July 15, 2025 • 33 mins
In this solo episode, the Packers get into two very different but equally heated topics. First, they speak out on how horrific it is that the government defunded 988, the suicide hotline that provides support for LGBTQ+ youth. They discuss why this is essentially an attack on the queer community’s mental health and provide resources for where to go if you’re in crisis. Then they discuss the person who always sends women’s sports into a frenzy–Caitlin Clark. Madison and Anya go head to head discussing if Clark is to credit for the rise of the WNBA and women’s sports as a whole, and get to the bottom of why she gets so much hatred from players and fans.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, everyone, Welcome to these packs puck. I'm Madison Packer
and I'm Anya Packer. Madison and I are both former
pro hockey players. We met through hockey and fell in love,
and now we're married with two awesome toddlers, ages two
and four. These days, we're opening up about the chaos
of our daily lives, between the juggle of being athletes,
raising kids.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And all the messiness in between. So buckle the puck up,
because there is a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Hey, babe, Hey, IM.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Not usually get a babe. I usually get like an
ans or an Anya.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Or pack How you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm cautiously optimistic for the future that we create ourselves,
but for literally nothing else. I got my nails painted
for the fourth of July and so I was rocking
a red, white and blue. They look phenomenal, by the way,
they do look phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Also, any lesbian that judges me based on my wife's fingernails.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Okay, anyone that judges you based on your fingernails, they
just don't know how to do things properly. I will
say the nail, the red, white and blue. I got
them done for the fourth of July. That is since
coming gone I haven't changed them. I think they're so
so cute. But I will say I'm representing my version
of America.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
America hot the hot take, all right, should we get
into it?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
You got a hot take for me? Hear me with it.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
My hot take is what the actual fuck is happening
in our country? Love?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
When the hot take starts with the F word, keep going,
don't care.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I don't care where you're from, what you do, how
you're raised, what God you believe in. I do believe, however,
and care that we should just leave each other the
fuck alone. Yeah, and if you are right. So we're
gonna get to the hot take in a second, but
I want to I want to go. I gotta tee
(01:52):
it up. We're all pro life in this new Republican Party.
So pro life is pro life. Every heart beat is
a heartbeat. We have just defunded the specialized hotline to
nine to eight, which nine to eight is a government
funded program twenty four to seven you can call if
(02:13):
you're a mental crisis. They had a specialized subdivision for
LGBTQ plus use. Any member of the LGBTQ plus community
is four times more likely to commit suicide than anyone else.
So we have decided that we're not going to continue
to fund that. And that is absolute fucking insanity because
(02:36):
one you're absolutely guaranteeing that people are gonna die. Two,
you're proving that you don't actually value human life. Three
you are removing the only free resource that is massively accessible.
I say massively accessible because there are other resources that
(02:58):
we're going to get into, but that is the most publicized,
the most accessible, the most known, and for what the
LGBTQ plus youth community in particular, we're talking about kids
who have a right to live, who have a right
to discover, who have a right to breathe. The Trevor
(03:20):
Project has been funneling people in to support that crisis hotline,
and we're just going to pull the plug. Why how
about you stop spending dollars here, there, and everywhere on
a couple other things like that's the thing that we
think is going to save this country billions?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Fuck off. Well, let me give you some stats because
I want it to be specific here. LGBTQ plus youth
living in rural areas are more likely to consider suicide
forty three percent of them.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Thirteen percent of all adolescent youth between twelve and me
and you.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Fall in that stat by the way, for listeners, any
and I fall in that staff.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Overall, forty percent of high school students have reported persistent
feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the year. Fifty three
percent of them were female and twenty eight percent of
them were male, sixty five percent of LGBTQ plus youth
and thirty one percent of cisgendered and hetero sexual individuals.
So we're looking at we're looking at a problem that
(04:23):
is a humongous problem, right, And I say this all
the time. We care about birthing these children, That's what
we care about. We don't care about raising them. We
don't care about homing them. We don't care about feeding them.
We're letting Americans protecting them. We're letting Americans in this
country get so wealthy that they could solve world hunger,
our global hunger problem with a fraction of their net worth.
(04:47):
And I understand that that's not their like dollars in pocket,
but of their net worth. They could solve world hunger.
Let alone solve youth homelessness in America. Nope, that can
continue to happen. We can let exorbitant amounts of wealth
continue to be earned in this country, and we can't
stop to think about what kind of infrastructure and scaffolding
(05:12):
we're building for the children that we're introducing, so that
they are safe, homed, fed, educated, able to read, able
to write, able to go to school, able to look
at whatever books they want to look at, able to
love who they want to love, able to pray to
who they want to pray to. We don't care about
any of that, Just birth them.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
You and I had a lot of conversations leading up
to this most recent election, because I'm from a family
that whatever everyone said, well, you know it's not going
to happen, it's happening. And if you don't think it's happening,
it's because you have the privilege of city in your
home and you don't have to think about justifying your
(05:55):
right to being a parent, justifying your right to belonging,
justify your right to just having safe space. Right, it
is happening. And the more things we allow people to
want attack to erase, the more comfortable they get going
after all those things. It is fucking happening. Wake up,
(06:15):
and they are kids honestly, who the fuck cares?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
They're kids?
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And I got in this argument with a member of
the US military and he actually was like, I never
thought about it that way. If we stopped drawing attention
to all these things, maybe it wouldn't be as big
of an issue. But why is it as big of
an issue it is? Now? Why are we so focused
(06:42):
on it? Because we're distracting from whatever else is happening.
Those people deserve access. Those people, we people. We deserve
access to equal and equitable healthcare, which falls under the
same banner as access to the nine to eight eight
crisis hotline.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So I think the part that also adds a layer
of interest to this, which is what makes it scary,
is if you look at the Trevor Project, they put
out a study every single year. So last year, in
twenty twenty four, they put out a study and it
was basically who considered suicide in the past year and
then who actually attempted it? The number of people that
thought about suicide and then went on to attempt it
(07:23):
in the questioning category, not even people that identify as trans,
identify as gay, identify as pan identifies. By now, add
the layer of people that are just confused if they're
questioning and they're scared. So I'll give you a statistic.
Thirty five percent of gay and lesbian right, it's about
the same thought about having or considered suicide in the
(07:47):
past year. About ten percent attempted, forty three percent of
questioning in fifteen percent attempted. The fear of being gay
or somehow tangentially connected to the LGBTQ community is now
also killing children.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
All this to say, the nine to eight eight Crisis
Hotline in the US is defunding specialized access for members
of the LGBTQ plus community, so we want to share
that there are still a lot of resources available. The
lgbt National Hotline, you can find their number online, National
(08:28):
Suicide Prevention Hotline, which is not specialized but is still available.
The Trevor Project has a hotline that's available text call
whatever you need. Lgbt National Youth talk Line remains available. Also,
you can look up online and Translifeline. It's a confidential
twenty four to seven peer support service run by and
(08:51):
for transgender youth. It's available in the US and in Canada,
and their number is also available online. So while the
fear exis it is real. We understand it. But anyone
that's listening to this podcast has access to internet, please
look it up. There are resources still available, and hopefully
(09:13):
it's a reversible situation.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah, hopefully it's someone gets some sense here and tries
to figure out what is actually healthcare and what we
should all have access to. So I appreciate that, and
I know that that hot take is most definitely very
spicy for you.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Sorry, I I got heated. Heated, ladies, you should get heated.
I think we should all get heated about that. I think,
you know, we talk about things and we are I
think are all afraid to have a really powerful.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Stance now that we've kind of gotten through that, and
I think that that will always weigh very heavy on
our hearts. But let's do our check in today. We're
doing an episode with just the two of us, so
we'll get into some other non hockey related thoughts. I
think we'll still get into some spiciness.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Spicy.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Talk to me, how you doing. Let's do a little
check in. Run from one to one to one hundred.
Where are you at?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Oh? I hope you're high because I'm hovering low. Bit Ooh,
I'm like forty two. So I recently started therapy again
and we had a deep therapy sash right before we
had this call sash. So I'm hovering right around a
forty two and that's as far as we're going to
go into that. So where you at? Ooh, but I
(10:27):
did show up for the call.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Listen, you showed up, you showered. You're here after.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
I didn't shower. I'm getting my shower at kay.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Well, then you stink and you showed up in your hair,
and I think I changed my clothes.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I was sweaty for my boxing class.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
You're here good, that's important. Forty two is better than zero.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So hopefully you're somewhere in the high sixties or low seventies.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Am I in the high sixties? I think? So I'm
feeling good. It's sunny outside. I got the automatic watering
figured out at the house, so I've just got to
get a little bit of a longer hose and then
the automatic watering will happen while we are not doing
the walk around with the hose every single moment of
every single day. So hopefully that gives me some peace
of mind. Our garden needs to be watered, because if
I love it. I cherish it. It makes me happy.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
It looks amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
It's a labor of love. This garden. Because we don't
have we don't have irrigation at this house. Because we
live in the woods. We're on a well. We don't
have city water, and so I walk around with the
hose and I water over an acre of garden.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
How long have we lived here?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Three years?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
No? Four? Your years? The garden it's chef's kiss, chef kiss.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
It's never looked better. Oh that made me higher? Okay, fine,
then I'm I'm a seventy Now.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
The garden does look phenomenal. Thank you, you're the best.
And the veggie garden, that's all Whalen. You started labeling
beef tomatoes.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, that's Whalen and Whalen and Harlan really wanted to
pick some seeds and plant them. So hopefully we grow
ourselves some pumpkins for October. I'll let everyone know how
that goes.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
If we go pumpkins in that patch, that's it.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I hope we do. I hope we have a real
pumpkin patch. That's the goal.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
We spread so many pumpkin seeds, we're gonna sell them
out front.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Two Bucks apiece.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
No matter the way.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Anyway, I'm excited to get into the next part. So
we'll go to a little bit of a break and
then we'll come back with some more kind of spicy thoughts.
I think this is a unique take for you and
I very vehemently disagree. So we'll take a quick break
and then we'll come back with some other non hockey
related arguments. Today we're doing a solo episode, but I
(12:42):
feel like we had a really passionate hot take in
the beginning that wasn't exactly about sports, and now we
have a very alternately spicy opinion about women's sports, but
not specifically hockey. So we're gonna concentrate it a lot
around what's going on in the w but I think
that's a good micro to what's going on in the
macro environment of women's sports as a whole. So you've
(13:02):
made a pretty intense claim. I want you to stand
on it, and then we can kind of get into
it a little bit. Go for it.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I think that the hate on Kaitlin Clark from her
counterparts is unwarranted. I can understand being frustrated with a
good competitor. However, I think that she is the reciprocate
of a lot of like lead wide hate and bullshit,
and there's no disputing viewership from last year to this
(13:34):
year is up seventy six percent in the WNBA. However,
when she was out injured for the first I don't
know how many games it is, I should know that,
but I don't know that. I think it was eight
to eleven. Viewership was down league wide fifty five percent.
So tell me that the Caitlin Clark effect isn't real.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I don't disagree that the Caitlin Clark effect isn't real.
I do think it is very real. I think the
other thing to nod to is so many other of
the MVPs in the league are currently injured, right, so
Kitlyn Clark being out is a piece of a puzzle.
She's she's got the following, she brings everybody with her,
and we can talk about the why of that in
(14:19):
my opinion, but like, you don't have John Qwell Jones,
you don't have Sabrina and squ you don't have Asia Wilson,
Caitlin Clark was out for a period of time, Melissa
Thomas was out, Khaliak Copper was out, Courtney Vanderslute is
out for the season. The only MVP from last year,
the only person that was even in contention for MVP
that has not missed a current game is Brianna Stewart.
(14:39):
And so there's this kind of like there's a lag.
Angel Reese was not even close. She was hurt last year.
There's these broad stroke claims about what's going on in
the WNBA. I don't disagree with Kitlyn Clark being a massive,
massive piece of the what's hot bucket, but the infrastructure
was built before her, and it was built for her
(15:01):
to shine. And when you look at Asia Wilson going
back to back MVPs as a black woman, you'd have
to say it's popular because it's popular and she is
a massive piece.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Sure, but did you see her interview the night where
she comes in and she's like, I want to apologize
of yours. That was not an Ajia Wilson like performance.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
He's aware. We love an aware queen.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, I love that, But I think that you also
have to acknowledge that, like players across the league recognize
there's a different standard, right. I also want to call
out I mean, like Kenvin Clark has been the center
of a lot of ridicule, and it's just unfair. She's
(15:47):
still so young, she's just getting her feet wet, so
to compare her to an Asia Wilson and some of
these other players, I don't think it's fair.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I agree, actually completely.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Everyone's like, oh, she's the new Diana Trassi. Diana Tarassi
played twenty years in the WNBA. Sue Bird played twenty
plus years in the WNBA. And when you look at
legends like Sue Bird who look at Diana Rassi, who
look at her and say she is the game changer,
(16:19):
not just for the WNBA, who is the industry leader, right,
but for all of women's sports, Yeah, I mean. And
so for her to be in her second year and
face this criticism.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Joy Taylor goes on Joe Budden's podcast and basically says
that Kitlin Clark has headlines because of her feud with
Angel Reese. I vehemently disagree. I think what Angel Reese
and Caitlin Clark had going on in the NCAA's in
those back to back years helped Angel Reese and really
created the persona of Angel Reese which I think exists,
(16:51):
is amazing. It makes perfect sense. I love the Bayou Barbie.
I love everything she's doing, right, Like I'm in on
the Angel Reese thing. But like if you take the
cult like following of Caitlyn Clark, Paige Beckers, right, like
all of these white women who are incredible at basketball,
please do not take away Kelsey Plum, Like, let me
(17:12):
go down a list of really incredible basketball players that
every time they get the shine, they say, I don't
deserve it. This sport is built on the backs of
black women, and I want to give appropriate and fair
and equitable time to the people that have started what
I'm now exceptional at. Like you know, Paige Beckers does
it years ago when she's receiving Gatory Player of the Year.
(17:35):
Caitlin Clark does it at the SPS. I think the
othering of these women creates the narrative for this criticism.
And to your point, and I think what you're trying
to say is it makes it seem like everyone's against
Kaitlyn Clark, right, like you're saying, like you think the
players are all attacking her personally, and I think they're
taking liberties. Don't get me wrong, Like I think jac
(17:55):
Shelton took a freaking liberty. I think Marina Maybury took
a liberty in that game. I think that's crazy. Punch
that kid, yeah fast, I'm not about that. I think
that that's just not like as team sports go. I
think the outcome of that, watching Sophie Cunningham, watching Aliah
Boston right, like watching her teammates stand up for her
is what sports is about. Now. I think it's really
(18:16):
hard because the problem with Caitlin Clark for everyone else's perspective,
from a player's perspective, she plays hard as hell. She
does not care. She'll get a tech and move on.
She's perfectly comfortable to be the bad guy in the
villain in your story and then take a step back,
three off a logo and just absolutely embarrass you. And
I think that's frustrating because she's a generational talent. But
(18:39):
I think basketball and women's sports created an avenue for
her to then walk through the door and shine the
way she does. I don't think it's anything in reverse.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I don't disagree with that. However, how many players have
walked that avenue, right, I mean it's like any sport
like you pay homage, right, like, I think respectfully and
women talking, we do a shit job of doing it
because we just like pretend like that this league has
popped up out of nowhere and we completely forget about
(19:14):
the NWHL, the CWHL, the PHF, the leagues before it.
I mean, like, yeah, I think that even in basketball,
there was a league that existed before the WNBA. So
I don't disagree with you at all, but I think,
for whatever reason, in women's sport we are afraid of
(19:37):
heritage or whatever. However, you cannot deny that Caitlin Clark
has been able to do it in a different way
and for her counterparts to have the inability to recognize, like, listen,
Angel Reese, you're phenomenal, you're marketable, you're great, You're good
(19:59):
at basketball, you're good at rebounding, you're good at all
that you do. But you don't think that a part
of that paycheck is because of Kitlyn Clark. You're kidding yourself.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Come on, no, it absolutely is. But here's the rub.
I think that the hard part in women's sports, Okay,
I don't disrespectful, Like I don't know if it's disrespectful.
I just think it's hard. Sometimes I think it's hard ball,
and sometimes I think it's a it's a liberty because
of the frustration of not being able to stop her.
But then the question gets raised. So Angel mccaughtrey makes
this comment, and she makes it specifically about Hayley Van Lift,
(20:32):
and then she she walks back and apologizes because it's
not the point she's trying to make. She's not trying
to single out a player, But the point she was
trying to make was would these players be in the
position that they're in if they didn't have the massive following,
if they weren't bringing these massive fan bases in viewerships
to these teams. The point of the matter is some
(20:53):
players can stand on it, like Pagebeckers, Caitlyn Clark. Some
of those players absolutely stand on it. Angel Reese is
coming with a lot and in her rebound game is insane,
and then everyone chirps her for me bounds like don't
even get me started on like what's going on there?
But there's an absolute powerhouse of some of the players
(21:14):
that are coming from NCAA. Now are players making it
over other players predicated upon what their social media following is,
And so Angel mccattry basically says, yeah, work on your game,
but work on your socials too, because it matters. The
whole package matters. And so to your point, if we're
going to bring somebody that's going to add star power
(21:36):
to a roster, star power in the position of like dollars,
viewership and all of that, like how much does that
play in the picture of the benefit and growth of
women's sports. And the w has a whole their CBA
ends this year, so they're going to negotiate like one
hundred thousand things. But I think that's the layer that's
so interesting is like how much influenced social media has
(21:58):
in your success in women's sports as an athlete. And
that's where like Caitlyn Clark and the hate and the
drama all comes into it, because somebody with four thousand
followers on social media who's playing against her, who is
effectively a peanut in the in the world that she
lives in, is taking her to task and that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
My only pushback is the biggest thing when you look
at it online, right is that she's just hold on
for a minute, she's white and she's straight, and to clarify,
white privilege is absolutely a thing. But I don't think
that Caitlyn Clark's success in basketball has anything to do
(22:58):
with white privilege.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
No, wait, wait, wait, time out. But she acknowledges her
own privilege. I don't think she's saying it's not a factor.
I think she's saying it's not the only factor. She's
an incredible basketball player. It's not the prevailing factor, for sure. Yes,
but she's white, she's straight.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
She has an astronomical following, which came with her from
the University of Iowa, which respectfully.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Not a basketball team, like not a club, but you're
I'm I'm a.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Big ten person, so I can say this, Who the
hell cares about the University of Iowa. I'm a badger.
But she put them on the map. And so when
you start to introduce stuff like that, I have a
problem with that. She's a phenomenal basketball player, and I've
admitted I know nothing about basketball. I dated a basketball
player a long time ago, still know nothing about it.
(23:48):
I think what we forget is that there are more
eyes now than ever on the w NBA, and the
only increase in decrease in viewership seems to be Caitlin Clark,
which followed her from her NCAA career, which was very
(24:08):
easy to track. She's a once in a generation player.
So what's the what's the ish like? Because if she
just decides to say, hey, listen, I got my paycheck,
I got I got all State, I got this, I
got that, right like that, that girl's been paid. She
can invest that money and buck out and stop getting bullied.
(24:29):
We're adult bullying her at this point, and she can
check out. And then all your paychecks, respectfully to all
the women in the w n B A and my
wife's probably gonna check me.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
She no, I'm not. I'm I'm not gonna shade you on.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Your paychecks are all going to decrease if she dips out.
So what's the ish? Because you're not as good? Because
you're not, you're not getting as much credit.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I think the challenge is that she's so good that
it's hard, right, Like, I think that she frustrates people
because she's so good. So I think that that by
the second or third quarter, the frustration boils over and
then people want to make these crazy claims that this kid,
to your point, who's a human being, who has emotions,
who gets tecked out, all these things happen to her too.
(25:12):
It's just her nonchalant way of just breezing by it
and then still being the queen of it all frustrates
the crap out of everyone, and everyone just tries to
attack her. And I think the more othering that exists
in the situation where we say she's all these things,
she's different than us, she's blah blah blah blah blah,
is what then introduces this. And do not forget that
(25:32):
the fans of Indiana have gone full blown racist pitchforks
behind this girl and she never asked for that. That's crazy, Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
I will have defind that. So I mean, like fanom
this crazy.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
By the way, it's fanatic because that's where fan comes from.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
It's next level crazy, which is also just like an
American problem, like, well, it's poor leadership.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
It crosses a line of comfort, That's what I'll say.
And I think the fans have created this insulation around
Caitlin Clark that she didn't ask for and very hard
to break out of because of all of the you know,
kind of like quote quote boxes that she fits into
and checks off. Right, She's not a queer black woman
(26:15):
who's mask presenting, right, Like, all of that is very
real and I totally totally understand what you're saying. Now
where you have the crossover that makes everything a little
bit more palatable, and I and like, please follow me
down this path where I think everything becomes a little
bit more palatable is the Page Becker's style of it.
All the Laura around Page Beckers just generally is like
(26:38):
everything is all about Page and she's so hot and
everyone's obsessed, and like she's best friends with her teammate.
Well now as he came out that they're dating, and
like everyone's already known this, and like the internet sluts
are going crazy. But Page Beckers throws a fit. She
is so cool. Her style's cool as he styles cool.
The couple and everything they do is cool. Kitlyn Clark
(27:00):
shows up to the game looking like my mom. I
love my mom, by the way, my mom's hot as hell.
But I think that if Kitlyn Clark could cross that
line of schaby, she would decentralize herself from this like
crazy Pitchfork community, because I think she just doesn't like
she's definitely around, but I don't think she's invited to
the cookout. And that's where like I need her to
(27:23):
kind of step her life up and change from the
off court perspective. On court, she could be dt. She
could be the frustration creator. She could be the one
that's gonna like take a tech and laugh about it,
Like I think that's fine. But like Rakaia Jackson Page
Becker's Skylet Diggins, like, these these women are hot as hell.
(27:43):
What they're doing in the walkins is insane, and I
think that that is where Caitlyn Clark loses that extra
for me. She's getting dressed in Prada head to toe
and still doesn't look cool. That's that's hard to do.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
All right, hold on, hold on, I'm gonna step in
and defend Kaitlyn Clark, and we got backgrond noises because
Waylen is playing with his trains upstairs. As a grass
fed kid from the Midwest, I empathize with her.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I don't know, well, you are, you have, you have
cool style, but she could take a page out of
your book.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Sure, but she's just the stace of the league, right Well,
I say, who cares? Obviously a lot of people care,
but you have to we have to remember at the
end of the day that these people are people. And
I truly, in my heart of hearts, believe that Caitlin Clark.
She's a loving basketball kid. She fell in love with
(28:37):
basketball with her dad in the backyard on the pavement,
and the kid just loves basketball. So leave her alone.
She's got the same boyfriend she's always had. She's good
for the game. She's a hell of a player, and
she takes chances. You you don't think that she can
get more marketing opportunities than she has. I think that
what most people don't understand is that Caitlyn Clark is
(29:01):
from a very small town in the Midwest. Not excusing
the fan base behavior that's bullshit and grow up right,
like grow up. She's not asking for that. She doesn't
believe in that. But also, she's a kid. She's twenty three,
So we declare adults as eighteen. You can drink at
(29:22):
twenty one. You're not fully conically, cognitive, cogognitively. There you go.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
It's complicated.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I enrolled, I never attended. You're not developed fully right,
And also fact female athletes don't peak until twenty seven. Agree,
you want to see what Kaitlyn Clark's really gonna do.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
But give the kid, I'm sure is But I'm saying
she's the face of the league, and she's rich as hell.
She comes out and recently says she can't do work
on the plane because she doesn't like to buy the
Wi Fi, like because she's cheap. That's fine. You know
what would happen though, if she reached out to a
stylist and they put her in fits would all get
paid for, Like it's gonna be fine, because I think
that that estable. My point is, I think she is
(30:10):
neglecting the opportunity to continue to unify the entire community.
I think that's what's happening because it's easy to dislike her.
She doesn't look like us, she doesn't act like us.
She plays hard. We can't beat her, we can't capture her,
we can't chase her. If you look at the most
recent stats, right players that have over fifty points in
(30:31):
a game or something like that, forty points in a game,
and like everyone around her is in the like hundreds
of games played. She's got like fifty four games under
her belt, and she's number two in the league in history.
She's doing different things. She is incredible. I could literally
argue about this with you for hours and hours, and
I honestly don't even think we're arguing. I think we
(30:53):
just have a difference of opinion about the delivery of
women's sports in the rise. But we don't have all
this time to talk about this. That's part of you
this and we can fight a different day.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Honestly because you you actually just brought something up totally
different at the end there where I'm like different.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
I just I just think that there's there's definitely like
there's definitely some nuances to what's going on in the
w NBA. But I think the most prevailing thought that
we both vehemently agree on is that the other ring
and the racism in the w NBA has no place.
The WNBA was built by black women and whoever is
in it, regardless of their race, their gender, their makeup,
their their sexual orientation. We should all watch the basketball,
(31:37):
celebrate the basketball, and acknowledge where privilege does and doesn't exist.
That I will that, I will pray too, Amen, Mike
drop moments. So we're gonna let that all those chips
lay where they may. If you want to fight and
you want to bring up some points and you want
to saw some comments back at us, do it. Let's
talk about it. Let's open a narrative here. We can
(31:58):
start doing this all summer long. Is just fighting about
the wa and tune in for this part thirty because
I would have to also educate Madison while schooling her,
so we'll go through this whole thing educate. I can
thank you for listening, and we will just can't right.
We will listen, We will listen. Thanks for listening. We
will hear from you next week on These Packs Puck.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
That's it for this week.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Thanks for listening, and if you like what you heard,
spread the word seriously right now, take your phone out,
text a friend and tell them to subscribe.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
And be sure to rate and review us on Apple
Podcasts and Spotify if you haven't already. It really really
helps until next week. I'm Madison Packer.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
And I'm Onya Packer and this was These Packs Puck.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
These Packs Puck is a production of iHeart Women's Sports
and Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. It's hosted by us
Madison and Onya Packer. Emily Meronoff is our senior producer
and story editor. We were mixed and mastered by Mary Doo.
Our executive producers are Jennifer Bassett, Jesse Katz, and Ally
Perry
Hi, everyone, Welcome to these packs puck. I'm Madison Packer
and I'm Anya Packer. Madison and I are both former
pro hockey players. We met through hockey and fell in love,
and now we're married with two awesome toddlers, ages two
and four. These days, we're opening up about the chaos
of our daily lives, between the juggle of being athletes,
raising kids.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And all the messiness in between. So buckle the puck up,
because there is a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Hey, babe, Hey, IM.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Not usually get a babe. I usually get like an
ans or an Anya.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Or pack How you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm cautiously optimistic for the future that we create ourselves,
but for literally nothing else. I got my nails painted
for the fourth of July and so I was rocking
a red, white and blue. They look phenomenal, by the way,
they do look phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Also, any lesbian that judges me based on my wife's fingernails.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Okay, anyone that judges you based on your fingernails, they
just don't know how to do things properly. I will
say the nail, the red, white and blue. I got
them done for the fourth of July. That is since
coming gone I haven't changed them. I think they're so
so cute. But I will say I'm representing my version
of America.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
America hot the hot take, all right, should we get
into it?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
You got a hot take for me? Hear me with it.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
My hot take is what the actual fuck is happening
in our country? Love?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
When the hot take starts with the F word, keep going,
don't care.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I don't care where you're from, what you do, how
you're raised, what God you believe in. I do believe, however,
and care that we should just leave each other the
fuck alone. Yeah, and if you are right. So we're
gonna get to the hot take in a second, but
I want to I want to go. I gotta tee
(01:52):
it up. We're all pro life in this new Republican Party.
So pro life is pro life. Every heart beat is
a heartbeat. We have just defunded the specialized hotline to
nine to eight, which nine to eight is a government
funded program twenty four to seven you can call if
(02:13):
you're a mental crisis. They had a specialized subdivision for
LGBTQ plus use. Any member of the LGBTQ plus community
is four times more likely to commit suicide than anyone else.
So we have decided that we're not going to continue
to fund that. And that is absolute fucking insanity because
(02:36):
one you're absolutely guaranteeing that people are gonna die. Two,
you're proving that you don't actually value human life. Three
you are removing the only free resource that is massively accessible.
I say massively accessible because there are other resources that
(02:58):
we're going to get into, but that is the most publicized,
the most accessible, the most known, and for what the
LGBTQ plus youth community in particular, we're talking about kids
who have a right to live, who have a right
to discover, who have a right to breathe. The Trevor
(03:20):
Project has been funneling people in to support that crisis hotline,
and we're just going to pull the plug. Why how
about you stop spending dollars here, there, and everywhere on
a couple other things like that's the thing that we
think is going to save this country billions?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Fuck off. Well, let me give you some stats because
I want it to be specific here. LGBTQ plus youth
living in rural areas are more likely to consider suicide
forty three percent of them.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, it's insane.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Thirteen percent of all adolescent youth between twelve and me
and you.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Fall in that stat by the way, for listeners, any
and I fall in that staff.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Overall, forty percent of high school students have reported persistent
feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the year. Fifty three
percent of them were female and twenty eight percent of
them were male, sixty five percent of LGBTQ plus youth
and thirty one percent of cisgendered and hetero sexual individuals.
So we're looking at we're looking at a problem that
(04:23):
is a humongous problem, right, And I say this all
the time. We care about birthing these children, That's what
we care about. We don't care about raising them. We
don't care about homing them. We don't care about feeding them.
We're letting Americans protecting them. We're letting Americans in this
country get so wealthy that they could solve world hunger,
our global hunger problem with a fraction of their net worth.
(04:47):
And I understand that that's not their like dollars in pocket,
but of their net worth. They could solve world hunger.
Let alone solve youth homelessness in America. Nope, that can
continue to happen. We can let exorbitant amounts of wealth
continue to be earned in this country, and we can't
stop to think about what kind of infrastructure and scaffolding
(05:12):
we're building for the children that we're introducing, so that
they are safe, homed, fed, educated, able to read, able
to write, able to go to school, able to look
at whatever books they want to look at, able to
love who they want to love, able to pray to
who they want to pray to. We don't care about
any of that, Just birth them.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
You and I had a lot of conversations leading up
to this most recent election, because I'm from a family
that whatever everyone said, well, you know it's not going
to happen, it's happening. And if you don't think it's happening,
it's because you have the privilege of city in your
home and you don't have to think about justifying your
(05:55):
right to being a parent, justifying your right to belonging,
justify your right to just having safe space. Right, it
is happening. And the more things we allow people to
want attack to erase, the more comfortable they get going
after all those things. It is fucking happening. Wake up,
(06:15):
and they are kids honestly, who the fuck cares?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
They're kids?
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And I got in this argument with a member of
the US military and he actually was like, I never
thought about it that way. If we stopped drawing attention
to all these things, maybe it wouldn't be as big
of an issue. But why is it as big of
an issue it is? Now? Why are we so focused
(06:42):
on it? Because we're distracting from whatever else is happening.
Those people deserve access. Those people, we people. We deserve
access to equal and equitable healthcare, which falls under the
same banner as access to the nine to eight eight
crisis hotline.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So I think the part that also adds a layer
of interest to this, which is what makes it scary,
is if you look at the Trevor Project, they put
out a study every single year. So last year, in
twenty twenty four, they put out a study and it
was basically who considered suicide in the past year and
then who actually attempted it? The number of people that
thought about suicide and then went on to attempt it
(07:23):
in the questioning category, not even people that identify as trans,
identify as gay, identify as pan identifies. By now, add
the layer of people that are just confused if they're
questioning and they're scared. So I'll give you a statistic.
Thirty five percent of gay and lesbian right, it's about
the same thought about having or considered suicide in the
(07:47):
past year. About ten percent attempted, forty three percent of
questioning in fifteen percent attempted. The fear of being gay
or somehow tangentially connected to the LGBTQ community is now
also killing children.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
All this to say, the nine to eight eight Crisis
Hotline in the US is defunding specialized access for members
of the LGBTQ plus community, so we want to share
that there are still a lot of resources available. The
lgbt National Hotline, you can find their number online, National
(08:28):
Suicide Prevention Hotline, which is not specialized but is still available.
The Trevor Project has a hotline that's available text call
whatever you need. Lgbt National Youth talk Line remains available. Also,
you can look up online and Translifeline. It's a confidential
twenty four to seven peer support service run by and
(08:51):
for transgender youth. It's available in the US and in Canada,
and their number is also available online. So while the
fear exis it is real. We understand it. But anyone
that's listening to this podcast has access to internet, please
look it up. There are resources still available, and hopefully
(09:13):
it's a reversible situation.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah, hopefully it's someone gets some sense here and tries
to figure out what is actually healthcare and what we
should all have access to. So I appreciate that, and
I know that that hot take is most definitely very
spicy for you.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Sorry, I I got heated. Heated, ladies, you should get heated.
I think we should all get heated about that. I think,
you know, we talk about things and we are I
think are all afraid to have a really powerful.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Stance now that we've kind of gotten through that, and
I think that that will always weigh very heavy on
our hearts. But let's do our check in today. We're
doing an episode with just the two of us, so
we'll get into some other non hockey related thoughts. I
think we'll still get into some spiciness.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Spicy.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Talk to me, how you doing. Let's do a little
check in. Run from one to one to one hundred.
Where are you at?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Oh? I hope you're high because I'm hovering low. Bit Ooh,
I'm like forty two. So I recently started therapy again
and we had a deep therapy sash right before we
had this call sash. So I'm hovering right around a
forty two and that's as far as we're going to
go into that. So where you at? Ooh, but I
(10:27):
did show up for the call.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Listen, you showed up, you showered. You're here after.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
I didn't shower. I'm getting my shower at kay.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Well, then you stink and you showed up in your hair,
and I think I changed my clothes.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I was sweaty for my boxing class.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
You're here good, that's important. Forty two is better than zero.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So hopefully you're somewhere in the high sixties or low seventies.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Am I in the high sixties? I think? So I'm
feeling good. It's sunny outside. I got the automatic watering
figured out at the house, so I've just got to
get a little bit of a longer hose and then
the automatic watering will happen while we are not doing
the walk around with the hose every single moment of
every single day. So hopefully that gives me some peace
of mind. Our garden needs to be watered, because if
I love it. I cherish it. It makes me happy.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
It looks amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
It's a labor of love. This garden. Because we don't
have we don't have irrigation at this house. Because we
live in the woods. We're on a well. We don't
have city water, and so I walk around with the
hose and I water over an acre of garden.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
How long have we lived here?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Three years?
Speaker 1 (11:27):
No? Four? Your years? The garden it's chef's kiss, chef kiss.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
It's never looked better. Oh that made me higher? Okay, fine,
then I'm I'm a seventy Now.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
The garden does look phenomenal. Thank you, you're the best.
And the veggie garden, that's all Whalen. You started labeling
beef tomatoes.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, that's Whalen and Whalen and Harlan really wanted to
pick some seeds and plant them. So hopefully we grow
ourselves some pumpkins for October. I'll let everyone know how
that goes.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
If we go pumpkins in that patch, that's it.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I hope we do. I hope we have a real
pumpkin patch. That's the goal.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
We spread so many pumpkin seeds, we're gonna sell them
out front.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Two Bucks apiece.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
No matter the way.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Anyway, I'm excited to get into the next part. So
we'll go to a little bit of a break and
then we'll come back with some more kind of spicy thoughts.
I think this is a unique take for you and
I very vehemently disagree. So we'll take a quick break
and then we'll come back with some other non hockey
related arguments. Today we're doing a solo episode, but I
(12:42):
feel like we had a really passionate hot take in
the beginning that wasn't exactly about sports, and now we
have a very alternately spicy opinion about women's sports, but
not specifically hockey. So we're gonna concentrate it a lot
around what's going on in the w but I think
that's a good micro to what's going on in the
macro environment of women's sports as a whole. So you've
(13:02):
made a pretty intense claim. I want you to stand
on it, and then we can kind of get into
it a little bit. Go for it.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I think that the hate on Kaitlin Clark from her
counterparts is unwarranted. I can understand being frustrated with a
good competitor. However, I think that she is the reciprocate
of a lot of like lead wide hate and bullshit,
and there's no disputing viewership from last year to this
(13:34):
year is up seventy six percent in the WNBA. However,
when she was out injured for the first I don't
know how many games it is, I should know that,
but I don't know that. I think it was eight
to eleven. Viewership was down league wide fifty five percent.
So tell me that the Caitlin Clark effect isn't real.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I don't disagree that the Caitlin Clark effect isn't real.
I do think it is very real. I think the
other thing to nod to is so many other of
the MVPs in the league are currently injured, right, so
Kitlyn Clark being out is a piece of a puzzle.
She's she's got the following, she brings everybody with her,
and we can talk about the why of that in
(14:19):
my opinion, but like, you don't have John Qwell Jones,
you don't have Sabrina and squ you don't have Asia Wilson,
Caitlin Clark was out for a period of time, Melissa
Thomas was out, Khaliak Copper was out, Courtney Vanderslute is
out for the season. The only MVP from last year,
the only person that was even in contention for MVP
that has not missed a current game is Brianna Stewart.
(14:39):
And so there's this kind of like there's a lag.
Angel Reese was not even close. She was hurt last year.
There's these broad stroke claims about what's going on in
the WNBA. I don't disagree with Kitlyn Clark being a massive,
massive piece of the what's hot bucket, but the infrastructure
was built before her, and it was built for her
(15:01):
to shine. And when you look at Asia Wilson going
back to back MVPs as a black woman, you'd have
to say it's popular because it's popular and she is
a massive piece.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Sure, but did you see her interview the night where
she comes in and she's like, I want to apologize
of yours. That was not an Ajia Wilson like performance.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
He's aware. We love an aware queen.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, I love that, But I think that you also
have to acknowledge that, like players across the league recognize
there's a different standard, right. I also want to call
out I mean, like Kenvin Clark has been the center
of a lot of ridicule, and it's just unfair. She's
(15:47):
still so young, she's just getting her feet wet, so
to compare her to an Asia Wilson and some of
these other players, I don't think it's fair.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
I agree, actually completely.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Everyone's like, oh, she's the new Diana Trassi. Diana Tarassi
played twenty years in the WNBA. Sue Bird played twenty
plus years in the WNBA. And when you look at
legends like Sue Bird who look at Diana Rassi, who
look at her and say she is the game changer,
(16:19):
not just for the WNBA, who is the industry leader, right,
but for all of women's sports, Yeah, I mean. And
so for her to be in her second year and
face this criticism.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Joy Taylor goes on Joe Budden's podcast and basically says
that Kitlin Clark has headlines because of her feud with
Angel Reese. I vehemently disagree. I think what Angel Reese
and Caitlin Clark had going on in the NCAA's in
those back to back years helped Angel Reese and really
created the persona of Angel Reese which I think exists,
(16:51):
is amazing. It makes perfect sense. I love the Bayou Barbie.
I love everything she's doing, right, Like I'm in on
the Angel Reese thing. But like if you take the
cult like following of Caitlyn Clark, Paige Beckers, right, like
all of these white women who are incredible at basketball,
please do not take away Kelsey Plum, Like, let me
(17:12):
go down a list of really incredible basketball players that
every time they get the shine, they say, I don't
deserve it. This sport is built on the backs of
black women, and I want to give appropriate and fair
and equitable time to the people that have started what
I'm now exceptional at. Like you know, Paige Beckers does
it years ago when she's receiving Gatory Player of the Year.
(17:35):
Caitlin Clark does it at the SPS. I think the
othering of these women creates the narrative for this criticism.
And to your point, and I think what you're trying
to say is it makes it seem like everyone's against
Kaitlyn Clark, right, like you're saying, like you think the
players are all attacking her personally, and I think they're
taking liberties. Don't get me wrong, Like I think jac
(17:55):
Shelton took a freaking liberty. I think Marina Maybury took
a liberty in that game. I think that's crazy. Punch
that kid, yeah fast, I'm not about that. I think
that that's just not like as team sports go. I
think the outcome of that, watching Sophie Cunningham, watching Aliah
Boston right, like watching her teammates stand up for her
is what sports is about. Now. I think it's really
(18:16):
hard because the problem with Caitlin Clark for everyone else's perspective,
from a player's perspective, she plays hard as hell. She
does not care. She'll get a tech and move on.
She's perfectly comfortable to be the bad guy in the
villain in your story and then take a step back,
three off a logo and just absolutely embarrass you. And
I think that's frustrating because she's a generational talent. But
(18:39):
I think basketball and women's sports created an avenue for
her to then walk through the door and shine the
way she does. I don't think it's anything in reverse.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I don't disagree with that. However, how many players have
walked that avenue, right, I mean it's like any sport
like you pay homage, right, like, I think respectfully and
women talking, we do a shit job of doing it
because we just like pretend like that this league has
popped up out of nowhere and we completely forget about
(19:14):
the NWHL, the CWHL, the PHF, the leagues before it.
I mean, like, yeah, I think that even in basketball,
there was a league that existed before the WNBA. So
I don't disagree with you at all, but I think,
for whatever reason, in women's sport we are afraid of
(19:37):
heritage or whatever. However, you cannot deny that Caitlin Clark
has been able to do it in a different way
and for her counterparts to have the inability to recognize, like, listen,
Angel Reese, you're phenomenal, you're marketable, you're great, You're good
(19:59):
at basketball, you're good at rebounding, you're good at all
that you do. But you don't think that a part
of that paycheck is because of Kitlyn Clark. You're kidding yourself.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Come on, no, it absolutely is. But here's the rub.
I think that the hard part in women's sports, Okay,
I don't disrespectful, Like I don't know if it's disrespectful.
I just think it's hard. Sometimes I think it's hard ball,
and sometimes I think it's a it's a liberty because
of the frustration of not being able to stop her.
But then the question gets raised. So Angel mccaughtrey makes
this comment, and she makes it specifically about Hayley Van Lift,
(20:32):
and then she she walks back and apologizes because it's
not the point she's trying to make. She's not trying
to single out a player, But the point she was
trying to make was would these players be in the
position that they're in if they didn't have the massive following,
if they weren't bringing these massive fan bases in viewerships
to these teams. The point of the matter is some
(20:53):
players can stand on it, like Pagebeckers, Caitlyn Clark. Some
of those players absolutely stand on it. Angel Reese is
coming with a lot and in her rebound game is insane,
and then everyone chirps her for me bounds like don't
even get me started on like what's going on there?
But there's an absolute powerhouse of some of the players
(21:14):
that are coming from NCAA. Now are players making it
over other players predicated upon what their social media following is,
And so Angel mccattry basically says, yeah, work on your game,
but work on your socials too, because it matters. The
whole package matters. And so to your point, if we're
going to bring somebody that's going to add star power
(21:36):
to a roster, star power in the position of like dollars,
viewership and all of that, like how much does that
play in the picture of the benefit and growth of
women's sports. And the w has a whole their CBA
ends this year, so they're going to negotiate like one
hundred thousand things. But I think that's the layer that's
so interesting is like how much influenced social media has
(21:58):
in your success in women's sports as an athlete. And
that's where like Caitlyn Clark and the hate and the
drama all comes into it, because somebody with four thousand
followers on social media who's playing against her, who is
effectively a peanut in the in the world that she
lives in, is taking her to task and that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
My only pushback is the biggest thing when you look
at it online, right is that she's just hold on
for a minute, she's white and she's straight, and to clarify,
white privilege is absolutely a thing. But I don't think
that Caitlyn Clark's success in basketball has anything to do
(22:58):
with white privilege.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
No, wait, wait, wait, time out. But she acknowledges her
own privilege. I don't think she's saying it's not a factor.
I think she's saying it's not the only factor. She's
an incredible basketball player. It's not the prevailing factor, for sure. Yes,
but she's white, she's straight.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
She has an astronomical following, which came with her from
the University of Iowa, which respectfully.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Not a basketball team, like not a club, but you're
I'm I'm a.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Big ten person, so I can say this, Who the
hell cares about the University of Iowa. I'm a badger.
But she put them on the map. And so when
you start to introduce stuff like that, I have a
problem with that. She's a phenomenal basketball player, and I've
admitted I know nothing about basketball. I dated a basketball
player a long time ago, still know nothing about it.
(23:48):
I think what we forget is that there are more
eyes now than ever on the w NBA, and the
only increase in decrease in viewership seems to be Caitlin Clark,
which followed her from her NCAA career, which was very
(24:08):
easy to track. She's a once in a generation player.
So what's the what's the ish like? Because if she
just decides to say, hey, listen, I got my paycheck,
I got I got all State, I got this, I
got that, right like that, that girl's been paid. She
can invest that money and buck out and stop getting bullied.
(24:29):
We're adult bullying her at this point, and she can
check out. And then all your paychecks, respectfully to all
the women in the w n B A and my
wife's probably gonna check me.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
She no, I'm not. I'm I'm not gonna shade you on.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Your paychecks are all going to decrease if she dips out.
So what's the ish? Because you're not as good? Because
you're not, you're not getting as much credit.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I think the challenge is that she's so good that
it's hard, right, Like, I think that she frustrates people
because she's so good. So I think that that by
the second or third quarter, the frustration boils over and
then people want to make these crazy claims that this kid,
to your point, who's a human being, who has emotions,
who gets tecked out, all these things happen to her too.
(25:12):
It's just her nonchalant way of just breezing by it
and then still being the queen of it all frustrates
the crap out of everyone, and everyone just tries to
attack her. And I think the more othering that exists
in the situation where we say she's all these things,
she's different than us, she's blah blah blah blah blah,
is what then introduces this. And do not forget that
(25:32):
the fans of Indiana have gone full blown racist pitchforks
behind this girl and she never asked for that. That's crazy, Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
I will have defind that. So I mean, like fanom
this crazy.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
By the way, it's fanatic because that's where fan comes from.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
It's next level crazy, which is also just like an
American problem, like, well, it's poor leadership.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
It crosses a line of comfort, That's what I'll say.
And I think the fans have created this insulation around
Caitlin Clark that she didn't ask for and very hard
to break out of because of all of the you know,
kind of like quote quote boxes that she fits into
and checks off. Right, She's not a queer black woman
(26:15):
who's mask presenting, right, Like, all of that is very
real and I totally totally understand what you're saying. Now
where you have the crossover that makes everything a little
bit more palatable, and I and like, please follow me
down this path where I think everything becomes a little
bit more palatable is the Page Becker's style of it.
All the Laura around Page Beckers just generally is like
(26:38):
everything is all about Page and she's so hot and
everyone's obsessed, and like she's best friends with her teammate.
Well now as he came out that they're dating, and
like everyone's already known this, and like the internet sluts
are going crazy. But Page Beckers throws a fit. She
is so cool. Her style's cool as he styles cool.
The couple and everything they do is cool. Kitlyn Clark
(27:00):
shows up to the game looking like my mom. I
love my mom, by the way, my mom's hot as hell.
But I think that if Kitlyn Clark could cross that
line of schaby, she would decentralize herself from this like
crazy Pitchfork community, because I think she just doesn't like
she's definitely around, but I don't think she's invited to
the cookout. And that's where like I need her to
(27:23):
kind of step her life up and change from the
off court perspective. On court, she could be dt. She
could be the frustration creator. She could be the one
that's gonna like take a tech and laugh about it,
Like I think that's fine. But like Rakaia Jackson Page
Becker's Skylet Diggins, like, these these women are hot as hell.
(27:43):
What they're doing in the walkins is insane, and I
think that that is where Caitlyn Clark loses that extra
for me. She's getting dressed in Prada head to toe
and still doesn't look cool. That's that's hard to do.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
All right, hold on, hold on, I'm gonna step in
and defend Kaitlyn Clark, and we got backgrond noises because
Waylen is playing with his trains upstairs. As a grass
fed kid from the Midwest, I empathize with her.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I don't know, well, you are, you have, you have
cool style, but she could take a page out of
your book.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Sure, but she's just the stace of the league, right Well,
I say, who cares? Obviously a lot of people care,
but you have to we have to remember at the
end of the day that these people are people. And
I truly, in my heart of hearts, believe that Caitlin Clark.
She's a loving basketball kid. She fell in love with
(28:37):
basketball with her dad in the backyard on the pavement,
and the kid just loves basketball. So leave her alone.
She's got the same boyfriend she's always had. She's good
for the game. She's a hell of a player, and
she takes chances. You you don't think that she can
get more marketing opportunities than she has. I think that
what most people don't understand is that Caitlyn Clark is
(29:01):
from a very small town in the Midwest. Not excusing
the fan base behavior that's bullshit and grow up right,
like grow up. She's not asking for that. She doesn't
believe in that. But also, she's a kid. She's twenty three,
So we declare adults as eighteen. You can drink at
(29:22):
twenty one. You're not fully conically, cognitive, cogognitively. There you go.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
It's complicated.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I enrolled, I never attended. You're not developed fully right,
And also fact female athletes don't peak until twenty seven. Agree,
you want to see what Kaitlyn Clark's really gonna do.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
But give the kid, I'm sure is But I'm saying
she's the face of the league, and she's rich as hell.
She comes out and recently says she can't do work
on the plane because she doesn't like to buy the
Wi Fi, like because she's cheap. That's fine. You know
what would happen though, if she reached out to a
stylist and they put her in fits would all get
paid for, Like it's gonna be fine, because I think
that that estable. My point is, I think she is
(30:10):
neglecting the opportunity to continue to unify the entire community.
I think that's what's happening because it's easy to dislike her.
She doesn't look like us, she doesn't act like us.
She plays hard. We can't beat her, we can't capture her,
we can't chase her. If you look at the most
recent stats, right players that have over fifty points in
(30:31):
a game or something like that, forty points in a game,
and like everyone around her is in the like hundreds
of games played. She's got like fifty four games under
her belt, and she's number two in the league in history.
She's doing different things. She is incredible. I could literally
argue about this with you for hours and hours, and
I honestly don't even think we're arguing. I think we
(30:53):
just have a difference of opinion about the delivery of
women's sports in the rise. But we don't have all
this time to talk about this. That's part of you
this and we can fight a different day.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Honestly because you you actually just brought something up totally
different at the end there where I'm like different.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
I just I just think that there's there's definitely like
there's definitely some nuances to what's going on in the
w NBA. But I think the most prevailing thought that
we both vehemently agree on is that the other ring
and the racism in the w NBA has no place.
The WNBA was built by black women and whoever is
in it, regardless of their race, their gender, their makeup,
their their sexual orientation. We should all watch the basketball,
(31:37):
celebrate the basketball, and acknowledge where privilege does and doesn't exist.
That I will that, I will pray too, Amen, Mike
drop moments. So we're gonna let that all those chips
lay where they may. If you want to fight and
you want to bring up some points and you want
to saw some comments back at us, do it. Let's
talk about it. Let's open a narrative here. We can
(31:58):
start doing this all summer long. Is just fighting about
the wa and tune in for this part thirty because
I would have to also educate Madison while schooling her,
so we'll go through this whole thing educate. I can
thank you for listening, and we will just can't right.
We will listen, We will listen. Thanks for listening. We
will hear from you next week on These Packs Puck.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
That's it for this week.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Thanks for listening, and if you like what you heard,
spread the word seriously right now, take your phone out,
text a friend and tell them to subscribe.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
And be sure to rate and review us on Apple
Podcasts and Spotify if you haven't already. It really really
helps until next week. I'm Madison Packer.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
And I'm Onya Packer and this was These Packs Puck.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
These Packs Puck is a production of iHeart Women's Sports
and Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. It's hosted by us
Madison and Onya Packer. Emily Meronoff is our senior producer
and story editor. We were mixed and mastered by Mary Doo.
Our executive producers are Jennifer Bassett, Jesse Katz, and Ally
Perry
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