Every mother talks the same.
Every notice they have these little momisms,
they just pass them down through generations.
You've heard them all.
We've all heard the same stuff growing up.
Stuff like if I had to come up there,
you all heard that.
Unless you lived in a mobile home, you heard that one.
Then I get those punishment momisms.
You all have those, right?
How would you like a beating?
Oh, GR, I love a beating right now.
That or the ballgame, I can't decide.
And she get lazy.
Go get me something to beat you with.
Like, I'm going to come back with a 2x4 with nails in it.
A broader sponge.
Here you go, my well away.
Ow, you're hurting me.
I'm going to knock you into the middle of next week.
Make it Thursday, I got a test of Wednesday.
To just see this guy think it means that we've been lost.
Maybe one last time it's all we need.
I can't really help it if my tongue's all tied.
It's 707 at WRJN Radio.
I'm Don Rosen.
Thanks for joining us here.
I'm going to say it confused Tuesday morning.
You know, it's written on the screen Tuesday.
And I sit here every morning.
I'm going to do a day of this because you work in advance so much in this business.
And you keep forgetting what day it is.
Well, it's Tuesday.
I think advanced age is also responsible for that a little bit.
But it's Tuesday, February 6th.
Thanks for joining us here.
It's going to be a beautiful day today.
Temperatures going to be in the 50s on Thursday and Friday.
And that's what we're talking about ice today.
It's going to be in the 50s.
Normally, what?
Remember that big groundhog day snowstorm we had back 13 years ago.
24 inches of snow.
Now, you can have to bring that microphone within a quarter mile there of your face.
There you go.
And you two, you're good.
You're both good now.
Okay.
Mark Hertzberg is here.
Thank you very much.
Mark Mark is the secretary.
And it's the Racine County Ice Center.
Got that right.
You're the secretary.
But we got the chairman, the campaign chairman is here too.
Lee Wishaw is here.
And thank you guys for coming in today.
Thank you for the invitation.
And Mark is so authentic.
He's actually wearing a New York Ranger's hockey jersey, which is really good.
You know, the admirals are still here in town, right?
They still in Milwaukee.
They are.
Yes.
They're a farm team, I think, for the Nashville predators.
Oh, are they now?
Okay.
Because they were, what was the limit of the league they were in at one time?
It's the international.
International.
International hockey league.
Yeah, they were in the USHL years ago, and then the international league.
Yeah.
Nothing toward you a little bit there.
And Racine's Craig Leopold was the first owner of the national predators.
Okay.
Yeah.
I love hockey.
He's a fast-moving sport.
I love to watch it.
When I lived on Long Island, we used to go to the islanders games all the time.
Or occasionally went into the garden to go watch the Rangers in the city, which was always fun.
Okay.
So we're talking ice rink here.
Hey, gee, don't we have an ice rink in town?
Well, if you think we have an ice rink or an ice skating center in town, you haven't
looked lately.
We used to have in a festival hall.
We did.
It was a small decoder, a studio sheet of ice.
Yeah.
And of course, it was seasonal.
The refrigeration system eventually failed.
But we are in island in Southeast Wisconsin.
There are two ice skating facilities in Kenosha County.
When our boys and I played hockey, we had to go to Kenosha.
When I coached one of our sons, five o'clock, Sunday morning, we had to go.
Milwaukee has several facilities.
Well, the one in the State Fair Park is huge.
Right.
There's Wilson Park.
And Milwaukee, Sher County has got several facilities.
There's nothing in Racine County.
And what we want to do is to have a year round ice skating facility.
It's going to be public skating, general skating, learned to skate, public skating,
figure skating, of course, hockey, short track speed skating, and even broomball.
And we're working with Racine County.
We've been working with the county for more than four years on this.
And we hope to have this open in a couple years, probably in Franksville.
And this is something for year round recreation.
It's a recreation opportunity that's not available in our community now.
People have to go out of town.
They have to spend their money out of town.
Take advantage of this.
This is something that's going to bring dollars into Racine County as we host tournaments and competitions.
And it's also going to be an important recruiting tool for companies.
As they look at people who are considering jobs here, some of the people are going to say,
can I take advantage of ice sports in Racine County?
Do I want to relocate to Racine County?
Rather than, let's say, Connocia County and Milwaukee County.
Well, let me assume you talk about Franksville.
Is that that big sports complex they have out there in Franksville?
Is that where you talk?
Oh, I'm thinking of Franklin.
I'm sorry.
I get confused.
Franklin's got the big sports complex.
You're talking about Franksville.
Right.
Is it where the park is?
Is that what you're talking about?
That is a likely location, if not possibly Haven Park.
Which is also out in the Franksville area.
But you know, one of the county considerations, as to why Racine County should be the magnet-frike sports for our residents,
there's somebody that our kids grew up with.
I played hockey with them.
And their sons now play hockey.
They live in Mount Pleasant.
Their parents pulled them out of Racine Unified.
And the kids now go to school at Connocia Unified.
Because Connocia's got a varsity hockey team.
And that's the kind of talent loss, economic loss, that we want to stop, and we want to keep in our county.
Now, if you build one out in Franksville, you got to start from scratch.
There's no building out there for this, right?
Correct.
So you got to, what kind of money you're looking at to build one of these things?
Well, we went, we is RCIC.
We're a 501C3.
Racine County Ice Center.
And we self-funded, there's no county money in this part of it.
A feasibility study.
We sent out proposals to three nationally recognized feasibility study companies.
And we spent $70,000 of our money.
And the feasibility study says that this is doable, and it will be successful.
It would be successful.
If the feasibility study had not been favorable, we would have folded our tent and gone home.
Don't it is feasible?
It is feasible.
And there is.
That's part of the feasibility study.
And you asked about where we are.
We had an estimate of $13 million for single sheet ice facility.
And ideally, we would like two sheets of ice, but we would build it.
Does that mean two sheet of ice?
Two rings.
Okay.
Two skating surfaces.
We would, excuse me, probably start with one sheet for now.
Build it with a footprint for two.
The mechanical is for two.
And we had an estimate of $13 million.
So we committed to raise $8 million.
And we have a memorandum of understanding with the county that we hope the county board supervisors
will approve, where the county would bond $5 million.
We have self-opped our empty to $10 million.
We've pledged to raise $10 million.
And so even though the county would be responsible for hiring the designers, the architects, the builders,
and then the county will hire a third party to manage the ring, we are going to raise two-thirds of the money for this county facility.
Have you begun yet?
We have.
And Lee can speak as to where we are.
But that's unheard of, I think, for county facility to have two-thirds private funding.
Now, I know the one at State For Your Park is an Olympic training facility.
I mean, that's a big one.
I got the Olympic rings out there and everything on that.
I don't know how big that is.
I've never been inside.
Is that the size though you're looking at or smaller than that?
That is a two-sheet facility, two ice sheet facilities.
Plus, there's a speed skating oval that circles that facility, and it is a massive building.
We're not looking at building quite that size.
We will not be putting in a speed skating oval.
We will probably start out with one sheet of ice.
And if we do that, we will size the equipment appropriately.
So that long-term, if we need another sheet of ice, we can add it and the refrigeration equipment, especially, will be there.
Ideally, we'd like to start with two sheets.
But if we can't, we will start with one in size, the equipment, so that long-term we're ready to go.
If the demand is such that it requires another sheet of ice.
Now, what happened to the one at Fenceville Park?
Let's talk about that.
Because when I first came here, you said that small.
That was a small ring.
It looked big.
You talked to a guy who never had a pair of ice skates on in his life.
Because I don't want to break my legs.
I don't want to fall down and crack my knees.
So I didn't know what my daughter on the other hand could skate backwards.
She can forward backwards.
She could do everything.
She could talk to people while skating backwards, which I think is amazing, an oval.
It never rubbed off on me.
I just never could do it.
I was always afraid to get on skate.
So probably I will be there watching other people.
Or if I have to slide like a penguin on my belly, that's about the best I can do.
Your daughter will wave to you.
She skates past.
But she skates backwards.
You ever see those people looking to do that?
You can skate backwards.
You have to do that to play hockey.
Yeah, she skates backwards.
And she goes around the oval backwards.
And she's talking to people while she skates.
I said, how do you do that?
You know, it's like running a bike.
You don't think about it.
You just do it.
That's very true.
Yeah, you get on the eye.
And she does it with roller skates as well.
Okay, so what happened to the one in festival park?
Because when I first moved here in 1980, that was an active ice skating rink.
People skated there.
Now it's just an empty place they could put vendors and stuff for different events coming to town.
It was very, very successful.
It was packed.
I don't know if there was a problem with the design, but excuse me, the refrigeration system failed.
And the predecessor to RCIC was close to having a rink in Pritchard Park about 25 years ago.
And there was an estimate of 300,000 hours to fix the refrigeration system.
And then Mayor Jim Smith said, I'd rather put that money into the year-round facility in Pritchard Park.
And our facility was approved by the county board.
The bonds were going to be sold on a Monday.
Friday before then Governor Scott McCallum ended shared revenue.
And the county executive took the bond sale off the table.
So the facility didn't happen in Pritchard Park.
And the city didn't fix the one in festival park.
Is it fixable now or is it so far gone?
It's been so long. Nobody's talked about it.
But you would rather put the money into a year-round facility that can accommodate sports.
That was only for the winter use festival park.
And you couldn't play hockey.
There wasn't much that you could do on there other than skating.
I mean skating was important.
And it introduced a lot of people to skating.
Now that looked big to me.
It's just maybe because I'm not used to seeing big rinks.
But that looked big to me.
It was tiny.
It was tiny back.
Yeah.
But we had a tinier one.
Actually, we're going to talk about this in just a moment in Monument Square.
They tried to put a nice rink.
And I saw it when I drove by.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
Mark Hertzberg is here.
And Lee Wishaw is here.
And we're talking about the Racine Ice Center project they're working on.
More coming up in just a moment here.
WRGN Radio.
Stay right where we are.
Civic Media Station.
hometown radio refreshed.
It's 719.
They play very nice.
Put up a parking lot.
With a pink hotel.
boutique.
And a swing.
And a hot spot.
I thought it always seemed to go.
But you don't know what you got.
But it's gone.
They play very nice.
Put up a parking lot.
Mark Hertzberg is here.
Lee Wishaw is here.
We're talking about the ice center.
We see nice center.
We're talking about this song, Big Yellow Taxi.
And again, it's start.
Jody Mitchell went to Hawaii.
And she woke up in the morning.
Expecting to see the beauty of Hawaii.
And all she saw was a paved parking lot outside of hotel.
She couldn't even see the trees, the ocean.
There were buildings in a parking lot.
And that's why she wrote that song.
The Big Yellow Taxi.
It's depressing when you go to Hawaii.
And you look at it and say,
you wish, just a parking lot here.
But that's how it happened.
We're talking about ice ranks and ice skating centers.
But a lot of people remember.
And I just found this out a few weeks ago.
I saw a photograph of 16th and Leithrop Avenue,
which is now, there's a baseball diamond out there.
But it was an ice skating rink at one time.
And there's a lot of people out of the how old the picture was.
And somebody on one of the retro scene sites put it up.
The fire department used to flood some of the parks in town.
But those are seasonal.
And we've not had skating conducive winners the last few years.
And I don't think that we will in the future.
So what we're proposing is an indoor year-round facility
that can accommodate multiple different ice sports.
And we want to introduce people to ice sports.
Now the ice, the ice center should talk about year-round.
Summer, you can go ice skating and everything.
Exactly.
It doesn't matter what the season is.
Those are obviously dependent upon the weather where you can freeze it.
Now the zoo pond, which is, you see it right there when you draw by the zoo,
that was an ice skating center.
You can ice skate on there.
There's a fountain there now or something like that.
The water, I don't know if it's too turbulent or whatever.
But it cannot sustain safe ice in the winter.
Our kids skated on there.
I skated on there with them.
I remember going around the zoo pond with little air
and all my shoulders, things like that.
You're a pro.
You carry people while you're skating.
Yes, I never saw that since I've been,
and I only live a few blocks from there.
I never noticed it as an ice skating thing.
But you're right.
Maybe the fountain makes the water too turbulent for it to freeze.
I don't know the year this one.
I could look it up.
You know what it is?
I have a postcard of it.
That's where my wife has these old recene postcards.
I think that's where I saw it when it was frozen over.
But they tried it in downtown.
We're seeing it a couple of years ago.
They said we're going to put an ice skating thing in the middle of Monument Square.
It was one of those winters, too, where it just wasn't cold.
But they got a few days where it was cold and it froze.
But there were so many people there.
You couldn't really do anything because it was very tiny.
And if one person wanted to be on there, maybe they can go around and circles.
But that was it.
It was a one shot deal.
They tried it.
It didn't really work out well.
But, you know, A for trying.
I'm not going to tell you.
This is, it's something that crosses generations.
The president of our group, Mike Frontier, used to build rinks in his grandchildren's backyard in Cedarburg.
And it's passed on.
His grandson, Sam, started on the rink that Mike built from in the backyard.
He's got three games to go.
And he's the all-time leading scorer on the UW lacrosse hockey team.
I was going to say Cedarburg because we went up there on winter.
And we took my daughter and she, that's where I first saw her skating.
And she went on the lake there, whatever the pond they have up in Cedarburg.
And it was packed with me.
It looked like a postcard from, who's that painter?
The American, I can't think it was name.
But it looked like one of those picture postcard bills, paintings that he poked, painted.
It's also, we went to the woolen mill up there with their white socks, their socks made.
It's a cargo white socks.
I'm glad you mentioned Cedarburg because part of our due diligence, we have visited at least five facilities in Illinois and Wisconsin
in the process of determining whether this is something that can be successful in Racine County.
And Cedarburg, Icerina, Icentre is one of the ones.
Do they have an Icentre?
They do.
And they started with one sheet of ice and it was so popular.
They've got two sheets now.
They've got tournaments.
And I think they're open from what, five or six in the morning till 11 at night.
So, yeah, I was talking about the outdoor one, the pond up in Cedarburg is what I saw.
I can't think of that artist now, paints all those Norman Rockwell.
Look at the Norman Rockwell painting up there when I was there.
And I felt bad because everybody was skating and I'm sitting there along the sidelines.
I said, that's very nice.
And my daughter said, come on, get a pair of skates.
Are you kidding?
You want me to drive the carpool with you broken feet?
When I was a kid, you know, talking about outdoor ice rinks, we used to skate on different ponds.
And you know where wind meadows is and in wind point, we used to skate on that pond.
My family actually was part of the group that dug that pond right in Wishaw back years ago.
But we also had an empty lot on lighthouse drive.
And my dad said, well, we'll dish that out.
We can lay plastic in there and flood it and you guys can have an ice rink in the winter.
So from, I would say the late 60s through about 75, we had an outdoor ice rink there
where it was our own private facility.
It wasn't a full size hockey rink, but it was close.
And all my cousins and friends skated there for, I don't know, five or six straight years
right on lighthouse drive and an empty lot.
And it was a great experience.
I remember skating out there 25 below zero.
But then the next week would be 45 degrees.
We've always had these iffy winters, unfortunately, that you just couldn't depend on the ice.
We were always struggling trying to maintain good out their ice.
And it hasn't improved over the years, unfortunately.
We just have a few seconds for the break here.
Favorite hockey movie, slap shot, Paul Newman.
Yeah.
Good memory.
I felt insulted by that movie when it came out.
Now I think it's hilarious.
What was the name of the brothers in that film?
They had three brothers who were skaters and they were just, they were like the goon squad on the ice.
But Paul Newman played the coach of this minor, minor, minor hockey league team
that was going to be sold.
And it was just the terrible hockey team.
But I remember Struther Martin played the owner of the team.
It was a very good movie slap shot if you get a chance to see it.
Very funny.
An odd role for Paul Newman to play in that film.
Sure was.
Hockey big in Minnesota.
Hockey's huge up in northern Wisconsin.
Hockey's big in the Dakotas too.
Because I worked for a company out in South Dakota and everything is hockey out there.
But it's cold, really cold all winters so they can do that.
If you go through the northern half of Minnesota, every little town has an ice rink or hockey rink or indoor ice facility
and it is a gathering point for families every weekend.
That's where everybody goes.
It's like that all over the small town USA in the northern hemisphere or in the northern half of the country.
They do a hockey teams in the South that play inside.
The NHL has been very successful.
There's some teams that move from Canada to the South.
But with the weather variables, many apples every year has got a big pond hockey tournament.
It's a mess of tournament.
They couldn't hold it this year because of the weather.
Yeah.
Mark Hertzberg is here and so is Lee Wishaw.
We're talking about the recene ice rink.
We're going to talk about the ice center.
We're going to talk about their website.
Hey, he can mix donations.
Get this thing going.
That'll be coming up right after the farm news even just a moment of WRJ and radio.
1,400 AM also.
99.9 FM, 98.1 FM in Kenosha.
It's a civic media station.
Home town radio.
Refreshed where today it's going to be partly sunny with I near 40.
There's a infrowning in the 50s.
Not conducive to ice skating.
But if you're indoors, it's very conducive.
Oh, like it.
Remind me to tell you about a building called Rollin Ice.
I got to tell you about Rollin Ice.
Remind me because I'm going to forget.
Age is set into me.
So I forget everything.
729 to WRJ.
I'm ready.
Here we are.
Ooh.
So you're scared of showing your fears.
But maybe I do understand.
I don't make a promise I can't keep.
I'm about to be a real good friend.
In those big green eyes I see glow love.
I just hope that I'm the one you're dreaming of.
So let me be the one to love you.
Oh.
Let me be the one to care.
Let me be the one to light your flame.
Oh baby.
Oh baby.
Let me be the one.
It's 735 at WRJ.
And thanks for joining us here on a Tuesday morning.
We are talking ice skating with Mark Hertzberg and Lee Wishaw
from the Racine Ice Center.
Racine Ice County.
Racine Ice Center.
They want to put together a building in ice center.
You're round for ice skating.
It's a little one.
They want to put together a big one.
Let's talk about the website.
So people can actually follow us this morning on this website.
And it is what?
Racineicecenter.com.
Okay.
The county is not on the, on the, okay.
So it's just Racineicecenter.com.
It's a beautiful website.
It's powered by image management.
Homegrown downtown Racine company.
And you can learn all about the facility.
And the pitch, we, we need to complete our fundraising goal.
We're 82% of the way there.
We've raised 8 million of the 10 million we've pledged to raise.
And unashamedly, we're asking you to go to the website and click on the donate link
and help us realize the goal.
Now this is somebody else's ice rink on the picture.
But you want it to be similar to that.
That's right.
I think it's in Mount Prospect, Illinois.
Okay.
And they started actually with two sheets of ice.
And they've got three now.
And that's Mount Prospect, Icerina, run by the Papua Nicholas family.
We've talked to them.
They've looked over our proposals here.
And looking at their success as part of why we're confident this will be a success in Racine County.
We want to bring to the community.
Help the community grow.
Okay. Now I see on the thing you told us short track speed racing.
Is that going to be at the facility in your image in your mind?
Yes.
This is a facility.
We're calling it a nice arena because to many people, the word rink canotes hockey only.
Really?
And so, well, this is something that we have found out talking to people during the feasibility study.
And so, this is learned to skate.
We want to introduce people to ice sports public skating.
Go with your family.
Saturday, Sunday, afternoon, in the evening, whatever.
Figure skating.
There's a lot of interest in figure skating.
Steve Anderson, our board vice president, has been involved in the past with the Olympic training program for the US.
Went to the Lilahama Games with the figure skating team, not as a skater, but as a consultant.
So, figure skating, public skating, hockey, of course, short track speed skating, broomball.
Lots of things we can do here.
Now, curling is not part of this, right?
We had a committee on the other day on the air talking about curling.
And he said, I must have missed something because they didn't understand the instructions.
I didn't get the instructions.
All I saw was this woman out there screaming to the top of her lungs.
She had a little ball with a stick on it or a handle and through it.
And she's got a broom in front of it.
People are screaming to the top of their lungs.
Birds falling at it trees.
They can't stand the screaming anymore.
And he says, I have no idea what curling is.
But broomball is different than curling.
Right.
It's very different.
There is a curling facility in Racine.
There is a curling club, yes.
Where is that?
I think it's a layered or melvin west of the railroad tracks.
Yeah.
It's near the Racine Unified School District.
That's right.
Yeah.
And there will obviously be a rental facility for people who don't own their own stuff.
Of course.
And one of the points we should have made earlier is that part of our programming is that we're
going to look for funding so that people who are economically disadvantaged and physically
disadvantaged can take advantage of the facility.
There doesn't have to be an economic threshold for you to cross to take advantage of the facility.
Is he Dave Blankis also?
He is.
Yes.
No Dave, Dave Blankis, assistant campaign chairman.
Dave Iswe, who's a Racine businessman, is our treasurer?
And so, and I hate to ask you this question because when he used to go out to the Crazy Horse
Monument in South Dakota, you know what that is, right?
Yes.
A mountain.
Yeah, they're building a mountain.
My father was a big contributor to that.
And we went out to lunch with the guy who started Goodson, Borgon.
We went out with his, you know, it was, it wasn't him.
It was, I forget the guy's name now, Julkowski started that thing.
And he said, she said, the number one question everybody asks, when is it going to be completed?
And she says it could be 100 years, it could be 200 years.
We're carving a mountain here.
So it's tough.
I'm sure people ask you, so when do you think it'll be open and you don't have an answer
for them?
You can't have an answer.
We have projected answer.
Okay.
Hopefully late 2025.
Really?
If not, by spring or so of 2026, that's a timeline.
We've been meeting with county leadership, county executive Jonathan Delegrave and his
team almost monthly for several years.
And we're hoping for a good vote from the county board for the bonding, five million in
bonding.
But again, we're raising two thirds of it costs ourselves.
So, now you mentioned Franksville, the facility at Franksville Park.
Do you have that sign sealed and delivered?
You can use it or is it just a thought you can use it?
Well, that's what the county is looking at.
One of the things we've heard over the years, why can't the old K-Mart be an ice rink,
blah, you know, and so on.
But if you go into a facility like that, you have land acquisition costs.
There are property taxes to pay, plus renovating an existing facility.
Going into a park like Franksville Park or Haven Park, there's no land acquisition
costs because the county owns it already and this will be a county-run facility.
There will be no property taxes to pay.
And so that's a big part of the economic facility, feasibility of the facility.
If we had to buy land, the business plan would be drastically different and less favorable.
So, and so you said, 2025 maybe, that's not that far away.
Late 2025, early 2026, that's what we're hoping.
That's two years away.
So how much do you have raised so far, percentage wise?
Well, we've raised approximately 82% of our money.
Really?
Yes.
There's some incredibly generous people in town here that have stepped up big time to support
this facility.
Do you have any like big massive million-dollar donors?
We have an anonymous donor that has donated a considerable amount.
Wow, very good.
Yes.
Very good.
But it's a little donors.
That's what we need to close.
They always say these politicians, they get their money, they don't get it from the big
people.
They get it from all the little people.
They have $20, $10, that's where, and you could do that on the website, huh?
I'm looking at the website here, so.
Racineicenter.com.
It's a bit of a tongue twister when you type it in, all the vowels, but you type it slowly.
Racineicenter.com.
Get it in there.
I have no shame.
And you know what?
Neither do I.
We're going to ask you for a donation.
We'll leave here today.
I'll give you.
I'll give you a donation.
You know, when people come in here raising money, I always give them something when they
come in.
I'll give you guys something to say.
As soon as you leave here, I will donate to you.
Oh, thank you.
Even though I will never ice skate on it, never.
Why?
Join the Learn to Skate program.
You won't break your ankle.
How do you know that?
Do I have a guarantee?
You've got a guarantee.
No.
Lee will sign a surdy bank.
I've got to tell you, when I separated my shoulder 15 years ago, I went to a physical therapist
to get my shoulder worked on.
She found out I did a plane hockey and she said, you know, skating, whether it's hockey
or figure skating, whatever it is, is one of the very best things I recommend for people
that are aging because it's incredibly effective to maintain your balance.
One skating is a great way to do that and it's great exercise for your legs, so.
We know I panicked the other day.
I was sitting on the couch in an odd position and I realized I must have been sitting there
while my foot fell asleep.
Now, my foot, my whole leg fell asleep and I stood up and I fell down and it collapsed
because I had no use in my leg and it frightened me because that's what it's like to lose.
And you know, just a few seconds later, I shook it off and I was able to get up.
But that was scary to stand up and just collapse because I had no feeling in my foot.
It fell asleep because I was kind of tucked underneath me while I was watching it.
It won't happen at the ice center.
I also want…
In writing.
In writing.
One acknowledge.
We're talking about donors and we're really pleased.
We got a 10,000-hour donation in January from the Koanis Club of Western Seen and it's
a very generous donation, one acknowledge.
I am going to have somewhat in a few weeks from now from the Koanis Club in here.
And he's the new…
I think he's going to be the new president.
I don't want to say that because I'm not quite 100% sure, but he goes to my church and
he was talking to me the other day.
And I always thought the name Koanis was interesting and the movie Lillies of the Field, they're
trying to raise money for this church out in Arizona.
I think in the movie it's in New Mexico and they're trying to raise money for it.
And she's writing to all these philanthropic foundations, the Elts, she's writing to the
Order of Moose, she's writing to all these and she says, she's from Germany, she says,
One animal is a Koanis and she's right, they're all named after animals except the
Koanis.
She goes, what's a Koanis?
So let me just recap here.
This is the Racine County Ice Center.
If you go to the website, it's Racineicecenter.com where you can donate and find out all about it.
And I want to say, I was going to ask because I was looking at something I never seconded
ago.
I'm like, thing went away.
All right.
So the things you want to have there, you want to have hockey for youth hockey, I would
have been an adult.
An adult hockey, but youth hockey, I know you have some pictures on here.
My old general manager at a station used to work at, played hockey for the University
of North Dakota.
And he's from, oh, look at you, you got the hockey basket.
I wore this for decades.
Oh, look at the high school in college.
It's Jason.
Yeah.
Oh, I got to take a picture of you with that hockey mascot.
Anyway, so he played hockey for the University of North Dakota.
He never got out of the system.
And he's still, to this day, I imagine he still plays, but he did one.
We were at the radio station.
He used to go on to a rink and still play hockey, but he played for the University of
North Dakota for years.
I was a terrible goalie, but I played for decades.
And I didn't get my first win until I was 50.
Wow.
So I played for a long time.
But you were healthy.
You, you bike ride all over town.
I see you and your bike with your flashing lights and your, your stuff.
So you, you do that kind of stuff.
I occasionally take a walk on the lakefront.
I used to do it every day with my dog, but he passed away.
And I just, there was no need for me to go out there.
So the other day, I said when it was getting nice, I said, you know, I'm going to, I think
I'm going to, I'm going to get up now.
I'm going to take a walk with the lakefront.
And I thought about it till the thought went away and I sat down.
But I am, when the weather turns nice, I am going to start walking again because, you
know, I don't, I have a bicycle, it's my wife's bicycle, but I don't think it could support
me.
It's not meant for me.
It's, it looks like a, get a new bike and you'll like it.
A lot of people like e-bikes go, go to trek, we're seeing they'll fit you properly to
a bike.
What's an e-bike?
Electric assist.
Really?
And it, a lot of people who are intimidated by cycling and it's important to get fitted
properly to the bike.
And the electric assist helps, has helped a lot of people get into it, particularly since
the pandemic.
Well, the problem on my wife's bicycle when I ride it, my feet are too big, my legs are
too big for, because she's a smaller person.
And I'd like to hit in the steering with the, the, the, the handlebars, they're hitting
that.
They're banging all over the place and I, I tried it once and I, trek for a scene will
fit you properly.
Wow.
All right.
Look at you try to get me in healthy shape, that's not bad.
We're going to come back.
We're going to give a complete review of what we're talking about here.
The Racine Ice Center, case you're just joining us, it's a project that a group of
concerned citizens are working on.
They want to get this ice center up and rolling.
They love a multi use for ice skating, for figure skating, for speed skating, for hockey,
both adult and the youth hockey.
And they want to get it done by maybe late 2025, early 2026, giving it right here, 748
WRJ and radio.
Partly sunny today with a high near 40 degrees.
It's cloudy tonight, lows around 34, cloudy with a high near 45 degrees tomorrow.
Temperatures in the 50s, on Thursday and Friday and coming up, right after we get them
on the break here, I want to talk about our Valentine's prize list we have for Valentine's
Day.
So if you're too cheap to buy your loved one something, you can win everything from WRJ
and radio.
All right.
So, I'll follow the sun and now the time has come and so my love, I must go and though
I lose a friend in the end, you will know one day, you'll find it.
751 at WRJ and radio, Mark Hertzberg is here and Lee Wishaw is here and we're talking
about the Racine Ice Center project they're working on.
And a little birdie just told me that your wife used to be office manager here at WRJ.
She was, yes.
She's listening now.
So when you played the Johnny Mitchell song earlier, I'm sure she was a static.
Big yellow taxi.
Yeah.
Except I played it by somebody else, Tom and Jan said to say hello, Tom Carco and his
wife, Jan, Janet Hoff said to say hello to you, I didn't know that you had a bit of
history here.
Yeah.
You should have said something.
I got spines everywhere, Lee.
They're not.
I know I have people hiding out everywhere filling me with information all the time.
Well, Tom used to refer or excuse me, he used to be an umpire for the Racine City League
softball.
He still called a strike on me one time and it was really a ball, so I'm not real happy
with him right now.
You don't hold grudges.
Yeah, right.
Talk about not letting things go.
You sound like me.
Now I was telling you when I was a kid, there was a place in Copag, Long Island, don't
ask me how to spell it.
Copag, Long Island, it was called all-weather, rolling ice.
Now I showed you the picture of it.
This was a giant facility.
The top part was roller skating, the bottom part was ice skating and I never went there.
My brother used to go there all the time, all my friends went there and I never went
because I didn't skate.
And I didn't want to learn because I didn't want to break my ankles and my mother used
to protect me.
So I couldn't play sports in high school.
She said, you're going to get hurt.
So I didn't do it.
She didn't buy me a mini bike and a whole bunch of things.
So I don't hold grudges either.
Anyway, so, but it was huge and it looked like the size of something you were thinking about
because this was, it was designed from the ground up just to be ice skating and roller skating.
But they had, they closed it down for leagues, certain times of the week and the weekend it
was set up for league like bowling, like a bowling alley.
They said they were ice skating leagues on there.
It was huge.
Now it's a car dealership, you know, things changed in life.
Let's quick review for people just tuning in now.
This is the Racine County Ice Center.
You want to build it.
You want it to be multi-purpose.
You want it to be for just ice skating for fun like New York City, Prometheus, right
in front of Rockefeller Center.
Everybody goes to skate there.
You see it all the time on today's show or all the NBC shows where they film the big
statue of Prometheus and they have an ice skating rink there.
I wonder if that's a champion natural ice skating where it's got to be refrigerated.
It's refrigerated.
So I used to skate at the woman rink in Central Park.
Yeah.
They have a lot of skating there too.
But yours is going to be for fun ice skating.
Then it's going to be for maybe hockey leagues, youth and adult hockey leagues.
The senior leagues, not only kidding, but you're checking there, yes.
We're hoping scholastic leagues in time as well.
And also for maybe speed skating, short track speed skating, broom, broom ball, broom ball.
Broom ball is typically played after a hockey game or figure skating session has done
when the ice is not slippery.
It's all marked up.
Some people run around and basically tennis shows and play broom ball on it.
It's not like curling though.
No, it's not.
No, it's basically like hockey with with the ball on a broom and you're running around
hitting this ball.
If you get hit with it, you're not going to get a broken face like a hockey ball.
Not at all.
Okay.
And so what else am I missing?
You want to learn to skate?
It's a big part of it.
You learn to skate.
People can learn to skate who have never skated before in their life.
There were some people in this room who've never skated before.
There's the first time for everybody, for all of us.
We weren't born with ice skates.
You know, I did put ice skates on once and I couldn't keep my feet straight.
And I was told because the ice skates I was wearing didn't fit my feet well.
But they would like, you know, go from side to side and I just couldn't get it.
Skates need to fit perfectly and they need to be the blade.
It needs to be sharp.
There was a lead to beaver episode where a guy sold him ice skates.
It was a side.
You need to decide six.
He flipped the thing around and sold him a size nine, of course, they didn't fit.
My nickname when I started roller skate hockey as a kid in Central Park was banana peel
because I couldn't stand up.
But you work at it and you master it.
See, you shouldn't tell people that those names kind of come back and honk you later on
in life.
Okay.
So banana peels here, we had glue with Josh and they need your contributions.
They're raising money to build this, this beautiful facility in Racine County.
They're looking at a number of sites.
One is Frank's Phil.
What was the other site you were looking at?
Habin Park.
Habin Park.
I remember when they built Habin Park and it became a nice multi-use soccer field and
baseball and everything now.
But that would have to be, well, the soccer is, Frank Phil.
Habin Park is primarily football.
Football, okay.
But it's right there on the spring street.
Can't just say Habin Park.
I remember when they built the, actually we broadcast from there when they first opened
it up.
And you're looking for maybe a late 20, 25, 26 completion data or at least start building.
How long do you think it would take to build something like that facility, once you
start building?
It sounds pretty complicated.
I would guess it would be about 10 to 12 months to put the facility up, get it running.
And you said you were at 80, about 82% of our goal.
Our initial goal was 8 million.
That's our commitment to the county.
We have now up that goal to 10 million and we're about 82% to wait to 10 million.
Any tax dollars involved in this?
At this point, none.
So a lot of people like when they, they start a project, they don't want tax dollars
in there because then city government can't tell them how to operate or voters can't
tell them how to operate it.
And a lot of people just want to do it from donations.
They don't want tax dollars involved.
The county is going to operate this.
They will send out the request for proposals to architects, designers, contractors, once
the money is raised and there will be 5 million we anticipate in county bonds.
But two thirds of it is raised by us.
And the county takes over the execution of the project and hires somebody to manage it.
Okay.
And I want to get the website.
It's receneicecenter.com, receneicecenter.com.
It's a beautiful website.
It tells you everything you need to know.
Plus, there's places to donate on there.
And you can get this thing rolling and it's for your city, it's for your county for the
county of recene.
Exactly.
They have beautiful facilities.
We've got the Olympic ice, ice rink in Milwaukee, but nothing in recene.
And well, now we're going to change all that, aren't we?
Absolutely.
And this is going to be the round to one of the hot summer day, you want to cool off
on the ice?
You can do it.
Isn't that great?
It's 90 degrees outside.
We used to go to a movie theater to cool off.
Now you go to the ice rink to cool off.
Mark Hertzberg is here, but Ann Peele and I told you, you shouldn't told me that.
We wish us here and they are going to get this thing up and rolling.
And I wanted to come back when you get real close.
I mean, I want that to be that long, long from now.
And we can get donations rolling in the air, okay?
It's 758, WRJN radio.
Stay right, we are.
More coming up.
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