Yale
• 1:12:13
  at 3:00 PM Central on Friday and #8 Quinnipiac and #9 Princeton
• 1:12:18
  at 6:00 PM on Friday. And then their their final is
• 1:12:22
  Saturday at 4:00 PM Central. And then just one game out of
• 1:12:28
  the AHA, which is number 12, it's a final #12 Mercyhurst at
• 1:12:33
  #3 Penn State, 1:00 PM Central on Saturday, I believe.
• 1:12:39
  I think we should have a game at some point where we just force
• 1:12:43
  people to guess what the acronyms for these conferences
• 1:12:46
  stand for. Don't do it right now.
• 1:12:49
  No, I can't even do it. Yeah, we'll do that later.
• 1:12:52
  All right. And then moving on, I tried to
• 1:12:53
  pick out the two best PWHL games going into the weekend.
• 1:13:00
  We have Boston at New York, 6:00 PM Central on Thursday.
• 1:13:03
  I think this is the best game of the week.
• 1:13:06
  Boston is second overall playing at a .711 clip.
• 1:13:10
  So that means they gain 71% of the points available to them
• 1:13:16
  when they play. So that's like, that's really
• 1:13:19
  good. It's the best in the league and
• 1:13:22
  New York is currently underperforming their record
• 1:13:25
  with a -, 7 goal differential, 0 overtime wins, and 45 goals
• 1:13:30
  against, which I think it might be the second highest in the
• 1:13:34
  league. So this is like a Boston should
• 1:13:36
  win it, but they're in New York. Anything could happen and I
• 1:13:41
  think New York could bounce up a couple of spots.
• 1:13:44
  It's really tight in the middle right now.
• 1:13:45
  I was going to say, New York is sitting in that fourth position,
• 1:13:48
  at least as of this recording. And so like as we talked about
• 1:13:52
  before, you have 8 teams, 4 go on to the playoffs like I that's
• 1:13:56
  they got to win games. Yeah, they do.
• 1:14:00
  And then we have Minnesota at Toronto Sunday at 11 AM Central.
• 1:14:06
  Hopefully a chance for Minnesota to find their skates again after
• 1:14:09
  the four O loss to Montreal last Sunday.
• 1:14:12
  They're going to need to get some pucks in the net.
• 1:14:15
  Toronto is ranked 6th, but only two points from leapfrogging #4
• 1:14:20
  New York, depending on how all those other games kind of play
• 1:14:23
  out. So you're in six, you could be
• 1:14:25
  in fourth after a game. It's just a lot of movement in
• 1:14:29
  this in the middle there. It's really tight, I feel like,
• 1:14:33
  so we'll be watching that, yeah, this weekend and ongoing as we
• 1:14:38
  head to the playoffs. Yeah.
• 1:14:39
  All right, let's close it out here with winners and losers.
• 1:14:44
  Losers first. I wonder who?
• 1:14:51
  I was trying to think of something other than that, but I
• 1:14:54
  think here's what I'm going to say.
• 1:14:59
  My loser is somehow it being 2026 and we're continuing to
• 1:15:13
  perpetuate the idea that it is OK to make fun of people and
• 1:15:23
  that that's funny. There is like a time and a
• 1:15:27
  place, and usually it's when the person can be laughing with you
• 1:15:30
  and not you laughing at them. And I am, I love comedy, I love
• 1:15:37
  jokes. But there's a time and a place.
• 1:15:41
  And I think broadly speaking, even if I remove like the how we
• 1:15:48
  got here with the joke from the president and the men's team and
• 1:15:52
  things like that, the reaction like I have just I've read some
• 1:15:59
  really horrible takes. I've seen an employer get online
• 1:16:07
  and call one of his employees a lunatic for saying that it
• 1:16:15
  wasn't OK to make that joke and that she's blowing it out of
• 1:16:21
  proportion. If I could have a penny for the
• 1:16:24
  number of times that women get told they're overreacting.
• 1:16:28
  So that's my loser. Is that like we're here and
• 1:16:31
  we're still having this conversation?
• 1:16:33
  Yeah, I mean my losers on the same in the same vein, I think
• 1:16:36
  the USA Hockey team hockey leadership just kind of either
• 1:16:41
  really failed or really didn't care and I don't know which is
• 1:16:46
  worse they. Didn't set those young men up
• 1:16:48
  for success either. Not that I'm not saying that
• 1:16:51
  they should have needed help, right?
• 1:16:53
  Like you should know how to apologize to someone.
• 1:16:56
  But it seems like no one really came in and was like, you really
• 1:17:02
  got to think about this in a different way.
• 1:17:04
  Yep, exactly. So agree.
• 1:17:06
  All right, winners, let's see winners I breeze BC Paige
• 1:17:18
  Becker's I know I'm repping the thing here.
• 1:17:21
  I actually a real big winner for me.
• 1:17:23
  I told Alex about this earlier, but there was a post game
• 1:17:27
  interview with Paige after her huge game where they knocked off
• 1:17:30
  defending champions Rose. And this reporter just did such
• 1:17:35
  an excellent job of of framing a question that allowed Paige to
• 1:17:43
  introspect and then talk about her achievement.
• 1:17:48
  And that is not something that is often comfortable for women
• 1:17:53
  to do, for people to do, but specifically women to do.
• 1:17:58
  And this reporter just created such a beautiful space for her
• 1:18:02
  to do it. I I was mad because I lost the
• 1:18:05
  clip on on social media. I was going to share it on her
• 1:18:09
  Instagram page. So if I find it, I will.
• 1:18:11
  But she she just did such an incredible job.
• 1:18:14
  Paige had a great answer to just talking about her growth and
• 1:18:18
  what unrivaled has really provided her.
• 1:18:20
  She's all, I mean, you got to remember y'all, she's, she was a
• 1:18:23
  rookie and she was a rookie in the West last year.
• 1:18:26
  Like she's, she comes across as like this, like seasoned vet
• 1:18:31
  stalwart, like she's been around and she's, she's young, She's
• 1:18:34
  got a lot of room to grow and she's very humble.
• 1:18:37
  But like, she leans into those. Opportunities.
• 1:18:40
  I mean, she's got the game and she's got the like, the media
• 1:18:43
  smarts. It's just kind of rare.
• 1:18:46
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. My winner is hold on a second
• 1:18:50
  here. I got a that was big.
• 1:18:53
  For those for those of you not watching this, I'm putting on a
• 1:18:56
  Minnesota State Pats. Right now.
• 1:18:59
  We saw them win in a three-game series versus University of
• 1:19:04
  Minnesota Duluth, an upset #13 beating #9 and so, yeah, I think
• 1:19:09
  this was the first time they've moved on in this playoff since
• 1:19:15
  2009. I think was was the number
• 1:19:18
  there. So just really proud of the
• 1:19:22
  work. They they looked amazing, like
• 1:19:26
  they were skating so fast and so hard, like we said, like kind of
• 1:19:30
  like when they looked when they played the Gophers and sweep
• 1:19:34
  slapped them in that series. So if they can just keep that
• 1:19:38
  up, they can at least hopefully keep it close against Wisconsin.
• 1:19:40
  Yeah, and came back to they were, they were down 10 in the
• 1:19:43
  series against a UMD. They were playing in Duluth,
• 1:19:47
  right. So you're gone for the whole
• 1:19:48
  weekend, won the second game in double overtime.
• 1:19:53
  So in the WCHA in this round, it's like you just keep playing
• 1:19:57
  full periods of hockey. So they were in the second
• 1:20:01
  overtime period of that game and they scored and then took care
• 1:20:05
  of business in the third game. Be fun to see what they do.
• 1:20:08
  We shall see. Anyone can win, as I told my
• 1:20:12
  daughter tonight. So all right, folks, we
• 1:20:15
  appreciate you being here. We had a lot of fun with this
• 1:20:19
  episode. Like we said, a lot more to come
• 1:20:22
  here in March. So stay tuned.
• 1:20:24
  Next week we'll talk all about she believes cup.
• 1:20:28
  Maybe we'll have a. CBA agreement on the table.
• 1:20:33
  We'll lean into some Paralympics conference tournaments for
• 1:20:38
  basketball, hockey, I mean. These these could turn into long
• 1:20:42
  ones if we're not careful. We got to be careful.
• 1:20:44
  All right. Thanks for being here.
• 1:20:46
  RTG under score pod on socials and raisingthegamepod@gmail.com.
• 1:20:51
  Gotta get those in there. We'll be back next week.
• 1:20:54
  All right, talk to you later. Bye bye.