It's time for Make the Call, a weekly discussion on the top Wisconsin sports stories of the week.
You can listen to the show anytime on the free Civic Media app.
Download it now on your devices app store or at civicmedia.us slash app.
Now it's time for Make the Call, a Civic Media sports production.
It is indeed another Saturday morning here on the Civic Media Radio Network, and it is indeed another Make the Call.
Has he heard the big voiceover guys say?
I'm Jimmy Cuska, sports director here at Civic Media.
Thank you for joining us this week for another edition of our weekly sports program.
I am joined today, as always, by Greg Gunderson, member of Upper Management.
Greg, what is going on, man?
Upper Management Things.
Jimmy, that's what we do here.
Yeah, we can't talk about it.
There's a lot of nondisclosures in the offing here.
So we'll turn our attention now to Parker Vertical Olsen.
hanging out in Madison at our main studios for civic media.
Parker, what's going on at HQ?
Um, absolutely no management from me.
I can tell you that much.
There are literally no people I am in charge of, not even myself actually.
Well, you know, you are in charge of like swiping the snacks from the break room.
So, you know, that's, that's a very important.
I'm very good at that.
I do get caught with my hand in the cookie jar pretty often here.
That's my my main task at HQ is making sure there are no leftovers Speaking of that.
Wait, let's let's get into our sports program for today Coming up in a half hour We've got Brian post sick who is the voice of Wisconsin Badgers hockey and we're talking hockey because the Badgers are in the frozen for for the first time in several years looking for their first championship in 20 years from back when I used to be but a
lowly network engineer for the Badgers radio network.
The last time they won a national title, we have some fun stories to share and we'll talk about all things hockey coming up at the bottom of the hour.
Later in the program, Mike Clements will get us an update on all things sports in Wisconsin.
Obviously, there's a lot of things happening with the Milwaukee Brewers and how good of a start that they have had.
And we'll talk a lot of baseball coming up here.
And our top eight at eight and what our top eight at eight is, is the top eight sports stories or not sports stories of the week as viewed by us.
Parker, Gray, and myself.
And we start at number eight in our top eight at eight.
And we start this because just before the show, we watched in terror as the computer froze up for one Gray Godderson after he was telling us about an article he had clicked on from a website he had never heard of.
So the question is, ever click on something you weren't supposed to?
I think I better leave this one off just with a couple details there.
Jimmy, you and I were, and the three of us, we were discussing the topics for the day and I wanted to brush up on free agent quarterbacks that were available because I'd heard rumors about Curt Cousins potentially considering joining the pack and similar things.
And I realized I needed an updated list on who's even available.
So I looked that up and I just, the phrase I searched guys was packers backup QB and immediately top results, somebody paid to get their result up high.
And whoever that was,
I'm not going to hang out with him anymore because it was a 17 hour old article.
I thought, great, that's going to be nice and current.
But when I pulled it up, it in the headline said that the Packers need to find a successor for
backup for Aaron Rodgers.
I was like, wait a minute.
So I looked at the date on the article.
It was yesterday.
This article came out yesterday and it claims that we need to find a backup for Aaron Rodgers.
And then I looked at the picture of Aaron Rodgers in that article and I realized that it was AI generated and things that belonged on the back of his body were on the front of his body.
And I was going to send the link over to the guys here and the link crashed my whole everything.
My everything went down.
So
Let's say it this way.
If you see Aaron Rodgers with misplaced body parts in an AI generated picture, get out.
exit back.
Don't click on it.
You're going to crash.
And that is how this became a sports related topic today.
I hope neither of you guys have anything to add to this because I hope this was just me.
My goodness.
Make the call has
gone zero days without an AI article related incident.
So we're going to hang that right on the shingle outside the door of the studio here.
That is tremendous stuff.
That's how we start the show today.
So we get we're going up from there.
All right, we're going up from there.
And I'm going to start.
I'm just going to write in number seven because I found this to be fascinating.
I saw
I saw a tweet a couple of days ago talking about former Brewers.
This is number seven in our top eight and eight, that some of the Brewers that had left the team through trade, through re-agency in the off-season have really struggled to find a good start in their new homes.
I'm just curious if you guys think that management made the right decisions.
It's way early.
We're talking first week of the season early, but do you think the Brewers, looking at some of the moves, did the right things?
i tend to i tend to believe so but it's really tough to tell jimmy because when you send a player off somewhere it really is a mixed bag what you're going to get you know you can send your best player somewhere and they totally flame out and everybody realizes they've been exposed and all of a sudden the team that let them go said that they is said to have fleeced the other team but is that what's really happening i don't think we can know for sure uh and especially this early so
I believe it's possible that this was a case of, yeah, the Brewers knew what they had better than the teams who took it off their hands, but I don't think we can know that for sure.
However, if this keeps happening and throughout the year you see more of this, then yeah, the only thing we can assume is the Packers knew, or the Power Man, the football guy doing football things, the Brewers knew.
You have to eventually assume that.
I'm just not quite there yet.
Parker, are you, are you believing or is this maybe a fluke still?
I think this is a fluke.
I'm pretty sure that the guys at the Packer, or
Great, you got me.
I just said Packers
too.
I'm pretty sure that the Brewer sent away a couple of really good guys.
Um, Isaac Collins and, uh, Kil Durbin are two of the guys I think that we're talking about here.
They are both guys who had fairly legitimate-
cases for rookie of the year, I think last year.
Um, so to say that they are not, they're not going to do well elsewhere is probably going to be a little, um, little over-reactionary.
Um, however, I will say, I do think that there is something for those, for anybody really, who is being a part of the brewers, being a part of the brewers, being a part of this team that's coached by, or managed rather by Pat Murphy.
I think that actually really does mean something because he tends to find the best in guides.
Um, and I.
Kind of think that maybe it's just gonna be a little bit of a recovery for these guys who are no longer with Murphy who's by the way a two-time manager of the year now
number six in our top eight at eight and this is in regards to the NFL rule changes announced this week now as a special teams guy I'm very excited for all these right This is right up my alley But we do have a handful of rule changes put up by ownership at the owners meetings this week And I'm just curious if you guys are excited about any of the changes that are coming for the upcoming year
Personally, the biggest one for me is that we can now do the onside kick thing any old time.
I understand why they limited it the way they did.
But I think a lot of fans immediately thought, man, this kind of takes away an element of the game that probably belonged.
And it wasn't major.
You know, I don't think the season was ruined by the lack of onside kicks any time.
But I'm happy to see that they're making a more realistic change.
And then, of course, the other kicking based rule changes, at least by my understanding, were mostly to do to
clear up a loophole that some teams took advantage of.
And so always make sense if you're tidying up the loopholes.
What I'm really excited for is that another
Another facet is being added to the kicking game at all, even if it's one that was there before with those earlier onside kicks, because kicking's never been in a better position.
With that K-Ball rule change last year, the long field goals and kickers are better at pinning teams deep than ever before now that they don't want to allow that return.
So I'm excited for kickers to be doing more this year than last year and they already were ratcheting it up.
Parker, is this on the radar for you or is this going to be kind of like last year with little changes on it?
Very much like last year, little changes that are good things.
We shouldn't totally swipe these under the rug.
These are good things that we should be highlighting.
And I think that these are really exciting as well, Gray, for that...
Being able to do an onside kick whenever you want now I'm really excited about that just because you're right It is another component of the game that kind of got taken away I don't know how much it really means though, right?
Because you can't exactly do a surprise onside kick anymore.
You need to announce it with the formations now, so It's a good change, but it's not exactly what we used to have
Those declarations I do have mixed feelings on, but I don't know, maybe that'll be an eventual change.
I am forgetting that there was another major realm of rules changes.
The NFL set the scene for replacement refs.
Did you guys catch that?
Yeah.
One of the rule changes is so that obvious mistakes can be corrected.
If the refs goof up bad enough, the NFL wanted to reserve the right to change the on-field call, specifically if it happens with replacement refs in.
Like, hey, thanks for preventing the fail, Mary, but why don't we prevent the situation that created it first?
It's a half measure if you ask me, but we'll see.
That is number five and a half in our top eight today, but it's also a great topic for us to cover next week.
But I do want to talk about correcting officials in number five in our top eight today, because Major League Baseball did something this year that I think has drawn a lot of praise from folks, and that is the new ABS.
And I'm asking you guys, is it good?
Is it great?
Or don't you like it?
Good.
I think quite good, surprisingly good.
I think a lot of people came into this a little bit skeptical and by a lot of people I mean specifically a couple of guys within MLB who for whatever reason were in the camp that if you've been in the league for a long time you deserve to get those calls.
Which is a weird take, I think, in general.
But I think that even those guys are coming around.
And fans!
Fans love it!
Did you see that Reds game a couple of days ago?
I forget.
I believe it was CB Buckner behind the plate who had a couple of calls get overturned against him.
And the fans were going nuts!
They loved it!
This is good!
I think it's great on that exact basis, Parker.
I'm with you on the good answer, but because something that was, you know, the conversation before this was come was around.
You know, when it was announced, but before we'd seen it happen, it seemed like the takes were a little bit lukewarm.
People weren't sure.
And I was impressed by how open-minded fans are.
I know if you threw something like this into football, people would be like, no, we don't want it, even if it's got benefits, because you're changing things.
So it was kind of cool to me to see the open-mindedness.
And when something that could be bad,
is good, I call that a great result.
So I'm going to go with great here unless you're CB Buckner.
Yeah, if you're CB Buckner, things
are not going well.
Just seeing the
first baseball couple against the rays
a
couple of days ago, just shaking my head.
I'm like, this is why we have robots now.
This is why we have this stuff.
So, uh, let's move on though, as we're running short on time in our opening segment, number four in our top eight at eight.
And this is what got us in the trouble to start to show in the first place.
We asked the question, what's the biggest remaining need for the Packers, whether it's the draft or free agency gray.
Uh, your computer, I don't see is on fire right now.
So we'll go to you.
This is a football question, but, uh, hopefully you didn't Google anything.
that is AI generated, what's your response to this one?
We're going straight off the top of the dome on this one, Jimmy.
I'm not trusting this computer to help me out again this time.
So the Packers have two large remaining needs that I'll identify, one to address through the draft and one probably through free agency.
Draft-wise, wide receiver.
We got assorted out.
We lost Romeo Dobbs.
There's no longer three potential number one receivers.
We've got two and what's Matthew Golden got going on?
So maybe we can add somebody to the mix there to replace the Romeo Dobbs role because he had the sticky hands.
So we have to do that one way or the other.
But
Free agency is where I identify backup quarterback needs.
Frankly, I'm not sure who's available.
And when I tried to ask my computer, it tried to set itself on fire.
But I know Kirk Cousins just got locked up.
I know there's a couple options off the table, but that's what needs to be addressed.
And that's the question.
What's the biggest remaining need?
It might be backup QB, which is a luxury.
Let's be real.
I mean, yeah, I think really hit the nail on the head there.
And it always intrigues me how important those roles that you don't really think about are that backup quarterback role.
We've seen it throughout the years in the blessed history that his Green Bay Packers quarterbacks over the last 30 years now.
From time to time, a guy has to come in and he's got to actually perform and the Packers have been very fortunate to have a pretty good handful of times.
I don't know that they're going to be able to do that again, but maybe somehow, some way they can.
I think I'm a little less worried about wide receiver than you are here, Gray.
I think that the Packers are going to be able to use Matthew Golden pretty effectively.
I do think that they're going to have three pretty strong candidates still in the wide receiver realm.
We have a minute to go here, so we're going to move to number three in our top eight and eight, and this is a very simple question in about 20 seconds or less.
Who do you got left here in the Final Four?
Who do you got in the Final Four on Saturday and then the championship game on Monday?
Parker, we'll start with you.
Well, obviously, these games here are between Yukon in Illinois and then Michigan in Arizona.
I don't know why we're talking about these four teams.
I pick Duke.
I think Duke is going to win the national championship, but my bracket's not doing so hot.
Whatever.
I've got, actually, I think it might go all big 10.
I think Michigan is probably going to win the title that have been very, very good.
Illinois, come on.
Let's go.
I say beat Yukon.
Let's do it.
I have Michigan beating Illinois in the final, enough said.
Big 10, all Big 10 final.
I'm all for it.
We have two more to go in our top eight at eight.
And just remember joining us bottom of the hour.
Speaking of Big 10, we're talking to Brian Posick, who is the voice of Wisconsin Badgers hockey.
The Badgers are in the frozen for again this year.
We'll have that coming up for you here in about 10 minutes.
This has made the call part of the Civic Media radio network.
Welcome back to Make the Call on Civic Media.
We continue along with our top eight at eight here on Make the Call.
We are up to number two in our top eight at eight.
And this topic seems to be a recurring theme.
And fortunately, it's only a recurring theme for a couple more weeks because the season is mercifully done for the Bucks as they are currently in the 10th spot at NBA draft lottery odds right now.
And I have to ask the question again this week, are we
Now, entering the final two weeks of the Yanis-Hatena-Kutpo era in
Milwaukee.
No, I don't think so.
I have long been in the camp.
The Bucks are still going to hang on to Yanis, even through this offseason, and that he's going to stick around for at least a little while in the 2026-2027 NBA season.
I think that they're going to give it one more try during the year, and then if that doesn't go well, then he'll get...
trade it away for what ultimately could be a pretty good deal.
Um, I guess the, the bucks in my mind is the one thing to weigh really here is, is it more worth trading Yanis right now to try to get the haul that you would get for him or and try to use those pieces to rebuild right now?
Or do you wait, try again after whatever little bit that you can do this off season.
Those are kind of the two options.
I think that you should try to hang on to him.
You need to remember this is a generational player who will be in all fame.
I say hang on to him for a little while longer.
I agree with you on the sense it makes to try that, but I'll admit I'm not super optimistic that it's going to work.
Like, I agree with you on the value and trying to maximize that and giving it one more shot.
But at the same time, if it was not going to happen, there are multiple people involved who
would have the opportunity to say so.
And maybe everybody's just decided, let's stop responding to the rumors, which is going to feed them for a while until they die.
But I like when people come out and say, no, this just isn't true.
Like you don't need the truth, but that reports a lie.
And we could have seen stuff like that, you know?
So I'm not blaming anybody.
If it if if the reports are inaccurate, if he is all in on staying there, great, I would love that.
But I think it makes sense to try.
And I think it's not going to work because I don't know, the writing's on the wall, maybe it's too many headlines.
but somebody could have said something that would make me more optimistic and nobody has.
Yeah, it's been a weird situation for the start really for this, right?
It's like there was smoke, then there was a lot of smoke.
And now it's like, it's not a wildfire, but it's like, we're just seeing a whole lot of smoke in the forest fire, right?
So we're trying to figure out where it's coming from.
And it's a struggle.
Just watching Doc Rivers and press conferences and hearing them this week after they clinched a losing record, say like, well, I've never had a healthy team since I've been here.
And there's some truth to that.
I mean, every time that they thought they put together a contender, there's been an injury that's kind of sidetracked this whole thing, right?
They never really got
to experience, you know, Yannis and Dane playing together for extended periods with Chris Middleton in the mix.
Like it, you know, even this year, Yannis has been hurt most of the year with some digging leg injuries.
So there is a little bit of truth to that, but it just, it's such a weird situation.
Like, why are we here?
It's a franchise player, a guy who's, who literally saved basketball in Milwaukee.
And we're talking about, okay, what can we get in draft picks for him?
And it just, it's so weird.
I almost worry that something is gonna like all hit it once you know right when the season ends like hey fire dock rivers and some announcement comes out about Giannis alongside like it almost feels like there's one big bad day coming that'll resolve it all in the worst way and I have no reason to believe that it's paranoia but I don't know if there was something that happened that kind of explained everything that was confusing us now that would at least make sense to me you know it feels like we're missing info
I wonder, maybe I'm not paying close enough attention to this, but does it give you shades of Aaron Rodgers at all and like trying to have a hand in what's going on?
Well, that's just Rodgers, but far too.
I mean, we've gone through this Wisconsin a lot.
I'm with you on that.
There are some some parallels to it.
Guys, we have only a couple minutes here and we got to get to the number one in the top eight at eight.
Uh, we'll have plenty of time to talk about the bucks here in a couple of weeks.
So I wanted to ask you guys though about the Brewer's start.
This is number one, by the way, in our top eight at eight, because the brewers are off to a really good start.
They had the best record in baseball through a week.
And this is a difference from last year where they started out the year really, really badly on their first four games this year.
They've
Not pretty well the first six games for, you know, seven, eight games that they've had.
I just, I'm curious about whether you guys are all in on what they're doing here because, you know, again, most of the preseason stuffs, the brewers weren't going to have a shot at, you know, winning the division.
There's going to be all Cubs, Dodgers are winning the World Series.
I'm just curious what you guys are with the brewers after a good start.
I am not gonna say that I'm all-in, which is probably kind of a hot take, frankly, given how good the Brewers are.
I mean, we're looking at a record number of strikeouts in that first game in that opening day.
Records, I think, broken, I'm assuming, for stolen bases.
They've got a ton of stolen bases through these first two series, as well as, I don't remember any errors.
I don't know that there's been a defensive error for the Brewers yet, which is...
I would have to think a record, right?
That all said, that's all the positive things.
And the bullpen, by the way, the bullpen has been incredible.
I think that's really what they can attribute their success to more than anything right now, because, and this is kind of the flaw that I'm seeing, the brurs aren't exactly pouring it on throughout the game offensively.
They kind of just find one inning and they go off during that.
They'll get their tic-tac run, er.
I should rephrase that.
They get their runs in small quantities here and there, like they'll get a homer here, a homer there, and then in one inning they'll go nuts.
And that's pretty much what they've done in every game except for the one they lost very early on.
I'm a little worried that the offense isn't kind of going to have that same thing that they had against the Dodgers, Greg.
I think he just kind of perked up there.
No, I'm with you because it, you know, and of course, how is Greg going to make this answer about football?
Last year, the Chicago Bears, they were outscoring everybody.
They were letting a lot of points through, but they found their success with a ridiculous turnover margin.
And the word that I used a lot last year, Parker, was that style of success is not.
sustainable.
You cannot always depend on that one good inning, that one good quarter of football.
And so I'll use you another football analogy to tell you why I'm not all in on the Brewers yet this year.
It's because it's so early.
Now, as a fan, as a lover of the spectacle of the best and most and the extremes that you see in athletics, okay, cool.
The Miz is him.
I'm with a couple of things here, but all in, no, because as Xavier McKinney said last year, a lot of teams start out 2-0 and don't amount to
Swear word I can't say here, but you get the idea.
A lot of teams start hot and then flop.
It's still possible.
It's Saturday morning.
We could say whatever we want, right?
Wait, you're up for management.
I can't say that in front of you.
The Brewers do indeed lead the MLB in stolen bases by a good margin, by the way.
So they are doing some things well here to get started.
I would say yes.
It's very early, but it's very exciting that they're after a good start for starting off so poorly a year ago.
We are moving on to talk Badgers Hockey with the voice of Wisconsin Badgers Hockey, Brian Posick.
And he'll join us next right here.
I'll make the call part of the Civic Media radio network.
Welcome back to Make the Call on Civic Media.
Welcome back.
It's the bottom of the hour, which means it's time for our guest segment as part of Make the Call, and we've made the call to the voice of Badger's hockey, Brian Posig.
Brian, it is great to talk to you about Badger's hockey because, you know, the last time men's hockey made the Frozen Four, I happened to be but
one of many engineers along the line for the championship call that year.
And it takes me back to a couple of decades ago, just thinking like, wow, the Badgers are back in this.
And how cool it is after all the things that have happened with Badgers hockey since then, it is so cool they're back.
And it's great to have you here, Brian.
Well, Jimmy, thanks for having me.
And yeah, it's been a long time.
I mean, you think last frozen four was 2010 in Detroit, lost to Boston College.
That was Wisconsin's
First Toby Baker Award winner was Blake Jeffery on that season and four years prior to that was Wisconsin's last national championship season of 2006.
Winning of the Bradley Center in Milwaukee against Boston College on Tom Gilbert's go-ahead goal halfway through the third period of play.
Yeah, it's been a long time coming, but I think my casings we've seen was the appropriate hire by the University of Wisconsin to move the
program back to where it once was and hopefully you see another winner too in Las Vegas here next week.
It's really cool that the frozen four field is it's the four teams that have the most national titles so what a field in this event and for Wisconsin getting there you know the overtime game I just let's go back to the regional final just for a second because just the ability to come back in that moment is absolutely wild and this is part of what makes hockey so great is that things can turn around in quite a hurry.
Oh no doubt about it and you know wisco jumped out to that one nothing lead in the second period you're feeling good and they were playing well against michigan state and granted the spartans lost their top line senator charlie stramel of former badger he broke his ankle on a shot from one of his teammates maximum maximum stir back so that that set them back there's no question but it aided wisconsin still you know the spartans score three unanswered it's three one there's you know under eight minutes to go.
under seven, under six to go.
Mike Hastings is thinking, all right, when do I pull our goaltender for an extra attacker?
Because we need two to tie.
And then lo and behold, they attack and Luke Osborne picks up some loose change and beats Trey Augustine, probably the best goaltender in the country to make it three, two and 34 seconds later, virtually the same play on the opposite side.
Gavis Morris, he picks up some loose change and beats Augustine, it's three, three.
And at that time, you know,
where we were positioned and Wooster, you're feeling, oh, okay.
Wisconsin's got all the momentum.
This is their game.
And if you talk to the players, to a man and the coaching staff, they felt the same way that the momentum had completely turned in that game.
And when Dexheimer throws what he called a muffin at the net and it hit Sturback and went past Augustine and they score and win that hockey game, it was one of one of the highlights of my career, to say the least.
Talking to Brian Posick is the voice of Badgers hockey.
I just I
I love the excitement of hockey.
It's one of the reasons why I personally like the broadcasted as well, to have moments like that.
And now a chance for some even bigger moments.
North Dakota, the first one up for Wisconsin in the frozen poor.
Yet another team that brings a pretty good challenge for Wisconsin.
Because the Badgers, when you look at statistics, they're pretty even with opponents in a lot of categories.
Very much so.
I mean, you look at all four teams that are there, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Michigan, Denver, they're among the top 10 teams in the country in scoring offense.
The one position where Wisconsin and Michigan probably a little bit more alike than the other two.
Defensively, while their goaltending has been good, they still give up two and a half, three goals a game.
So you look at North Dakota, Denver, their victory margin is much larger than Wisconsin's.
There's no question about that.
But, I mean, just the talent level, the history of these programs.
I mean, Denver's won 10 national championships, Michigan's won nine, North Dakota's won eight, Wisconsin's won six.
Minnesota's 1-5, they're not there, they didn't even make the tournament.
So can you ask for a better field for an NCAA Frozen 4 anywhere, let alone Vegas, where nobody sleeps?
And I'm hoping I get some sleep at some point down there, but you never know.
It turned out to be, I mean, I don't know if you can write a script better than that.
You've got four teams there, Michigan's been ranked number one
in the country this season.
North Dakota, Denver as well.
Wisconsin was as high as number two.
The Badgers are the dark horse in this field because of how things have transpired throughout the season, but I think it's up for grabs.
Anybody can win this one.
When you look at the Badgers, just the overall depth of the team.
Obviously, a net pretty good one in Hauser, but you look at the depth of just the roster and the lineup.
They've got pieces everywhere.
It's a lot like the successful teams in any other sport.
A lot of guys really bought into roles that they have on the team, and it's pretty clear to see that they got some standouts in some key areas.
Yeah, certainly.
I mean, Gavin Morris, he's their leading point getter.
He's a sophomore, centerman, assistant captain.
The average is about a point per game.
Christian Fitzgerald's on his left, and Fitz he's, you know, reached a career high in goals in college, and he's one of the top power play performers in all the country.
And then Quinn Finley, who's been hot lately.
He, when Wisconsin went through its six game losing streak back in January, he didn't have a single point.
And, and so now all of a sudden he comes, comes on fire.
and he's got six goals in the last 10 games, and he scored more points in the regional level of the NCAA tournament than anybody else.
So you've got those three guys leading the way, but you can move on down the line.
Simon Tassie has seen your scores two goals in the regional semi against Dartmouth.
Oliver Tulk, who's a second line centerman, produced a couple of points and was fantastic in the face-off circle.
And then you go to the D-Core too.
I mentioned Luke Osburn, who's just a freshman and just a star in the making in my belief.
in many people's eyes too but you've got the one of the top defensemen in all the country and Ben Dexheimer who leads the way so they've got a lot of pieces in various different areas and just that that want to that determination that grit we saw when you can score two goals in the final five minutes and get to overtime and knock out the number one seed in your region.
Wisconsin Badgers-Mens hockey is in the frozen for and there will be coverage on civic media stations Coming up WFHR and Wisconsin Rapids will have coverage of that coming up Yeah on April almost at August April 9th and 11th.
That's a long there'd be a long wait if it was a little layoff between games there No talking to Brian Posick who does the broadcast for Badgers hockey on the men's hockey team this year, you know undercoach Hastings, you know the last couple of years there's been kind of a
I don't want to say it's been a sharp progression, but it just feels like for Badgers hockey to find its way competitively to be among the top teams in the nation this year, it almost felt a little out of nowhere.
Like all of a sudden the Badgers program has, you know, it's arrived to a moment where they're competitive nationally.
So what has that ascent been like just from your perspective and being with it day to day?
Because finding the Badgers in the frozen forest, a little bit of an unexpected, happy surprise for people who follow all things Badgers.
What do you think about it you know when they won the national title in nineteen ninety they went to the frozen for in ninety two oh six twenty ten and now so it's nineteen ninety jimmy right that's thirty five thirty six years this is only the fourth frozen for this is not what wisconsin hockey fans certainly long time wisconsin hockey fans are used to but you know so mike comes in two years ago when twenty six games.
They're battling for the Big Ten Conference regular season title down to the final weekend against Michigan State.
They don't win it, get knocked out of the first round of the Big Ten tournament, and then they go to Hampton, Connecticut and weren't on their A-game and eventually lost to Quinnipiac in overtime.
Then the following year, last year, they won half as many games as they won the first year under Mike.
So to believe that this was expected this year,
I don't know if that's accurate.
I think expectations every year as Wisconsin should be there.
But I'm not sure if anybody realized that they could reach this level, especially after you start 15-3 and 2, and then you lose 6 in a row.
You kind of write the ship after injured players like Morrissey and Vasily Zelenov come back.
But then first round of the Big Ten tournament, you get smoked at home 7-1, and you're thinking, well, this team can't do anything.
And then they have two weeks off.
They somehow get into the tournament thanks to results from other conference tournaments.
And lo and behold, the team that allowed them to get in, they play in the first round.
And it's 1-1 with 10 minutes to go against Dartmouth until Jack Horbach scores the go-ahead goal, and the Badgers added three more.
Yeah, the expectation is there every year that Wisconsin is going to compete at this level.
You get to the frozen four for a national championship.
But until they do it consistently, I don't know how you can believe any other way that you'd like to see it.
You hope it happens.
But we need to see it on an annual basis that this is going to happen.
And maybe two out of three years with Mike is just the start of really great things to come.
Ryan Postic who broadcast for Badger Saki joining us here on make the call in civic media.
I want to
switch gears just for a bit here at the end.
Cause I want to talk about women's hockey.
Obviously the women's hockey program, you talk about annual expectations.
It's almost championship or bust at this point for women's hockey.
So obviously this is a program that's got a lot of success.
And again, this year, not only with the NCAA, but in the Olympics as well.
You know, just for you, obviously you've got a lot of very strong personal connections to that program as well.
just give me a little bit on what even this year or just what Badger women's hockey has been just how they've risen to become the juggernaut of all things college hockey.
This is incredible.
Yeah, really.
And it starts obviously with Mark Johnson, you know, the magic man from the Miracle on Ice and yeah, his
people will knock down doors to come and play for Mark Johnson at Wisconsin.
There's no question about it.
They were driven to win back-to-back, and they got it done.
In a challenging year, when you think about it, Mark lost five players to the Olympics.
Four for Team USA, and then Adela Shope and Vali Vova ended up playing for Czechia.
And in that span, there are eight games they still had to play in the WCHA without them.
And Lacey Eden, a young lady who was cut from the Olympic team for the second time in her career, put the team on her back for a lack of a better term and willed them to the WCHA regular season championship.
The young ladies come back from Italy, four with gold medals, obviously, and then Adela too.
And while they lost in the conference championship game to Ohio State, that added extra fuel to the fire.
They rolled through the quarter-final round, they get through the semis, and here you are playing in Ohio State again.
And the semi-final game against Penn State was nipping tuck, obviously, until Kirsten and Sim scored in overtime.
But the Ohio State gave me a jump out to nothing against them.
And Ava McNaughton was fantastic in goal.
And they found a way to get it done.
And a senior, Claire Enright, comes through with a game winner.
If you're good enough, who wouldn't want to play at the University of Wisconsin?
So he's got nine in counting, Jimmy.
And I wouldn't be surprised if Mark's around for 10, 11, 12, because I can't see him doing anything else than what he's doing right now.
And that's Coach Anaki.
Well, right now, currently, the state of hockey in Wisconsin is very good.
Obviously, the Badgers, women's champions, men are in the Frozen Four, River Falls, women won another national championship.
Phil Cranston, what a
job.
UW Stout gets to the Frozen Four for the first time in, what, 10, 15 years.
I mean, that's great stuff for college hockey in this state.
Yeah, it is.
There's definitely been a lot of great things happening in the hockey world in Wisconsin.
And well, you've been a part of it at all those levels.
I've covered it from a few.
angles myself, but not quite to where you're at at your level.
And I'm so thrilled that you are going to take in yet another Frozen 4 experience, Brian.
It's great to catch up with you and talk about your hockey.
I appreciate all your time.
Have fun in Vegas.
And we'll look forward to your calls here coming up on April 9th and 11th.
Thanks, Jimmy.
I feel lucky.
And I'm hoping
that I get a little luck in Vegas as well.
Brian Posnick, the voice of Badger Zaki.
Thanks for joining us here.
We'll be back right after this.
You're listening to Make the Call, part of the Civic Media radio network.
Welcome back to Make the Call on Civic Media.
One final time for Make the Call here this morning on the Civic Media Radio Network, and it's a chance for us to duck in before Mike Clements updates us on all things sports.
Also, again, a big thanks to Brian Postick for joining us in the previous segment.
Parker, we've had a lot of time to talk about some fun potential topics today.
I'm just wondering if there are any final thoughts for you here this week.
I mean, I'm immediately going to the Brewers, obviously.
I'm really interested in seeing how they do in their first road series here now that they're on the road in Kansas City right now.
The Brewers, I believe, had the best record in baseball.
Oh, they did have the best record in baseball last year.
I believe they had the best road record in baseball last season.
So it's going to be something that I've got my eyes on is how they can do
carrying on that success, and I don't really understand why that is.
I don't know how, because in baseball, there is literally an advantage to being the home team.
So being able to win on the road is really impressive, and if the Brewers can keep doing that, I don't know what it is that they are able to do that lets them do this so much, but if they can keep doing that, they're kind of, I know earlier I said I'm not 100% all in on this, but they're poised to win.
a lot of games.
Gray, final thoughts besides updating your computer's anti-virus system.
Yeah and running a couple scans as i've already been doing jimmy i about a week ago maybe a week and a half ago i found myself just in a really good mood and i wasn't sure why and i thought i know the temps are warm i know that spring is coming and that's what it was but i wasn't fully there it's that spring sports picked up it's that the brewers are there it's that in the background here in park falls i hear the brewers just playing so often now and it just the vibe has entered the air whether the weather gets it or not it's spring and that is.
That's what's buoying me this weekend.
While hearing the ping of the softball and baseball bats of the parks near my house, it certainly lets me know that we are well on our way.
Guys, great to have you aboard this week.
Have a great Easter weekend if you celebrate, and we'll be back here next week to talk all things sports.
Thanks, Jimmy.
Thanks, Jimmy.
Mike Clements will get us updated on all things sports here coming up in just a few seconds.
Again, a big thanks to Parker and Gray, as well as Brian Posick for joining us here on Make the Call Today, part of the Civic Media Radio Network.
Mike Clements!
This gets us updated now with everything happening in the sports world in Wisconsin.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
A double header today.
Hi, I'm Mike Clemens with Sports Baseball.
Rain last night in Kansas City, so the Brewers and the Royals will face off today in a split double header at Kaufman Stadium.
The Royals head into the series at 500 with a record of three and three, the Brewers five and one.
The play of the week had to be last Sunday with the Brewers down seven to two at home against the Chicago White Sox.
The crew battled back with two men on and two out, bottom of the eighth, and Jeff Levering with the call.
Good vibes, 2-2.
The Brewers went on to win 9-7 thanks to the heroics of team captain Christian Yelich.
You know when you're not starting the game, that situation and that spot is like a possibility the entire day.
So you're just trying to get yourself ready and stay loose in the cage, follow the game.
find the spots where you might have a chance to hit or a spot where Murph would want you to hit.
So, you know, that's really how you spend your day.
And just a great opportunity came up there because the guys had a lot of really good at bats in front of me.
So the Brewers are off to a fast start.
They lead the league in stolen bases and are so effective at running on the base pads.
Second baseman, Bryce Terrang.
Yeah, free bases are huge in this game.
Gives you another opportunity.
It could turn a single into a double.
Gives us a chance to score a run.
And we put the pressure on teams.
We have a lot of guys who can run really well and put the ball in play.
And just the thought of us doing that or the thought of us running or stealing a base or taking an extra base can maybe cause a little
a little confusion or anything.
So and that's also the style of game we play.
All these guys in here want to play like that.
So that's kind of what we're trying to do.
The Brewers welcome shortstop Cooper Pratt to the ball club.
The 21 year old now on the 40 man roster Brewers manager Pat Murphy.
Yeah, what's not to like?
I mean aptitude.
You know, he's a baseball player.
He's a good baseball player.
He's got a ways to go.
He's got to develop a great human
worker.
The team signing Pratt to an eight year deal.
over 50 million dollars.
Why did they sign a player that so far is unproven?
General manager Matt Arnold.
The type of person that he is is super important when you're making a commitment like this and you know he's a he's a baseball rat you know I think at at his core he just loves the game he loves to play he loves to practice you know and when you talk to somebody like
Christian Yelich, you know, you have to love the game.
You have to you have to love being around it and practicing is is is one of the hardest things to do in our sport.
You know, and you have to love everything about that because it is such a grind.
And I think the fact that Cooper loves baseball loves being around it.
He comes from a baseball family.
All those things are are certainly they vote in his favor, you know, to be successful down the road.
NBA the Bucks with another blowout loss.
This time at home, last night against the Boston Celtics, the final 133-101 in favor of the Celtics.
The Bucks playing a lot of their younger players again.
Earlier this week, Usman Jang picked up in that deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder at a career high 36 points against the Rockets in Houston.
Bucks guard, Cormac Ryan.
Yeah, I mean, Us and I played together in OKC last year for a number of games.
And if you talk about versatility, like, he's got size, he can handle the ball, he can shoot, he can play.
Obviously, when we're down on bodies, you need versatility.
You need guys to kind of do a little bit of everything.
And he did that.
Obviously, a terrific game.
Kept us in it at that time.
His shot making and his creating.
Good things happen.
Meanwhile, Yannis and Tenacupo says he's more than ready to play again after suffering a hyperextended knee a month ago.
After the game, head coach Doc Rivers was asked to react to a report that the Bucks are now under investigation by the league and the Players Union.
I wouldn't know any of that.
And that's the point I'm trying to make.
They're not going to call me about this.
They know I have no decision making in this.
And if they have decided or started talking to us, this is the first I've heard it.
So I don't even know that.
Nor should I. Nor should I. But I just don't like that this is so public and it shouldn't be.
This is where grown men get in the room and they talk it out.
Whether they agree or disagree, that doesn't matter.
But this should not be public.
And I don't like that.
The Bucks host the Memphis Grizzlies, 3.30 tomorrow afternoon with just five games left to play.
Gary Trent Jr.
was asked, what is there really to play for?
You gotta go all out.
Be the best teammates you can be.
and go out and fight.
The season is not over yet.
We still have a brand of basketball.
The Bucks want to play a certain style.
We want to complain and continue with from now on to the future.
And again, you got to legwork that and ground that now.
You know, obviously for you to get to a great point, you got to have some rough patches to get where you want to get to work through things.
But that's what we're going to do.
That's the Bucks.
Gary Trent, Jr.
with sports.
I'm Mike Clements.
