Rafters Updates!

Good afternoon, Wisconsin.

Welcome to WFHRs, Playmakers.

Let's get to it.

Let's start the show.

Good afternoon, everybody.

And welcome to Quality Plus Printsings, joining us, giving us playmakers.

I want to shout them out right away.

I want to get them in there as much as we can because we are so happy to be here with

all of you.

Thank you guys.

Missed you.

We are here.

James is here behind the mic.

I'm here.

I'm never going to do that again.

I promise to never talk in third person again.

Randy Paul is with us.

Randy, good to see you.

Yeah, Randy's here too.

Randy, that's a good screen.

Shaq is the only person that could do the whole third person big as far as I'm concerned.

I am not at that level.

I am excited, though, because we got a fun show today.

We're here all week.

We'll be here Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Randy, it just hit me about five minutes before we got on the air here that we got a show

all week this week.

I want Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

We're going to be here.

I'm excited about that.

We're also excited to be joined by our friends from Tri-Norris ski club.

They're going to be joining us.

Either calling up, I believe they're going to be calling up at any moment now, looking

forward to that.

So we're going to talk a little bit about their Nordic days coming up.

Hopefully they had a perfect pregame right into playmakers today.

Shout out to Midday Magazine's Scheduler Pam Hilke, the heart of this station, and having

the Raptors, new Raptor members joining us in some of the new front office members joining

us right before we got into the show here.

Want to remind everybody that the hot stove event is right around the corner.

Get your tickets for that, and meet us at the hotel bead for that.

It's going to be a fun event.

We'll talk more about that.

And Raptors and River Kings a little bit later, Randy has some good coverage for us on

that and looking forward to it.

About five o'clock, five thirty, we will join Randy with that.

But Randy, first off, how was your week?

How was your new year's starting?

How's it going?

Well, it's been a while since I've had a chance to sit behind the desk here, and it's

yeah, it was very blessed and we had a lot of family over and everything went just smooth

this could be.

So just nice to get into the new year now and having a nice cool start here the next

couple days, but I think it's going to warm up for us and then back into the freezer

next week, maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Otherwise, it's been pretty well.

Good to hear.

Good to hear.

How about you?

Not bad.

Not bad.

I've been busy.

It seems like since the new year's day, it's been a blur and just like, oh, it's already

the 13th.

How did that happen?

It's been a busy time.

And it's not just I think in our own personal lives and kind of getting back into the swing

of things through the holiday marathon, but sports has been crazy.

Everybody is fighting for our eyeballs and our attention.

And it's not even just one sport, but like football is devouring itself with college and

pro football and everything and there's just not enough time in the day to be able to

focus and take in all of these sports.

But we're trying and thankfully we've got three shows to do it.

We've got three hours this week to do it with you and be able to cover all of this.

And as long as we're waiting on our friends from Tri-Norris Randi, there's really only one

place we can start.

And that is with the Green Bay Packers and coming out of the game yesterday.

And I think there's a, I want to hear from the audience.

I want to hear from actual Packer fans about how you feel about this team, how you feel

about the season and how you felt about that game yesterday.

But I do got a couple of places to start us off.

There's a phrase Jim Collins had, good is the enemy of great.

And it's an interesting phrase and it's debatable, I think.

But it's something that Green Bay could be in a situation of and has been in before.

And whether this is a good or a bad place again is completely, you know, arbitrary.

It's completely up to you.

But right now we have a team that is the youngest in the NFL and that has, at least off the

top of my head, nine to 10 first round draft picks.

Now usually you only get good draft picks and everything when you're drafting in the top

town or something like that.

But the NFL has proven otherwise, you know, see Lamar Jackson being drafted last pick

in the first round.

And plenty of other examples there.

But you've got a lot of talent on this team.

You've got a lot of energy on this team or a lot of excitement for this team.

You just paid your quarterback.

There is a coaching staff and a coach in place that isn't going anywhere.

While I heard a lot of people complaining about Matt LaFlor today yesterday and today on

social media and all that and a little bit on the radio, I don't believe anybody thinks

that he's going anywhere in the off season.

He's going to be there next year.

What you have right now though is a team that's good.

That's great.

But how far that gets you is what you've seen.

You're not getting out of the first round if you, unless you play a Dallas team that is

run by Mike McCarthy, other than that, we don't know.

And this is again, I brought up a young team.

So keeping that in mind and keeping in mind that this team at this front office has also

proven, we got holes in our team.

We're losing Aaron Jones, one of the spark plugs of our team.

Let's go ahead and get a younger spark plug in Josh Jacobs and hit Hill and he ends up being

the MVP of the team, I believe this season.

You know, again, you guys can correct me.

But by far and away, I think Josh Jacobs was the MVP for the Green Bay Packers this

year.

He might have gotten himself into the Packer Hall of Fame with that season he had this

year.

He's not going anywhere, but they've shown, okay, we will address situations.

We will address holes in the team.

So taking that in mind and having a hopeful perspective, I would think, as a Packer fan,

going into next season, hey, maybe they'll grab an offensive lineman, maybe they'll grab

a defensive lineman, maybe they'll grab a corner.

The Grab T Higgins, like everybody keeps saying, one of these things, all of that in mind,

one thing that has been very consistent with this team, the body language and the leadership

on this team, the maturity of this team.

I understand I've said it twice already, see youngest team in the NFL.

They're also grown men, they're all adults, all getting paid thousands, if not millions

of dollars to play a kids game for a living.

And one of the biggest things that they teach you in business, in sports and all of the above

is your body language and how you treat your teammates, how you treat the game.

And I've talked before about Jordan Love and his body language after a bad play.

I've talked about it.

I don't, Jordan Love is like, lovey Smith to me.

If you just focus on him, I have no idea how that team is doing until something bad happens.

And I see it.

Yeah, I see a little bit of excitement after a cool touchdown or something like that.

But really, the only emotion you see is him shaking his head back and forth.

Or like, oh, here we go again, when Christian Watson goes down and look at him, the camera

goes to him and immediately shaking his head and like, oh, no, and the world is falling

in all this.

And I keep blaming this young man.

And then I look at his head coach.

And I did not, I've not really looked at Matt Lafleur, Matt Lafleur has skated by my

vision because of his winning record.

And we see the same stat almost every packer game.

Well, the second winning is coach and green Bay history and all that.

But Matt Lafleur's body language is some of the worst I've ever seen in a head coach.

He has almost no accountability, almost no leadership, none.

And when you have a guy who, again, I don't know Matt Lafleur and he wouldn't know me.

And him and I aren't having a beer together any time soon.

But when I, when I see a guy who seems to pay more attention to his haircut than the

game calling, when I see a guy who keeps making mistakes at the end of games, costly mistakes.

And when I see a team that is the youngest in the NFL that needs coaching, where's the

coaching?

I see a bunch of guys out there that want to look good.

I see a bunch of guys out there that want to, you know, certainly be able to do their

cool moves and everything when they make a big play or something like that.

But I don't see a team.

I don't see a team, Randy.

I don't see a bunch of guys that want to fight and play for each other.

Now, I believe that they do.

I can't imagine any football team from pop Warner to the NFL that doesn't go out there

and want to fight and play for each other, especially in the playoffs.

But I don't see any of it.

And I will say this, as long as Matt LaFlor is that head coach, I'm done being afraid

of that team.

I'm done.

I'm done being afraid of them.

I don't care if we're going into week 16 next year and Jordan Love is the MVP candidate

and the Packers are 16 and oh, I am not afraid of that team because I see no toughness in

that team.

I see no leadership in that team.

And the body language of that team tells me all I got to do is punch them in the mouth.

I punch them in the mouth.

They're done.

They're done.

That opening kickoff goes the way it does and that game was almost done.

I'm talking to other Packer fans and I'm trying to be, you know, pick them up and everything.

I'm pretty good at this as a Chicago fan.

I've been happy to do this my whole life.

It's pick up and, you know, hey, David Smith scores a touchdown on the opening play of

the Super Bowl and everything else is horrible.

But that whole game I was trying to tell my family, my friends, oh, it's okay.

It could be all right.

Rex Grossman playing in Florida.

He's from here.

He gets this.

It didn't go well.

I know what I'm talking about with that and all I can, I'm scraping at the bottom of

the barrel trying to find things to be positive about about that team.

And by the end of the game, all I can see is look at the leader of the team, is look

at Matt LaFlor.

And I don't think Matt LaFlor deserves to lose his job.

I don't think that he is a bad coach, but he has horrible body language and horrible

it's in with that bad leadership.

I never saw Bill Parcell's crying his eyes out in a press conference or on the sidelines

like this guy.

I'm not saying that coaches don't whine.

They all do.

That's how you get calls half of these guys and everything and all of them can lose

their minds.

But my God, Matt LaFlor, it seems, it comes across like a whiny baby and I don't know

how you win with that.

I've never seen that win a Super Bowl.

And that is not only the hottest seat in the NFL in the next season, I believe.

It has to be.

I don't know how it can't be with the money that's putting that at team and the first round

draft picks and all of that.

But I don't know how you fix something like that.

Am I alone on this?

Do you see any of that?

Randy, do you guys see any of that 715-424-2600 hitting in the numbers?

Call up and join the conversation.

Shut me up.

Tell me, I don't know what I'm talking about.

I want to be corrected on this.

I want to be wrong.

I don't think I am.

What do you see?

Well, you know, there's a thinking about being a young team and I was thinking back

of the year in Rogers, first or second year, they were like six and ten.

So, you know, struggling as he is, yesterday I think there was nine or ten starters that

were out.

That's half your football team.

Oh, yeah.

And so, you know, that makes it kind of tough when you've got backups in there.

They're just trying to survive much less.

And you can see when they brought in that replacement for Elton Jenkins, that young man was

not ready.

And then the next person up for him, he ends up falling on Josh Mayer's leg.

Yeah.

Horrible.

Just a horrible accident.

And they were talking, you know, I'm just listening to the start of the game on the radio

and they were talking about all Luke Musgrave might be able to stretch the field and take

the place of what Watson wasn't able to do.

Did Musgrave play yesterday?

I'm not even sure.

And I didn't see hardly any of that in the game.

So if you call it Musgrave, they were actually missing nine players yesterday.

Six got hurt during the game, Romeo Dobbs, Jayden Reed, Josh Jacobs.

It actually got hurt a little bit towards the end of the ballgame.

Jenkins and Myers, as we said, Quay Walker got hurt, he hurt his ankle, Jair didn't play,

Watson didn't play.

And again, where it was Musgrave, I'm not sure.

I didn't see anything about him not playing.

So if you're missing half your team, that makes it really, really tough.

And so, yeah, I don't know.

I think it's just going to be one of those situations where you're going to have to let

him grow a little bit.

Add a few more veterans.

I think good, good decisions to add McKinney as well as Jacobs, and if they can get

another corner.

I think personally, Jair's time in Green Bay is done.

Yeah.

He's just hurt.

And this is seven games every year, and you just can't continue to keep throwing a back

up in there.

And they're going to have to get somebody in free agency.

And it really is a strong possibility to volunteer Adams comes back.

Yeah.

He's talking like he wants to come back to Green Bay.

And it would kind of remind me of Charles Woodson, right?

Yeah.

How he was in Oakland, and then he went back there after Green Bay.

I would love to see that, especially for Devote Adams.

I have some of my favorite feet in the NFL.

If you watch Devote Adams' feet before the set up, before the hunt and everything,

it's some of the coolest stuff you'll ever see.

His footwork is amazing.

And you know, last year, the big talk was not having a number one receiver was maybe

a good thing because then you have multiple choices.

But at other times, if you don't have a go-to guy in a situation where it's a third

and three, and you end up having to throw it to Malik, you know, on the outside, that's

they saw he's got his foot down out of bounds and that end of that drive.

I want to say one thing real quick.

If you notice when I was talking about this game, I didn't say one, anything about they

should have won the game or them losing the game or anything like that.

You lost to a good team.

I don't believe there are upsets in the NFL playoffs.

I don't believe there are any upsets.

I don't care if an eight beats a one, that's not an upset.

We're talking about football.

I'm not going to over-explain that to anybody.

I don't believe that there are upsets.

Head Green Bay won that game.

I'd be saying the same stuff I'm saying right now.

What I feel like the issues are for the team.

You can't do anything about health.

You can work on it, but that's depth and some of those things and everybody's got only

got so much money.

But I do think that the issue to me is so much more bigger than that even.

bigger than injuries, bigger than own those things.

Take a phone call.

Good morning.

You're on the afternoon.

You're on the air.

Yes.

I want to talk about the cold chat.

I wanted to talk about it.

I thought it really was a dirty, dirty team.

Play dirty.

How?

The shot.

Health and Jenkins.

The guy wouldn't have him with his helmet on his shoulder.

Head first.

That is the way to tackle.

He wasn't trying to tackle him.

He was trying to bum rush through the line.

I was trying to take out Elton, I think.

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe.

Another player guy had the same way.

Head first into his shoulder.

Not only took him out for that game, but any future game if they were the one.

He would have been out.

It didn't look dirty to me.

It looked like just a hit or not even a hit a collision.

I didn't think that the accidental injury that happened to the center, anybody got pushed

into him that knocked the his own guy into him or any of those things.

These things happen in football all the time, but again, at the same time, sir, I don't

want to disagree with you because I haven't watched a ton of Philadelphia Eagles football

I think the Eagles have a I don't know if you dirty is such a I don't like throwing that

out there, but I will say that they have a they have a reputation of playing certain type

of football and they were tougher.

They were just tougher like they're I don't know how you can't like looking at it's almost

like watching a division two team and a SEC team playing each other when I'm looking

at the two teams here in Philly and Green Bay and Philly.

It's not about wanting it more or anything like that to me.

It's how hard are you playing this game?

How hard are you hitting how strong are you approaching every single down Philly's loaded.

They loaded that team up.

They got a lot of money put in that team.

That being said, that coaching staff, which I have no very little respect for, coached

them up.

You got Vic Fangio back there, one of the great better DCs in football history, man,

he that's the way he coaches these guys is hitting them hard.

That's the way you got to coach your team.

You don't like it.

Play hard football.

Well, I don't think going head first where the top of his head into a shoulder was clean.

Yeah, I'm not yeah, it might have been, yeah, it might have been, um, anything else,

sir.

Took out two of our players that way, man, it might have, yeah, thank you for the call,

sir.

We appreciate you.

I want to keep the phone lines open because we're trying to get in, try Norris to call

in here.

Our friends over at Try Norris.

Christine's going to be joining us.

If not today, maybe she'll be able to join us on Wednesday's show because I want to talk

about Nordic days coming up, Randy, it's a fun event that we have in this area.

And we love our friends over at Try Norris ski club.

I want to have them join us pretty soon here, hopefully.

And you can call us 715-424-2600.

As we are talking about off season a bit, Randy, some of the big edge free agents out

there, Josh Schwett, Kaleo Mack, Marcus Lawrence, Chase Young, are some of the names out there.

You could see Preston Smith along with Javian Clowney, Trey Hendrickson, some of the names

that are out there along with Von Miller.

DT's, there's a handful of decent defense tackles out there.

Linebacker's a little thin, although Zach Bond is going to be out there, former Badger

and, you know, just had an amazing game, very happy for him in the way he's been playing.

We're going to see Rip Van Ginklet tonight playing on the Vikings.

Nick Bolton, who has been once at one of Kansas City's better linebackers, he is going to be a

free agent as well.

This is a handful of defensive players out there that could pull some interest from Green Bay's

as well.

Let's take a phone call.

Good afternoon, you on the air.

Well, good evening, fellas.

Hey, man.

What's on your mind?

Well, you know the Vikings are always on my mind.

So I'm going to make a prediction.

And I predicted it last night with Jordan Love with three interceptions.

I'm going to say Harrison Smith has at least one interception tonight, Vikings Rams.

Do you feel good about Minnesota in this game?

Well, they beat us earlier this season.

So, you know, I'm a Viking fan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's so, it's so funny when you ask it.

And this is Chicago.

This is Green Bay.

This is Minnesota.

You ask any of our fan bases how we feel about our team.

And we could have, you know, Vegas could be predicting us to have a two-score win or something.

And like, I don't know.

I mean, they're going to do what they do sometimes.

The list down all the time.

So it's understandable.

I don't know if you remember, but like a week or two ago, I called in.

And I said that the Vikings and the Bears and the Packer are not the Bears.

The Vikings, Lions and Packers, we're all going to just beat each other up.

And somebody was going to lose to the Eagles.

Yeah.

Somebody just lost to the Eagles.

Well, you keep it up, man.

You're going to be running this show.

I can't make predictions like that.

You can't do that.

One of the thing I always worried about with the Vikings all year was they had so many close games.

And not always against superior talent.

And I know in the NFL, anybody can beat anybody.

But then when they play at the Lions through the other week,

do they have nine points in no touchdowns?

Yeah.

And it's just like, that's kind of your worry if that catches up to you at this point in the year.

And you know how those defensive coordinators are?

They can see what works for the other team and they can implement it.

And sometimes it makes it difficult for them as they go forward.

One thing I wouldn't, you know, if the Vikings do lose tonight,

I wouldn't mind losing to Matt Stafford,

because I really like Matt Stafford.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm with you on that.

Stafford's really won me over.

Very underrated quarterback.

Yeah.

I wonder, I imagine, you know, especially since the position he plays,

they love to put them in the Hall of Fame.

I wonder if he's a Hall of Famer.

I've heard this debate a lot since he won the Super Bowl and I wonder.

I always appreciate the call, man.

Right on.

Hey, you have a good one tonight.

Good luck tonight.

Thank you.

Yes.

Yes.

I'm always going to root for NFC North teams.

I can't help myself.

I'm curious to see how the game goes tonight.

It should be a good one.

That's for sure.

A couple of quick notes before we wrap up the first half of the show here.

The Bears have requested a head coach interview with Packers,

offensive coordinator, Adam Stenvich.

Oh.

Oh, yeah.

These are offensive line coach too, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're not with their offensive line coach.

He does.

He does.

Yeah.

The Bears are doing all their interviews on Zoom, by the way.

They could be having people coming into the building and all of that.

They don't want that team to win.

The Macaskys don't want that team to do well.

I'm telling you.

Now that McCarthy has been released by the Cowboys.

He's your next head coach.

Oh.

Dear God, Brandy.

Why?

I thought we were friends.

No.

I don't blame you.

I don't blame you at all.

I don't blame you.

And Cassine Nixon?

I believe.

Cassine Nixon, as I say his first name.

Cassine Nixon, who of course is an all pro at kick returner, went to the pro bowl as a kick

returner, and certainly had the game let yesterday Packers.

Yes.

I'm sorry.

Kesson.

Kesson Nixon.

Thank you.

It had the fumble in the game to start off the game yesterday and everything.

He has just come out and said, in the last couple of hours, came out and said he wants to be

done returning kicks, and not just because the two time all pro fumbled there, but that

he wants to be considered a cornerback one, a starting cornerback, and doesn't think

he can be one if he's using up a lot of energy on the returns.

I got a real quick question to throw at you, okay?

He fumbles the opening kick off, maybe recovered it, there's some controversy about that.

You know, so often, this happened at the end of the game, I believe it was last night,

where there was a punt with four seconds left, and they sent a guy back, maybe it was

a packer again, they fair caught it, with four seconds left in the half.

And then, they took a knee.

And I'm like, why would you have anybody back there to catch the ball and then take a knee,

especially since you could fumble and give them the ball at the 10 yard line with four

seconds left.

I was thinking the same thing.

There's so many times I just don't understand why they have a guy deep in critical situations

like that.

And then probably not going to take it back.

What are the percentages of a guy returning a punt all the way?

Probably more that they'll fumble than they will return it all the way.

I would never have anybody back in a lot of those crucial situations.

No, especially, and this was going on during the games over the weekends and everything,

but you see what happened with the kid from San Diego, the kicker from there, and the

PAT mess app, and how quickly San Diego Los Angeles just gets a little bit of momentum

in that game, and it's all gone off of a PAT.

For one, not knowing the rules well enough, which what are you doing?

How do you play this game and not know how the rules end up all of them?

That was bad.

That was bad.

And before we go to break, we did want to mention this one.

There's a great story at civicmedia.us.

I can encourage you all to check it out, civicmedia.us.

Jordan Loves Foundation provides athletic gear to Wisconsin kids.

Terry Bar and Mike Clemens worked on this one, a big shout out to both of them.

It's a great article.

It's a wonderful article focusing on his launch hands of 10 of love.

10 love is the host fundraiser event.

And I think I saw him giving out soccer shoes to one of the teams in the area, and that's

one of the things they're going to do to 10 teams maybe it is.

That's pretty cool.

And that stuff is never going to get old.

That is pretty cool.

And he's showing a lot of emotion in this.

It looks like it's having a great time with it too.

The kids are ecstatic.

These kids are, they're never going to stop talking about this.

We will be talking to you coming back.

Randy will be with us with, of course, his local coverage, and we'll be talking to you

on the phone.

Play more coming up here on Playmakers brought to you by quality was printing here at WFHR.

Welcome back everybody to WFHR's Playmakers.

Randy and James here with you.

Thank you so much for joining us everybody.

Phone lines are open.

Hit us in the numbers.

715-424-2600.

Call up and join the conversation.

We got some local coverage for us right now.

Randy, what do you got for us?

Let's start by taking a look back at some area basketball for the boys from last

week.

Wisconsin Rapids fell twice.

Back on Tuesday in a game you heard on our sister station, WIRI, Wassau East rank number

6 in division 2 held off the Raiders 55-39, and then on Thursday Rapids came up 5 short

to Merrill 54-49.

Tomorrow night Rapids will be at Spash.

Also on Tuesday, assumption routed Roch old 72-43, J.T. Schlafer led the scoring parade

with 16 points as 10 different royals scored on the ball game.

And then on Friday the royals lost at Rip Lake by 3-42-39, Schlafer once again was

the leading scorer with 13.

Sumption will travel to Stretford to take on the Tigers tomorrow night.

Port Edwards only game was a 48-45 win at Pitzville last Tuesday as Brendan Beck had 19 points

for the Black Hawks and Max Michaels added 15.

Ben Friday also had 19 points for Pitzville while Dawson Luther had 18.

Port will be at Menominee Nation tonight and will host Pacheli on Thursday in a game

Michael Seth and I hope to have for you on WIRI.

And Accusa split a pair last week winning 69-49 on Tuesday over Northland, Lutheran, and

then falling on Friday at Westfield 62-44.

The paper makers are off until Thursday when they host the Hornets of Woodtoma.

On the girls side of the ledger, Wisconsin Rapids was victorious twice last week, winning

56-24 at Wasa East and then at home over Merrill 67-37.

The Lady Raiders will also be at Stevens Point tomorrow night.

Third rain to Sumption also picked up a pair of road W's as they defeated Stretford 55-45

and a schooly led the way with 18 points while Sarah Shaw and Jordan J. Linsky added 16

and 15 points a piece.

On Friday, the Royals rolled rib-like 67-36, schooly again scored 18 points, J. Linsky

added 15 and Shaw 12.

Sumption is at home on Thursday as they will entertain Newman Catholic and one note, the

start time of that ballgame has been changed.

It was originally scheduled for 7-15, it's now at 5-30.

Back on Monday, Port Edwards got beat by aggression 49-19 with Naomi Gruba scoring 9 points.

On Thursday, they lost at Northland Lutheran 71-39, Gruba had 16 points while Brenna

Ingram and Taylor McDonnell each added 10.

The Hawks will also be at Manominee Nation tonight.

And the Cruisers also came up short twice last week, losing at home on Monday to Austin

55-12 and on the road at Westfield on Friday, 73-22.

The papermakers will host Coolie Christian tomorrow night.

Wisconsin Rapids hockey squad improved to 5-9 on the season with a 7-2 win over Northwest

Iceman.

They all shot the Northwest Iceman 47 to 4.

I saw that, this is the way I double checked that.

Wow.

Pagel jacks with two goals and two assists for four points.

Raiders were up 4-1 after the first period and that was already 7-2, the final after two

periods.

In Wisconsin Rapids, wrestling last Thursday, they defeated Merrill 53-20.

In Conference, Marshall Field leads the way at 3-0, Rapids is 2-0, while West is 2-1.

Three dubs comes to town tomorrow night to take on Rapids.

And that's some of our area studs.

Of course, the River Kings, they split this last weekend at home against the Squatch.

The Squatch now come in with a record of 24-5 and 2, well, Rapids is 24-7 and 1, so very

close with the Squatch leading the way there.

But lost on Friday 6-1 and then were winners 7-2, so kind of a couple of routes both ways

this weekend.

Yeah, they kind of switched scores in the games Friday and between Friday and Saturday.

Looking forward to talking with Coach, I'd really love to have talked to him after the game

on Friday.

I'd love to know how he was feeling after that.

And certainly, looking forward to it when he will be able to join us soon.

I actually think that in some ways, in a look, I admit that you can spin anything in sports,

but I do think that that Friday game led to that Saturday game.

I think that that's how that works out oftentimes, especially in hockey, and especially when you've

got young goalies, and you've got guys that are just still learning to gel together.

This team has tons of chemistry, and they've been winning a lot and putting up a lot of

great high-score games, can't be lost on us.

Any different than what we're talking about with Green Bay and the Packers and their youth,

the youth of this team and the way that they're still jelling together and everything.

At the same time, I don't think that there's any excuses coming out of that locker room.

And there's anybody who expects anything other than what they saw Saturday night out of

that team.

And it's going to be a fun race through the regular season here.

Take no mistake about it.

I know it says regular season.

We're in the playoffs, everybody.

We're in the playoffs right now in hockey.

We're in the second and half of the season.

We are in a win or go home in a situation, go win or go home in a way that we are playing

for home ice advantage throughout the playoffs here.

So if you don't want to be traveling during the playoffs, you want that first win first

in the division and everything, that's what they're fighting for right now.

That kind of struck me too as I see that assumption is going to be playing host Newman

Catholic.

And that was their first game of the year when they played.

That means that they are the second goal around already in conference.

And I know that assumptions got a lot of non-conference game in the second half here.

But conference wise, they're already on the second time through the schedule.

So here we are in the midst of January.

The next single, no, we'll be talking about playoffs and where they're going and who

they'll be taking on.

And that just happens like that.

It just happens so fast.

The next time the Kings will be in action.

They will be taking on the Northwest Express on the 18th.

Then the 17th, they'll be at the Marshfield, Isarina as part of the blue and white game

where coach and the team are going to be up there kind of building hockey, you know,

building hockey up and down the river and literally like getting up there to Marshfield

and everything.

And I think that's amazing.

I want to see more youth hockey in Wisconsin Rapids.

I want to see more of this here in our town.

I want to see our local high school coaches getting in touch with the coach and working

with him and getting the jelling this.

This is how this is done.

You work with your local high schools and you get things done to work together as far

as building a sport.

You have a great opportunity here in Wisconsin Rapids with your rafters, with your river kings.

These guys should be talking to all these high school coaches and vice versa and working

together because it's about the kids first and foremost and building these sports.

It's certainly first and foremost.

The Kings then will be back in action, taking on the Minnesota mullets on January

24th.

Both those games will be at home.

We encourage to see you at the rink.

We'll meet you at the Sato County Rec Center.

Follow your Kings as they build hockey up and down the river at riverkingshockey.com.

Follow the boys winter all winter long.

And then for those of you who don't know where Northwest Express is, they play in Spooner.

Yeah, thank you.

That's great.

It was great talking with the new front office of your Wisconsin Rapids rafters today.

Great conversation with those guys.

Had a lot of fun hanging out and talking with them.

More on that in a moment.

We have a couple of other notes just to piggyback off of Randy's local coverage here.

We were going to be joined by our friends from Trinaurus ski club.

We are going to talk about Nordic Day at the Trinaurus winter park coming up on January

18th this Saturday.

It'll be going from 10 to 3 over at 1,001 County Road, oh right in Acusa.

Just off Highway 13 in the beautiful town of Rome.

Come out to the park to explore the trails for free.

The inside trails will be marked for snow-shoeing or hiking.

And if we have enough snow on the outer trails, it will be groomed for cross-country skiing.

Bring your kids to a try it ski jumping session.

Oh that is good.

I want to say that one more time.

A try it ski jumping session.

Well done you guys.

They will learn to ski jump starting from the 5mm hill with some veteran ski jumpers.

They're offering two sessions, one at 10.30 a.m. and then another at 1 o'clock.

They have limited supply of skis helmets and boots for the youth jumpers to use so they

strongly encourage pre-registration.

And they're limited each session to 10 jumpers.

Warm up inside the Cheylai, enjoy some food and some sessions at the stand, take a chance

and support Try Norse by purchasing some raffle tickets for their 50-50 raffle.

The drawings will take place at the end of the day.

Find out more at their Facebook page.

Go to Try Norse Winter Park.

Just type that in there.

Try Norse Winter Park or Try Norse ski club and should pop right up.

If you want to register for the event or any of the sessions here, or if you just want

to find out more, email them Try Norse Winter Park at gmail.com.

Try Norse Winter Park at gmail.com.

Also one of their mind everybody, it's that time of year again, the Port Edwards basketball

alumni game coming up.

You're invited to the annual alumni recognition gate basketball game.

They do this every year.

The female team is going to be playing on the 14th and then the male team will be playing

on the 16th.

Alumni basketball players at 10 will be given admission to the games, be treated to

on court inductions at half time and enjoy a great time.

They always have a good time with this event.

So for the female athletes, that will be taking place during the game we're broadcasting

on.

Keep that in mind everybody and congrats to all the black hawks over there.

Absolutely.

They have a good time.

We were mentioning this.

The big event the Raptors hot stove is back baseball season is right around the corner

and your Raptors are ready for another amazing summer at historic winter field.

The annual hot stove event is this Saturday at the hotel meet from 6 to 9.

Have fun and keep warm next to the stove and everything.

Join them to hear from the front office about the upcoming season.

Get a exclusive sneak peek at the 25 promotional schedule and a special presentation from Newfield

Manager Tom Zigolowski.

Ziggy is going to be joining us.

I can't call him that yet.

I got to know.

I got to meet him first before I call him Ziggy.

And hitting coach is going to be there too.

Hitting coach from the 2016 championship team and current coach in the Mets organization.

Devon D. Young going to be with us as well.

That is going to be cool.

Looking forward to that.

Emission is five bucks.

If you RSVP and advance $10 at the door, season ticket holders and ticket package holders

and host families will receive free admission.

Tickets are limited.

So RSVP today at northwoodsleag.com, northwoodsleag.com, excited for a more rafter baseball and just

to, and I don't think the guys will mind this, had in our new assistant general manager,

our new promotional guy and we're talking before.

We got going on the midday magazine today in our pregame and we are going to be so rafter

focused this summer, so rafter focused you guys.

Last year, I will say I dropped the ball on this one.

There's plenty of things going around, but just, you know, there's got to be a face of

these things.

I'll say I did.

Did not do a darn good enough job at getting the rafters on these airwaves when it comes

to players and coaches and all of that.

That changes now.

That changes going forward, had a great conversation with, actually at the end of last season with

their GM and Ken, talked with him a little bit and now talking with these guys.

We feel very confident we will have meet your rafters back and so much more exciting fun

things with our rafters cannot wait.

Baseballs just, as Randy was just saying, these things go so fast before we know it, Spring

will be here.

Hang in there, everybody.

Hang in there through the cold.

Well, I saw that we just got an update on the schedule that's come out and the first

game that they will be playing will fall in May, so that's going to be just around

the corner.

It'll be May 26th, as they will be at home taking on Green Bay at 6.30 p.m. so mark

your calendars, everyone.

And my daughter always says, keeps us abreast of when the major league Spring training

starts and that's just the corner as well.

Anyway, yeah, you get through the football season and our hearts start warming up for baseball.

One of these years, I wanted as my job to go out there and cover Spring training, like

in Florida or California or one of those days Arizona, yeah, any of the above, any of

the above.

I just, I love the idea of that.

I don't even know if I'd be any good at it, but I would love to have that as a job.

It seems like it'd be fun.

Cut looking at our sports schedule for this week, coming up tomorrow at 7 o'clock, Wisconsin

men's basketball, taking on Ohio State, Wednesday, got a playmakers for you at 5 and then

at 7 o'clock, Wisconsin hockey hour.

Wednesday, Port Edwards, boys, basketball, hosting, Pachelli, Mike, Randy, Seth, going

to cover that one for you on WRI, 105, 5, looking forward to that, Randy.

Always good to hear you guys on the airwaves.

And then on Friday, we'll have a playmakers at 5 and here at WFHR at 630, Wisconsin,

men's hockey, hosting L.I.U., over on WRI, assumption, boys, basketball, hosting Newman

Catholic, Mike, Randy, Seth, going to cover that one.

Only my second and third broadcasts of the year.

I've been way crazy to visit that, for sure, I'll tell you.

Before we go to break, I do have our stat of the show, Randy.

Okay.

I do want to get into that real quick and I don't, it's nothing real magical.

It's nothing really that crazy.

But as we're getting ready for the second round of playoffs, I heard, not a stat, but I

heard somebody mention the other day, the Patrick Mahomes is 29 years old.

He's 29 years old.

Yeah, that's it.

Wow.

You're going to be 30 in September, next September.

He's only 29.

Holds Aaron Rogers.

I don't even want it.

Yeah, something like that.

But Patrick Mahomes has got quite a few records already broken at this age, including

a ton of them, but like quickest to a thousand yards, quickest to 200 touchdowns, all of those

things that you've heard.

But have you heard this stat that I think is quite interesting?

The Kansas City has now won its last 12 games when trailing by exactly 10 points.

That includes three Super Bowl championships by the way.

Oh my goodness.

He already has the most come from behind victories at this age, at the age he's at, more than

anybody's ever had by far in a way.

He's a six of them.

You know, talking with that caller about Minnesota, how they've had all these close games against,

not always top tier teams, you almost get a little bit of the same kind of feeling with

Kansas City this year that they've had too many close games that you think maybe

come playoff time, they could lose this year.

I'm one of the bigger Mahomes fans there is and I've liked Kansas City a lot.

I would not bet on them at all.

Although at the same time, I have a hard time betting against Patrick Mahomes.

So that'd be, this is why I don't bet.

Who do you like better, the Ravens, or do you like better Buffalo Ravens, and Josh Allen

has done nothing to sway anybody like if you say Buffalo, I'm not going to fight you

on that one.

I think we might have the Super Bowl happening this weekend with Buffalo and Baltimore.

That may be the game of the playoffs.

I don't know, but man, I hope it is.

I don't hope it's the best game of the playoffs, but I hope it's a great game.

That feels like in Marsh Madness when we get Kentucky and Duke in the second round, like

it feels weird, like that should be a final four matchup or something.

So I feel like we're lucky as fans to get this matchup.

Boy, we've had some awesome semi-finals in college football too, haven't we?

Those two semi-final games were crazy endings.

Just real quick to wrap up the stat of the show here for context.

Tom Brady was 36 and 61 in games his team trail by 10 plus points in his career.

36 and 61 for maybe the greatest winner we've ever seen at quarterback.

That's kind of wild to me.

I'm glad you brought up the college game, Randy, because I do want to talk about that

a little bit.

We will get into that more, maybe on the other end of the break.

But I think for one, we've all, here in the Midwest, us Midwest football fans, I know it's

Notre Dame in Ohio State, and I've been on the airwaves many time talking about how

I feel about Notre Dame.

There is no journalistic integrity.

I can't stand that team, and I wholeheartedly own that.

And probably the team that's right behind if there was no Notre Dame, it would be Ohio

State.

So there's very little for this championship, for me to root for, but I hope to watch

the game.

And I am also going to be having a smile on my face throughout the game, that this may

be the only time we see a Midwest championship game, you know, like I know it's not exactly

the teams, some of us won in there and everything, but the SEC is not going to take this lying

down.

The SEC is not going to take the one team that made it this far, it was Texas.

How they fix that, I don't know, but I know one way they're going to try to fix it.

They're going to throw a lot of money at it.

And real quick when it comes to that, just a quick note about NIL and some of that, some

of the money that's getting thrown around in college football and everything, that is

going to come down.

That's not going to keep rising up.

Right now you've got revenue that these teams are pulling in, that they are not going

to have in a couple of years from now.

They're pulling in TV money, they're pulling in money from their conference, TV deals,

and some of that.

So they're able to use that along with the NIL money that these boosters have.

So I'm not saying that NIL money ain't going to be a little crazy.

I'm not saying that it's not still going to be the Wild West as long as the NCAA does

nothing which they are doing right now.

Man, it must be nice to be collecting a paycheck if you work for the NCAA.

It must be nice, man.

What do you do?

What do you really do for a living if you were, you just got a title and you go to your

office every day and just kind of sit there.

Like I can't imagine you do much if you work for the NCAA, doesn't seem like you do.

One thing they should do I think is that they should stop this transfer portal until

after the national championship game.

100%.

Oh, yeah, so many players leaving, they didn't play in the bowl games, so the bowl games

are so unpredictable.

They thought, oh, they did a good match up, you know, all the records are about the same.

Well, half the team is gone.

I also think that they, if I'm a booster and I'm paying these kids, all right, I am

no problem paying you grown up money, you got to be a grown up.

Your team doesn't make it to, you know, the playoffs.

I'm sorry, you're worried about your draft stock.

I'm sorry, you have a contract with me.

You're still part of my university.

I want to see you in the PopTar Bowl.

I want to see you in the Mayo Bowl.

I don't care about your draft stock, you're, you're, you're a, you're a this right now.

You're a husky right now or you're, you're a badger right now.

Because they might be making more than they would in the NFL.

Yeah.

If they even make it in the NFL, I am all for player empowerment.

I'm all for these, these athletes getting paid.

But if you get paid for a job, you've got to do the job considering less than 1% make

it to the NFL.

Yeah.

They're probably a lot of these guys are never going to see this kind of money again.

This is a, this is a great opportunity to show them that hey, it does actually you, you

know, you grind and you grind at this since you were 70 years old.

And even though you don't make it to the NFL, you could still make a paycheck and you

can still look back at your childhood and all this and say, hey, it was a worthwhile

investment.

That's a great life lesson right there.

The lesson gets lost.

If, here's the, I collect the money, but I don't fulfill my part of the job.

I don't feel my part of the requirement.

That's something that they've got to work out in contracts.

They've got to work those things out in the fine lining, but I do think that it's so easy

to get, throw your arms up in the air and say, oh, and I else ruin this and I else ruin

that.

Transfer portal is ruined.

All these things.

No, it's, it's, it's, it's not that it is, it is just like anything else in life.

Human beings are doing that.

The rules need to be reworked by human beings.

You're always going to have somebody, when I worked at this, I throw back for the audience

out there.

Asia Vuv video Randy, old video store back when they used to rent videos, whatever they

are.

Yeah, right.

I worked there and we used to get this magazine that was just sold to, you know, video

stores and everything.

And in there, there was a VCR that could dub, you know, tapes, and it was, and it was

amazing.

And you could, you could basically make your own copy of Forest Gump and all this.

And on the very other side was a device to stop that from happening.

This is the way rules work.

There's always going to be people that are going to try to skirt them and all that.

That's where, again, it's why you're paid NCAA, do your job, get out there and stop this

from happening.

Or at the very least, come up with some rules and some guidelines for these things.

Hey, kids, you can transfer if you want, but you've got to stick it out there.

You get one transfer or you get two or whatever outside of injury circumstances or something

like that.

Hey, you're paid money from, great.

That's awesome.

Well done.

You're an adult.

Now, do your job and finish the job.

You have to finish the job.

And that means you're playing as long as your team is playing and you don't, none of these

transferring while your team is still out there and you got your teammates and your former

teammates out there bleeding and grinding out there while you're, you know, what, doing

interviews?

I mean, no, I don't, I agree with you, man.

I don't, I don't think that that's a kosher at all.

We'll take a time out.

We'll come back and wrap up the show.

Playmakers brought to you by quality plus printing at WFHR.

Welcome back, everybody to WFHR's Playmakers is for a number like Brett Farber is at a

temperature.

That's it.

It feels like it, it feels like it's just like a half a baseball score.

Yeah.

What are the other team score?

What's going on?

A partial score.

Randy and James here with you another five minutes.

Go ahead and give us a call 715-424-2600.

I'd love to hear from every one of you out there in our pregame there or in a kind of

break there, Randy.

We were talking a little bit and two things popped in my head.

One I meant to mention earlier, when I was talking about the Green Bay Packers and the leadership

and the fight in that team and all of that, I would like to add, I was not talking about

Edgering Cooper.

That young man is fine.

Like, he's got some learning to do here and there and everything, but you got a, you

got a real one right there.

You got a linebacker.

I'm not saying he's going to be an all pro.

I don't know where any of that, but I believe that you got an all-down guy.

You got a guy who is going to give it to you every single down and give you everything

he has.

That kid, you lock him up.

That should be all right.

You know, Phil Duffy, the number one defense in the NFL.

So for the Packers, I only scored 10 points with 10 guys or that's, you know, I guess that's,

you can see how that could happen.

But they held Sequan Barkley to 81 yards until he made that last run where he just kind

of gave himself up.

And you know, they were talking a little bit about, oh, smart play or not a smart play

to give himself up.

And I'm thinking to myself last year, and I think it was, was it the first game against

the Bears when Aaron Jones caught that screen pass and ran for touch on him.

And all of a sudden, I had about the 10 yard line.

He started grabbing his hammy.

Yep.

I wonder if Sequan didn't think about that if he thought, if I keep running, maybe I could

tweak something or something, could tackle me or something.

And that's why he went down.

That's one point.

Point number two is, why is Sequan Barkley in the game running the ball with a minute left

and you're up 22 to 10?

Does that make any sense?

It's the kind of stuff that Cereani does that's why in week three or week four, I'm saying,

I can't see that team winning a Super Bowl.

It's stuff like that that he does.

That team feels like they win in spite of him.

That team feels like they win because of all the talent and money put into it.

And some of the play calling that feels pretty basic, but all that being said, they're

moving on.

You know, I mean, what do I know?

That team seems to be jelling at the right time and everybody's darling, I don't see

it.

I don't see it at all, but I could be wrong.

That's easy to talk, smart.

You know, when you're watching games, and you're like, please hire me because when you're

Texas and you're at the one yard line against Ohio State, just run it four times and see

if you can't maybe squeeze somebody through instead of on second down, running it out to

the outside.

Now it's third and seventh.

You know, because they didn't make it once, right?

And we always say it, just run Josh Jacobs four times if you're close.

That run he had yesterday of about 18 yards to the half yard line was just crazy.

You know, and he's just a beast when it comes to that, that type of run for him.