
Hello! It's the podcast that isn't nearly athletic enough to eat authentic Italian food in a white sweatshirt. Today, Katie and the Casualties celebrate Alysa Liu, Paul Rothrock, and athletes finding inspiration post-Olympics, before briefly getting into most of the USA men's hockey team attending the State of the Union, the five who didn't, and the women being invited to celebrate with Flavor Flav in Las Vegas, AFTER already celebrating with Megan Thee Stallion over pasta in Italy. Megan is manifesting both an engagement and an EGOT; what are Katie and the team manifesting in 2026? Katie and the Casualties then get into Angels owner Arte Moreno saying that he believes winning is not a top priority for his fans, Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban saying his fans should embrace when they try to lose on purpose, NFL owners saying making players stop giving them bad grades, and none of it making sense. Fresh off the Olympics, Team USA luger Sophia Kirkby joins the show [47:03] to tal...
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Katie Nolan
Everyone deserves to be connected.
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Katie Nolan
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Sophia Kirkby
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Katie Nolan
Hey, Isabella, did you see that? Angry supporters of the Italian soccer club Torino dumped a heap of manure outside of the club's training ground in a protest against the owner.
Isabella
That feels like it's gonna affect everybody, not just the owner.
Katie Nolan
That is true. Everybody's got to use the door.
Isabella
You know what I'm saying? It's gonna smell. Ew.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, that's. Videos emerged on social media of a vehicle arriving at the training ground, men jumping out and shoveling what local media described as manure into a pile at the entrance. Above the pile was a banner, which translated to in eat shit Cairo, a statement aimed at owner Urbano Cairo.
Isabella
Well, now I have an idea for the day you piss me off.
Katie Nolan
The only employee here in the same office has just threatened me with a pile of poop, and I can't tell
Isabella
you if it's gonna be cow goat. I won't let you know.
Katie Nolan
Wouldn't even be my first question. Wouldn't need to. Wouldn't make a difference. Hello. Hello. And we're back. We're back. Which means I can scream. Welcome to Casuals, the sports podcast. It doesn't care what you know. We're just happy that you're here because sports are about vibes. Okay. Welcome. I'm Katie Nolan. I host this thing today on the show. We got a lot to get to. The owner of the Angels. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The baseball team says fans don't care about winning. Mark Cuban thinks that losing on purpose should be embraced by the National Basketball Association. NFL owners achieve the dreams of all grade schoolers everywhere by getting report cards banned. And last but not least, we will be joined by Olympic loser Sophia Kirkby to ask her all about the Olympic experience. But mostly, we want to perform a wellness check because she went on that date with a fan. And I just want to. I want eyes on her. I want to make sure she's okay and that she's back and she. So we're going to talk to her in a little bit, but first I've got to tell you how you can reach us here at Casuals. Our email is casuals with katienolan Gmail.com. our voicemail is 646-801-0043. On IG and tick tock. We are at CasualsThePodcast. I also have to introduce you to our production team here at SiriusXM. We call them the Casualties and we yap it up about sports before we bring in a guest on these Thursday episodes that are released on YouTube on Friday. The Casualties are here. Isabella, our sports newbie.
Isabella
Hi.
Katie Nolan
Chris, our master editor.
Chris
Hello.
Katie Nolan
And B B, B B Brady.
Brady
Hey.
Katie Nolan
Incredible. Nothing's happening. Well, I mean, a lot is happening. You know, I figure we would start the show. We got any emails we want to toss out there?
Chris
Yeah, I think we should start off with an email from Nat, if I may. And Nat says, hey, Casualties. After hearing Isabella say, I wonder if Alyssa Liu will inspire other athletes to be more chill. I immediately thought about what Paul Rothbrock, who plays for my Seattle Sounders in the mls, said this week in an interview. Let's have a listen to what he said.
Katie Nolan
I saw you before the game, sort
Chris
of walking the field, headphones on, had a ball in your hand. Just seemed kind of like taking it in by yourself.
Katie Nolan
I gotta ask what the song was. Donna Summer song that Alyssa Liu had for her gold medal performance. Yeah, shout out to her because I was actually pretty inspired with just her attitude going into Olympics. And I was trying to play on that a little bit today of just going in free and going in for the joy of it and for, you know, just making connections with the guys and not thinking about objectives and results
Chris
and just enjoying it.
Katie Nolan
And I think it paid off tonight. Hell yeah. Wait, that makes me so happy. Honestly, this poor girl. I mean, it's not she.
Sophia Kirkby
I've.
Katie Nolan
I have been. The reason I say poor girl is because I have been, like, using her. She's been getting me through the week. Like, I. Today I was woke up and I was like, I don't know if I could do it today. And I, I wake up way before Dan and I just put on really quietly my shower speaker all the way down, you know, just so I could hear it so I didn't wake up him and Myrtle just so I could listen to MacArthur park, the MacArthur park song. I've listened to that song lately, too. I just can't. I can't with it. It's really helping me through so much. I love that. I absolutely love that. And it's what it should be. It hearing other athletes be like, yeah, that inspired the hell out of me. Ooh, I love that. I could run through a wall. The Olympics, man, they're great. We got one more email before we jump into everything we do.
Chris
One more email from Katie. I assume it's a different Katie and no one's.
Sophia Kirkby
No, it's me.
Katie Nolan
I actually have been emailing you guys. I can't get a hold of you. So I'm writing into the show email, hoping it'll get in.
Chris
Katie says, hi, Katie and the casualties and specifically wanted to shout out Isabella. I said, hi, Isabella. Such a cagey, clearly Isabella. Classic Katie.
Katie Nolan
Katie's love, Isabella.
Chris
After the last episode in the presidential elephant in the room, I thought we needed some positivity. I'm a fifth grade teacher in California. My class and I have been watching the Olympics religiously. We even got to meet Aiden Oldenburg curling Rambo in a zoom session where he taught the kids how to play curling, which is awesome.
Katie Nolan
They get to forget it every four years. That's the rules.
Chris
But the best moment by far was watching the entire gold medal women's hockey match together. When Keller scored the final goal, my students erupted in cheers and applause. An entire class of girls and boys were screaming their little hearts out for a sport most of them had never watched before. And none of the boys gave a shit about watching women play because it's not hard to support women's sports. Thank you for the rant and putting our rage into words.
Katie Nolan
You're welcome. Me. Thanks for writing an email. Love you. Mean it. Katie and Nat. Thank you guys for writing in. Yeah, listen, this is the hardest part about this, I think, is that this story is ever evolving, right? And we recorded our episode that came out on Tuesday. We recorded that on Monday, and it didn't release on YouTube till Wednesday. And now here we are again recording this on Wednesday, and it's going to come out on. So I just want to be clear about how weird the timeline is so that everybody that's following this is, like, can take that into account whenever I say what it is that I'm saying. But I just. Here we are on Wednesday, and I think where I'm at mentally with this is that I'm just, like, kind of really frustrated. Just, like, frustrated and Defeated. Because, like, I don't know, those two weeks of the Olympics were really great for bringing everybody together. And I was feeling like, you know, coming together and talk. I had somebody say to me that it saved their marriage watching the Olympics with their wife because it was something they were like, we can both be rooting for this together. It's like a common ground to discuss. And now then, with the last gold, the last triumphant gold of the Olympics everybody was on board for it has now been turned into this divisive thing where, like, I don't know, people who didn't watch any of the Olympics are now jumping into the conversation and being like, women don't like sports. This is for the men. And I'm just standing here like, yeah, okay, you don't even know who played in the game. You didn't watch any of the actual sport. And I have to somehow now defend women who won the gold. Excuse me. But also, just like, female sports fans. And now it just puts us all in this weird place where we've got to be combative about a thing that, like, we would have loved to avoid completely in the first place. As was mentioned on our last episode a lot, we're not ignorant to the political beliefs of many of the players. It's something we had just chosen to exist with because it wasn't what it was about. It was about coming together and celebrating the team. But very quickly, it became not about that. And that's been very frustrating to watch, like, Snowball, not to make a Winter Olympics reference, but to watch it, like, Snowball on itself into this thing that has grown out of control, where now me, a lifelong hockey fan, who, if you had told me it's like a monkey's paw, right? If you had told me, like, the whole world will be talking about hockey, and United States will have defeated Canada both in the men's and women's for the first time, I'd be like, yeah, of course. I'll take that timeline. And then I look at it and I'm like, oh, except they're not really talking about hockey. They're talking about this. They're talking about politics. They're talking about Cash Patel looking for Nancy Guthrie in the bottom of a Michelob Ultra. Or they're, like, talking about them going to the State of the Union, a boring school assembly on its best day. That's where they're going to celebrate. And so it's just like, look, I'm with you. I don't want to do the politics of it all, especially as Things are heating up and bec. This, like, pressure cooker of nightmare headlines. It's like sports was kind of providing this beautiful break where we could all just go, let's come together despite our differences and celebrate human achievement and accomplishment. And instead it's becoming like, agree with this and get in line or you're a whiny crybaby and sports hates you. It's like, I don't. I don't know that it needs to be all this. I don't know that we needed to take it there and make it all of this and make it now divisive where you've got to support women's hockey or men's hockey. It's like, this should be a big win for USA Hockey as, like a program, as, like a. As a. As a unit. And instead it's becoming like this whole thing. And there was all of this momentum coming into this Olympics behind hockey, the heated rivalry of it all. New fans were finding the sport and going to the games. And now those very new fans, many of whom are women, are having to, like, either abandon it, which many of them are. I've seen a lot of fan accounts like Daily Jeremy Swayman, which was an account that would daily post pictures and updates on Bruins goalie and backup goalie for the United States men's team, Jeremy Swayman. They have said we were. We're ceasing operations at Daily Jeremy Sway. No more. We're not doing this anymore. And so women either have to, like, abandon the sport entirely, which sucks, or they've got to go fully into PWHL and also act like it's the women versus the men. It's becoming. It's becoming this. When the whole point of it was to be this. The whole point was it to be, like, togetherness that you can love both. If there's not a team that you want to watch that night, you can watch for your women's team, you can watch the men, or if your men's team isn't playing, you can watch the women. And instead it's like, pick one. And then it's adversarial. And that sucks. That sucks really bad. We do have to update the story. So let's just get into the headlines that we can update. The USA women declined the State of the Union invitation. The men went to it. The women's statement was, quote, we are sincerely grateful for the invitation extended to our gold medal winning US Women's hockey team. Deeply appreciate the recognition of their extraordinary achievement due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments. Following the Games, the athletes are unable to participate. They were honored to be included and grateful for the acknowledgment. Yeah, they've got. Their season starts back up Thursday. So today, when this episode is releasing on audio. Yesterday, if you're watching us on YouTube, their season starts. The men's season. NHL season started. Starts on Wednesday. Right. Today for recording. So yesterday, if you're. The timeline sucks, but we'll get. We'll get there. Okay. As we get better at this, it'll all come out closer to each other. We're new. Their season starts and a lot of them missed practices to go to. Again, The State of the Union, which Conor Hellebuk got the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I'm not gonna get worked up about that, because it's like that. That thing just is like a. The translation of it is like, president likes you. Right. That's what it has always felt like. Like, president says yay to you. Because they've given it to many athletes and such throughout history. There's been 671 previous recipients. 44 of them are athletes. I know Megan Rapinoe has one. It's like, it's kind of up to whoever is in office to pick who they want, and that's fine. They gave it to Connor Helbach, who was fantastic in that. I do wonder if anyone at any point brought up the like, well, and so normally he's goalie for a Canadian team or. This isn't really the narrative that's been surrounding Conor Hellebuk leading into this Olympics. It's not like everyone's like, yo, in a big game, put Conor Hellebuk in net. And so it's like, I'm very glad you can always change your narrative at any time and certainly put in the work to change his narrative here at the Olympics with his performance in that game. But it's just funny watching all these people who definitely haven't been paying attention to hockey be like, Connor Ellebuck, is that the greatest goalie we've ever seen? And you're like, there's. There were a few times it was. That's not the case. Obviously. An incredibly talented man. This is. Now I feel like I got to do this. An incredibly talented man. And we are so grateful to have him playing his hockey and for allowing us gals to even watch if we want to. Five men from Team USA did not go to the State of the Union. Just gonna name them, in case that matters to you. I don't know. Jake Gensel from the Tap. Tampa Bay Lightning. The Tampa Bay Lightning. Brock Nelson from the Avalanche, Kyle Connor from the Jets, Jackson lacombe from the Anaheim Ducks, and then Jake Ottinger from the Dallas Stars. Which is really funny because heading into this Olympics, there was a graphic with Otter on it. And it had the whole. All the people on the team, and Otter was there smiling, right? And a lot of people were like, am I not? So this guy looks like Charlie Kirk, and there's only certain angles in which he does, but it's just funny. Like, non hockey fans seeing that graphic heading into the Olympics were like, yo, that backup goalie looks like Charlie Kirk.
Brady
There's a reason he grew a beard. The beard is the great separator.
Katie Nolan
So anyway, they went to that. Trump claims Team USA women will visit the White House, quote, unquote, soon. So, look, whatever, Whatever. Clearly, that's the attitude we're taking. Whatever. You know, I'm just, like, seeing people online say the dumbest thing. Like, somebody posted a picture of Bill Clinton with the 1996 women's gymnastics team being, like, hypocrites. You guys don't like when they go to the. They went to visit and you're like, first of all, we didn't know the stuff we know now about him then. Okay? We do know the other stuff now. And it's weird. We're all just supposed to go about our lives like, it's whatever. We don't have to get into it. I desperately, every day try not to get into this. I don't want to divide people. I want sports to bring them together. It's just like, when obviously that's not what's happening. Am I allowed to say. Am I allowed to say that going there and putting that hat on and all wearing different pants. Did you see them all wearing the same sweater? And then, like, 90% of them wore the same pants, but then there's just, like, 10% that wore just their own. They went off on their own thing. They were just like, I'm gonna do this instead with these pants. We got, like, cargo pants on some of them. The shoes, just a fashion disaster on that lawn. But whatever. Flavor Flav, my president. The U.S. women's hockey team for a celebration in Las Vegas. And he says that the team accepted. It's gonna have to wait. Like we said, their season starts back up. Thursday night. The Montreal Victoire Victor taking on the New York Sea lands. Just kidding. It's the sirens and then the seven collegiate members of Team usa, like Layla Edwards and Caroline Harvey, who go to Wisconsin, et cetera, et cetera. Their season continued. Right. Uninterrupted.
Isabella
They.
Katie Nolan
They didn't pause the season for them, so they jumped right back into it when they came back. So, you know, going with Flavor Flav to Vegas, just shout out Flavor Flav. Everything he does for women's sports, he's, you know, kind of. It gets. Goes under the radar every now and then. But he, like, paid for a lot of, like, the sliding sports and stuff, right? The. He, like, funded them to the Olympics. And he's done this in Summer Olympics past. He just, like, is about it and puts his money where his mouth is. Somebody else got in on the action and put out some Olympic content. Somebody this podcast is very fond of.
Isabella
Who?
Katie Nolan
Megan Thee, Stallion. Love seeing her over there. I saw. Did you watch any of this stuff, Isabella, Any of the content that came from.
Isabella
Yeah, I watched some of it. Like, I saw the one with, like, the food reviews that she was doing.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, that was really fun. Yeah. Her. And she sat down with Layla Edwards and they ate a meal that, you know, was great. Worth noting. Layla Edwards, obviously very talented. We've spoken about her at length on this podcast. She's the first black woman to score a goal for Team USA in the Olympics in hockey. Wearing a white sweatshirt that whole time eating Italian food. No stains on her shirt. Like, what do we. How are we.
Brady
Athletes are just different.
Katie Nolan
It's just different. They just have a way of getting it into the. Without getting. I mean, even just spinning. You know, when you spin the pasta on your fork, it. A lot of splashback. And so I just want to, you know, highlight her athletic achievements as well as her dining achievements, because I was very impressed by that. They also sent Megan Thee, Stallion to the hockey game. There's a video on YouTube. On a YouTube, a YouTube short of her of her watching the game. It's very funny. I forgive her for this. I'm not judging her for this. But you can tell the goal that they show that she's reacting to. And I believe that video, Brady, correct me if I'm wrong, is from the men's game. She probably was at the women's game as well. But I think they. This video was from the men's final.
Brady
Yeah. The big production was the men's game.
Katie Nolan
And so she. You could tell she's, you know, filming herself because the way the rights are, you can't show the ice, and they just are showing that she's there. She's looking at her phone when they score the goal because she looks up and goes, oh, it's a bit like, reacts. And like, girl, if that hasn't been me glued to the screen for the whole time. And then I go, like, all right, let me answer this email.
Chris
Score.
Katie Nolan
And you're like, no, wait.
Isabella
Whoa.
Katie Nolan
I just wanted to call her out because I did notice and I did see it. She looked amazing. She did amazing. Content with people over there. One of my favorite things, she sat down at a cafe with Hillary Knight and Brittany Bow, the Team USA hockey captain and the speed skater from Team USA who got engaged. Hillary proposed to Brittany. We've talked about this before. I'm just getting you caught up. And she didn't. An interview with them. And she said that she was. She crossed her fingers. Isabelle, did you see this? And she said, I'm manifesting my own engagement this year.
Ad Read Announcer
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
Interesting. She's famously dating Klay Thompson, the basketball player. And I just. She shouldn't. First of all, if she wants to get engaged, she shouldn't have to manifest that at all. That's. We should be. There should be people lining up to propose to her. I don't.
Isabella
Right. Like, now mad at Clay Thompson. I'm like, why do you have Megan thee stallion manifesting?
Katie Nolan
What do we do? That's right. She needs to be manifesting other things, which, by the way, she did she. In an interview with Madison Chalk. They made pasta together. Great. Madison Chalk, the ice dancer part of the Chalk and Bates pair that we were all rooting for. She says she's manifesting. She holds their metal and says she was manifesting basically an egot, an Emmy, a Grammy, another Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. So she's out here manifesting in these streets, which gave Isabella an idea. And we love at this show when Isabella gets an idea. And her idea was, what are we going to manifest this year in sports?
Isabella
Yeah. And I. So the things that I have thought about and you guys don't have to have it, but I was thinking more particularly with baseball, because I know that's coming up.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Isabella
So I have one.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, let's hear it. Because she's a Mets fan.
Isabella
Okay. I learned that I think it's every year hello Kitty does a collab with, like, mlb and they have hello Kitty freebies. And so there is one that they're giving away at a Mets game, which I don't know if I'm going to that one. But there is one I think that they're giving away at a Dodgers game. It's really cute. I really, really. It's like one of the freebies that they give out to like the first 40,000 people. However many people.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Isabella
So I'm really manifesting one of the hello Kitty freebies.
Katie Nolan
Not the Dodgers one, surely.
Isabella
Okay, so here's the thing.
Katie Nolan
Oh, my God.
Isabella
So here's the thing.
Katie Nolan
I thought we cured her of this.
Isabella
I already thought about that because I was like, well, I want it to be met specifically. But if it. But if it's specifically hello Kitty that I'm really like super excited about.
Katie Nolan
Right. But if it's hello Kitty Mets as an option. Oh, no. Why go. No, not an option.
Isabella
No, no, no.
Brady
Saturday, June 13th against the Braves is the hello Kitty Mets bobblehead.
Katie Nolan
Okay, so we have to get you to that. I know.
Isabella
And I want to get that one. That's my top one. But I'm saying there is another one that's a get. It's the Mets against the Dodgers. But the problem with it is that it's Dodgers.
Sophia Kirkby
Yeah.
Katie Nolan
So if I can't get the Mets.
Isabella
If I can't get the Mets one, I still want the Dodgers one.
Katie Nolan
I'm sorry, what if they give it out at a game where the Dodgers beat the Mets?
Isabella
Why do you have to do that?
Katie Nolan
Because this is sports, babe. These are the types of decisions we have to make in our head. And you would always look at that kitty and you would. Brady, when is the hello Kitty Dodgers game?
Brady
I don't see a Hello. It would be. You must be looking at a. At. At la.
Katie Nolan
Are you manifesting it? No, she. Of course it's at la. They would be.
Isabella
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Katie Nolan
That's the issue. Hello. That she's willing to go all the way to LA to get a hello Kitty Dodgers branded thing.
Isabella
I just want, I really want, I really want.
Katie Nolan
Let's just get you to that game then go to that game. Okay, I'm trying.
Isabella
I'm sorry.
Katie Nolan
I didn't realize this was gonna be an issue. It's just like. Very well, let's.
Sophia Kirkby
Okay.
Katie Nolan
I am manifesting in the WBC United States versus Japan final. That's what I want. I want a USA Japan final. I want to see it. I'm upset. I was seeing today that Tarek Skubal, the incredible pitcher from the Tigers who just won his arbitration, a legendary record setting arbitration against the team and is getting paid a ton of money that he's only going to pitch one game. It's against Great Britain. And then they were like, if they go to the final, he'll be there rooting for them. He won't. You Know pitch, but he'll be there. And I'm like, I wish everybody could just play. You know, we got all the issues with Puerto Rico and the insurance. That's the only. The main team we're hearing about the issues with insurance is Puerto Rico. But I'm sure there's other teams as well that are having issues getting their athletes insured and able to play in this competition. I just wish it could be like. Not that I wish it could be like, let's take all the best players from all their respective countries and actually have this competition instead of going well, he's on a strict pitch count as the season is coming up and they're paying him a lot of money and he's got a. So I'm manifesting just an intense, great baseball game. In the final will be the. The United States against Japan. That's my manifest.
Brady
Bad Bunny tried. He tried to pay the insurance fees for Carlos Correa and Francisco Lindor. And team management was like, this is a terrible idea. Please don't do this.
Katie Nolan
I will also say, what's up with that hammmate bone? We should make a parody. The ham Hama mate's tail. Because all of a sudden, like, six baseball players on the same day were like, yeah, they're out with an injury to their hamate bone. Like, I've literally never heard of that. Assume I've got one in here somewhere. Why is everybody's hamate bone injured?
Isabella
Lindor had to get surgery on.
Katie Nolan
Yes.
Brady
It doesn't do anything. It's like, what's useless bone. You break it and they just take it out. Like it only exists to get hit by a baseball.
Katie Nolan
And which one is it, Brady? Where is it?
Brady
One of the million bones in, like, the wrist in the lower hand that are all just kind of lumped together. They can just take it out and doesn't matter.
Katie Nolan
So do so. You know what I mean? Like, what are we. What's going on here, Chris? What are you manifesting?
Chris
So the Australian football season begins next week. And do you all remember the name of the player that we were following early on last season? Close.
Katie Nolan
Come on, Isabella, we can do this.
Brady
Moves like Jagger.
Chris
Jagger Smith.
Katie Nolan
Smith, yeah.
Chris
Right. Yes. The former number three overall draft pick that my daughter fell in love with. Absolutely. Who got injured in the preseason last year and was out all year. He played in our preseason game this morning. Was easily the best on the field. Like, just looked incredible. I am manifesting for this season for him to win the rising star award, which is the award given to like the best young player in the league. I think he's one of the favorites for it. He's going to be fantastic. We're going to go to Australia later this year. I'm going to take my daughter to a game and hopefully she can watch him play in person. Because when I had the game on this morning, she kept asking, she was like, is Jagger Smith playing in this game? Because she asked me whenever I have any sort of sport on, is Jagger Smith playing?
Sophia Kirkby
That's great.
Chris
And I'm like, wbc. She's like, exactly, like, not quite. But I actually got to show her Jagger Smith play for five minutes before she went to school this morning. So that was a lot of fun. Manifesting rising star win for Jaggers Smith in 2026.
Katie Nolan
A beautiful story that will ultimately be hilarious if he ends up coming back and playing and she still does not care and it still doesn't hook her. And she's like, I forgot about this gu and I don't care. Obviously not what I'm manifesting. Brady, what are you manifesting?
Brady
I was worried that Isabella and I would have completely opposite manifestations. I want one thing this baseball season. I want 50 home runs from Pete Alonzo, our big meaty signee that came over from the Mets. We had no right handed hitters for the Orioles that could hit home runs last year, which is exactly where my kids and I sit every time we go to Camden Yards and no one hits home runs there. I want 50 from Pete Alonso. That means that everything has gone right, the signing worked out and that team's gonna go far.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, let's do it. Did you see John Oliver on some late night show in an interview saying that his son loved Pete Alonso? And then when he got, was it traded or signed there in free agency? Right, it was free agency.
Brady
Yes.
Katie Nolan
He said, like, can I just root for the Orioles?
Brady
And Pete released a video on Social today that invited John. Do you know there's plenty of room in the Orioles bandwagon.
Katie Nolan
Oh, that's. That's sweet. That's sweet. Yeah, I saw that and I thought of Brady. I was like, damn, Brady's gonna be insufferable this baseball season.
Brady
All The Polar Bear April 13th in LA is hello Kitty bobblehead or hello Kitty hoodie giveaway.
Katie Nolan
Okay, that's different. Isabella.
Isabella
Oh, it's a hoodie.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. So now what? Now where do we stand?
Isabella
Well, hello Kitty anything is kind of.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, hello Kitty all the time. Actually. Isabella's eyes lit up. Today a caller called into fan service My radio show that I do every day, noon to 1 Eastern on Mad Dog Sports Radio on SiriusXM. They called in and they were talking about, like, put the. Make the puck glow again. Casual fans need to be able to see the puck. They said, you should at least make it like, if you're live streaming the game, you can add the option to, like, make the puck glow. And I was like, oh, that's really smart. Because then bringing it back to the main broadcast I can't imagine is going to happen or go over well because they took a lot of heat when they. This was Fox back in the 90s. I believe that, like, made the puck glow. They also had, like, if it was a slap shot, it had a tail on it. To try to help people, casual fans locate the puck and fall the sport better. And it got. They were kind of relentlessly made fun of for it. It's not remembered fondly, but it's a good idea. And in the world of streaming, where you can turn things on and off, I don't see why they can't just add that if it's as simple enough as tracking the puck. And I said, I'll take it a step further. You should make people be able to make the puck whatever they want. So I said, make it be like a little hello Kitty head that goes back and forth. And when I said that, Isabella was like, I would watch. I would watch. If they make the puck a little hello Kitty, I would watch.
Sophia Kirkby
Cause I cannot see.
Isabella
I cannot see that. So I am on the team of, like, can we light it up or something?
Katie Nolan
Yeah, make it. Make it more. Make it flash. Make it sparkle.
Sophia Kirkby
Make me.
Katie Nolan
Let me choose. Can't we use a. In a world where we're going to put our whole economy into AI, can't we make it. Help us do this? To turn the puck into somebody's face to watch it bouncing around the. Can't we have fun with it? You know, I don't know. I guess the answer is probably no. But let's take a break and decide. We're taking our first break. When we come back, we're going to. We're basically just going to be mean to owners. I don't know. I didn't set it up this way. But all kind of the big stories are about owners doing something stupid. So we will get to that here on Casuals in just a second. It's our first break. We'll be right back. When you're choosing dinner, you want to know it's worth it every time Gorton's Seafood has been providing quality seafood for the whole family since 1849. Gorton's is the easy, dependable choice that takes the stress out of mealtime and it has been for over 100. You know the fisherman guy in the yellow coat? Yeah, that's Gorton's. 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That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com casuals, free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/casuals. And we're back. Okay, let's get to some of these news stories before we welcome in our guests, which I'll remind you, is Sophia Kirkby, an actual Olympian. An Olympian has decided to join us today and I'm very excited. I have a thousand questions to ask her. But first, there was this story on Friday. Artie Moreno the By the way, arte is art. So if you want it to be Artie, buddy, you got to either put a Y at the end or an I between the T and the E. All right, that's Art Moreno, but that's fine.
Brady
Can't spell party without Artie.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, sure, this guy sounds like a real fun time. On Friday, Artie Moreno told reporters, quote, again he owns the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, which maybe Brady can explain to Isabella how we got that name, but Angels. Angels, yes. On Friday he said the number one thing fans want is affordability they want affordability, they want safety, and they want a good experience when they come to the ballpark. Believe it or not, winning is not in their top five. He cited surveys that they have conducted and he said, like, this is. We've done the work, we've done the research and this is what the surveys have shown. Although they didn't tell anybody about the surveys, nobody else has seen the surveys. We don't know how many people were surveyed or what they were asked to get this sort of response. Pretty vague. But hey, I guess they're doing the work. The MLB Players association, so that's the union that represents the players, said, let's just say players took notice of it. Bruce Meyer, who is the new head of the association, the the PA because remember we talked about Tony Clark potentially sleeping with his wife's sister or his brother's, I don't know, whatever. Anyway, who worked for the team. That was the actual issue that they cited. He said, let's. Bruce Meyer took over and said, let's just say players took notice of it and we took notice of it too. Fascinating to me. Can I just say that, like, I could see a world where Angels fans say, yeah, winning isn't the most important thing to me because they've had to get there. They've had to get themselves to that place because if they go into the building, I mean, this is a team, Isabella, that had Mike Trout, who we've told you about an incredible player, and Shohei Ohtani at the same time on the same team. And if the fans expected wins, that's when they would have expected it and they would have been very disappointed. I think that is exactly what happened. So you. They've got great attendance. They've got to, they've just had to accept that like, winning isn't going to be in the cards for them. So if ownership is like what matters to you in a survey when you come to a game, I guess you would say, like, yeah, I don't mind if they don't win the game I'm at. I'd like tickets to be more affordable. I'd like food to be a little cheaper. Parking could be easier, you know, transportation to the stadium. There's so many things somebody could put before did they win the game when it comes to your in stadium experience, which is what it sounds to me, just deducing because we have to, because they don't show us the survey, that sounds to me why you would say winning doesn't matter if they were asked overall, when it comes to the baseball. Would you like us to try? I think they would say yes. Yes. I would like to think and just trust that you're doing everything you can to put together a good team and to put together a team that is capable of achieving wins on the baseball field. I don't think a single baseball fan would say no. I actually really don't care. And what's insidious a bit about this is that they pinned it on mothers. Do you see that specific part where they were like, mummies? Basically, mommies come in and they don't care if they win or not. They want a good day for the family. Everyone's together. Die hards care, you know, People who really love baseball care, but the mommies actually don't care. So we're gonna stop trying to win. Anyway, that's the end of the press conference. Anything else you guys wanted to ask me? Like, what do you mean? What do you mean? I'm not a mommy, so I can't speak for them. I know many mommies who love baseball, and they would love their team to win. That's just absurd to say moms actually don't care. And so we're no longer gonna put together a baseball team of professional baseball players because that's too expensive, and they want us to make ticket prices cheaper so we couldn't possibly spend more money. Patently, transparently absurd. Am I wrong? Anybody wanna. Anybody wanna take up Artie's side here? No, no, no, no, man. We do need one voice of someone to just go, won't somebody defend.
Brady
We don't have a billionaire here.
Katie Nolan
Won't somebody defend the billionaires? Well, then let's go in on another one, shall we? Mark Cuban, minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Okay, so he used to be a majority owner. Now he is a minority owner, but technically still an owner in terms of a basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks. He posted on Twitter last week defending tanking in the NBA and explained why the NBA should embrace tanking. Now, tanking, for anyone who doesn't know, is when a team basically doesn't try to win because they want a better shot at getting a higher draft pick for the next year. So it's basically sacrificing this game, this week of games or the end of this season in order to position yourself, because the worse you finish the season, the better your chances are for getting an early pick in the draft, which gets you the best of the talent that's entering the league. Does that make enough sense, Isabella?
Chris
For the context, Chris, Normally it's. It's not about the players not trying. It's about the organization not putting those players in the right position to succeed.
Katie Nolan
Right. They'll either like bench their starters who aren't really hurt, or they'll like exaggerate an injury or they'll put like playing time restrictions on their players that are their stars. Basically, it's at the end of it, it's sacrificing the game that's happening today for a future game that a future team and making the team stronger. Mark Cuban went on like a very long tweet rant and I'm sorry, but as soon as we got rid of the character limit on Twitter, it's like, what are we. This is a blog post. I'm now reading the blog post and we're calling it a tweet. But it's not. This is a blog post. It had a title. It said, like, why NBA teams should embrace tanking. I'm not going to read the whole thing to you because we only have an hour and it's very long. But he said fans know their team can't win every game. They know only one team can win a ring. What fans that care about their team's record want is hope. Hope they will get better and have a chance to compete for the playoffs and then maybe a ring. We didn't tank often, only a few times over 23 years. But when we did, our fans appreciated it. He also invoked Luka as a name they were able to get because of the tanking. Very interesting. Because where is Luka now? Not there. So an interesting point to be made about the future of your team. We would never have gotten Luka if it weren't for. Yeah, okay, so you never would have traded him in the dead of night either. Here's my thing, and this is with Artie Moreno, and it's also with Mark Cuban. And it's just like a hard line that seems to me more obvious but is not coming up a lot. As soon as these leagues, all of them are get in bed with gambling companies, right? Have these official. This is the official sports book of Major League Baseball. The official sports book of the NBA. Look, at first I was like, that shouldn't be allowed. And then I realized, well, if the players can be in the. It's like everybody wants to be able to get their cut of the business that's being built on the sport. Fine, I'll accept it, I guess. Okay. But as soon as you start doing that, you cannot say anything other than the game at hand is what matters. You have to protect the integrity of the sport. People are putting their money on the outcome of that game. And if the outcome of that game is going to be different because you're tanking in an effort to get a better pick next year, well, now we're talking about integrity. Now the integrity of the game is not being protected. And as soon as the integrity of the game is called into question, when. When gambling is happening, the thing, the. The. The special perfect little thing you have, which is the sport is completely ruined. So it's shocking to me to hear any owners even entertaining the idea that winning is not the most important thing for the team because you can't. You can't allow gambling and also allow people to not try unless they want to. You have to. Everybody has to go out there and play by the rules of this game today. Whether the mommy in the crowd wants to see it or not, somebody is putting money on it. And if you're tanking it and you're not trying to win, well, then there's not really any in tech. What are we gambling on? The outcome is predetermined. In that case, you've said you're not going to try to win. Sure, they can pull it off and win anyway, but it's just like, this is too much. The water is getting very muddy. Am I nuts that that's the first thing I think of? And it seems immediately obvious to me.
Brady
The first thing I thought of was when the NBA trade deadline came and the Bucks declared that Giannis wasn't getting traded. And then the next day, Giannis announced that he had a partnership with the big predictions market. Ooh, that was a bad look.
Katie Nolan
It's just like, I don't know. As a sports fan, you resist it for long enough and then you go like, well, this is clearly here. You know, I'm flipping through TikTok and the algorithm has picked up on the fact that I like sports because of the content that I engage with. And I keep getting hit with these Kalshee ads that are using very specific phrasing to say, did you know it's legal to. I'm not gonna say that. I don't remember the. But it was like, predict on sports in all 50 states. And you're like, well, it's not legal to gamble on sports in all 50 states. So something weird's happening here. And I don't even want to get into it because cowshi defenders will be like, technically, it's the freest possible market because you're not going to A sports. You're actually buying the bet from another person who wants. And I don't care or know what that is. All I know is it's clearly a workaround to try to tap into money that's not being sent to sportsbooks because they can't in their state and take that money and put it into this. So I. The whole thing is a mess. And I'm just. I don't know, I feel surprised by the fact that, like, I allow. I'll allow it to a point, but I feel like, when is anybody going to finally stand up to this and go like, hey, you can't. We can't do this because of the, The. The implications of everything that come with it. It just feels like everyone's willing to keep milking a cow that's like, hello, I'm out of milk. I need a day. I need to fill back up with milk. We need to play the games so that the money from the games can be made instead of continuing to let people go. I want more. I want more. I want more. Everybody's being greedy. Ticket prices haven't gone down in forever. Maybe we could just do that. You know, if you're gonna say, Artie Moreno, that fans don't care about winning, so we're not going to spend money on players. They have not. I think since he's been the owner of the team, I don't think they've been over the luxury tax once. They've never been accused of spending money, at least since the early 2000s.
Brady
One of their problems was they spent money poorly. They gave Anthony redone that big.
Katie Nolan
Jesus Christ. We didn't even mention that. A guy who's like, I don't know, baseball's like a job. I don't even like doing it. And they were like, sign him up for a long contract with lots of money. There's no way he won't come to work.
Brady
They just had to pay him this year to not play.
Katie Nolan
I know.
Brady
They're like, we'll pay you to not show up. And rehab, you can just the end of your contract.
Katie Nolan
National nightmare. Just crazy. And then while we're going in on owners football, the NFL, remember we talked about this before the report cards. Every year, the NFLPA would conduct these surveys of players and they would rank their teams or give their teams grades on certain areas of the team's function. So it would be like their locker rooms, their facilities, their food, their child care, their, you know, all the ownership, and they would put together this information. And then the NFLPA would publish it. Well, the NFL was like, stop doing that. Actually, I actually don't like when you tell people that we suck at stuff. I'm not into it. So they took them, they filed a grievance against the NFLPA and they won. So they have effectively banned the union from publishing future player report cards. The report cards are usually released. They take them during the season and I think they release them after the season. Brady, I really don't remember.
Brady
Yeah, it's an off season thing.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. So they're not going to release them anymore. However, they have said they will continue to do the report card. They're still going to distribute their survey. They're still going to take the. And they can even distribute it to players and teams. But we, the fans will no longer be able to see what the teams are being graded. An arbitrator found that the report cards violated the collective bargaining agreement by quote, disparaging NFL clubs and individuals. The arbitrator found that the report cards were quote, designed by the union to advance its interests under the guise of a scientific exercise, which is good lawyering. But like its interests are the interests of the players, which should also be the interests of ownership. So that's nuts to me. An adversaries, adversarial relationship, obviously between the unions and the players. It makes sense in terms of CBA negotiations, but it should. We are all technically working towards the same common goal just to make those mommies happy. We don't have to win to do that. Just make them happy. The NFLPA refused to produce data related to previous surveys. The union's witness and counsel admitted that the union cherry picked topics and responses to include in the report cards. So you know that's happening. No more report cards. The big headlines from these, if you'll recall, if you're new here, I think they started doing them in around 2023 maybe. But the 2023 Atlanta Falcons ranked 24th in the league because of their poor facilities. And then after back to back poor performances in these report cards, they announced a $30 million facilities upgrade and by 2025 they rocketed up to third overall in facilities. So to me it's like that's public pressure doing its job, going like, if they say your facilities suck, you guys need to work on this. And then they did. If you don't publish those studies, there's no public pressure pushing back on a team and making them do that. Interesting. The Patriots in 2025 had the second lowest grade primarily because of their team plane which lacked WI fi. I Wish there was somewhere we could always complain about that. I know there's like a famous bit from a comedian about you should be grateful. You're like flying through the sky. Like, my WI fi doesn't work. It's like we are being lifted in a short amount of time from one place to another. Sorry you can't get to your email. But once it became like easy to do and every plane had WI fi, it does suck when you're up there and you're like, I'd counted on this. I told them I'd get back to their email while I was in the sky and now I can't.
Isabella
I could never get the WI WI fi to work.
Katie Nolan
Every. It sucks that every airline's different. You know where it's like some of them want you to use. For a while they were all using that go, go. So I would just buy a bunch of passes on the ground and then deploy them in the sky. Because I noticed if you buy the WI fi in the sky, that's how it used to be. Not anymore. They would charge you more because they're like, you're stuck, you need it. It's gonna be 18, whereas on the ground it was 5. You know, if you don't tell me
Brady
there's WI fi and there's no WI
Katie Nolan
fi, it's fine, right?
Brady
But if you tell me there's WI fi and then I get up there and like, oh, by the way, it doesn't work. Hope you downloaded all your fucking first.
Katie Nolan
It's like you. Can you email my boss? Can you email my boss and let them know? Cuz I thought that I was going to have WI fi for this and they're waiting to hear from me. The Patriots have not yet fixed this, but Robert Kraft, the owner, did say, we want everything we do to be top of the heap and first class. They've done a lot of good, but they do need an upgrade. So they're. Robert Craft admitted that they need to fix that. That's all because of the report cards. The Bengals, remember the Bengals this year got a treatment of families grade of F minus. Why F minus? I didn't know that was possible. I thought that was something you just joked about. The bad kid in class F isn't low enough. You got an F minus. And for it to be in the category of treatment of families really makes you think that they may have had something to do with this. Getting rid of it behind closed doors because that's the last thing you want is like your Cincinnati Bengals treat your the Families of the players, F minus this. That's not good. They're the only team that doesn't offer daycare during home games or a family room during home games. Just go mix it up with the fans. Take your kids out there and mix it up with the fans. Have fun. So hopefully they fix that. But again, we don't know and we don't. We haven't heard yet. Interesting, though. In 2024, the New York jets were ranked 21st overall with one of their worst grades coming from the food and the cafeteria. They got a C minus. They then in 2025, did it change? Yes, they dropped to 29th. Players believed that management responded to feedback by making conditions worse. Jesus. They felt the team cut the food budget and did not retain their longtime dietitian who was previously their highest rated staff member. Then that dietitian took a full time role with the Chiefs and improved their food program significantly. Jets ownership grade dropped from 2024's B minus to 2025's F with Woody Johnson receiving the league's lowest owner score for contributing to a positive team culture. So penisy penis. Woody Johnson strikes again. And I feel like that's got to be the guy at the head of the charge who's like, listen, these guys are riding us to make our living situation sustainable. These guys want way too much food they can eat and we can't have that. So. All right, let's get rid of these report cards. And then. Would you look at that? They got rid of the report cards. Interesting.
Brady
You guys want better conditions. F you. We're signing Justin Fields. How about that?
Katie Nolan
Speaking of football, Brady, come on, make us care, because I don't. The combine is underway.
Brady
I enjoy how weird it is that NFL Network. If you were flipping through cable on NFL Network, you just see guys sprinting in their underwear for four straight days. They're just broadcasting guys running in a straight line and then. And then they'll switch it up. It's guys in their underwear running 10 yards, turning right, turning left, and then coming back.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, I know.
Isabella
You taught me this.
Katie Nolan
Last year I was gonna ask, what do you retain?
Isabella
When in one year. And I think it went out basically like a. It's like a. Oh, my God. It sounds messed up, but it's kind of like a pageant for like the
Katie Nolan
players that are coming into the league. They're basically checking, like, how high can this one jump? How fast can this one run? How explosive off the line is this underwear boy.
Isabella
Wait, they wear.
Brady
Yeah.
Isabella
Underwear the whole time?
Katie Nolan
Well, it's like shorts.
Brady
It's expandex shorts. And then half the dudes will do it shirtless. And like, you're just running.
Katie Nolan
There's not. They're not in like boxers with a hole at the front. You know what I mean? They're not like, the risk is low.
Isabella
Definitely wasn't thinking that.
Katie Nolan
Well, I know sometimes people are like, well, I'd tune in for that if we're maybe gonna get. If something might go throw a wild car. You know, it's like watching the guy do the high wire walk or do the free solo. It's like maybe he slips and falls.
Brady
The pole vaulter, where just maybe you're.
Chris
Do they ever do skin fold checks in the NFL combine?
Katie Nolan
I'm sorry.
Brady
Like an English hold up.
Katie Nolan
Sorry.
Chris
Okay, so here we go.
Katie Nolan
So sorry.
Chris
The Australian version of the combine, Right. And I don't think they do it anymore. I think they stopped doing this a couple of years ago. But they measured the fat on the players, yo, just to see, like with
Brady
the little pinchers, the little cat.
Katie Nolan
You called that skin fold check test?
Chris
Yeah, skin fold test. Skin fold check. Something like that. Yeah.
Katie Nolan
Because to me, a skin check is like lifting one up to see if there's any, like, check
Brady
which English bulldog problems. Yes, I'm familiar with skin fold checks, but I'm not sure how it ports to football players.
Katie Nolan
Damn. So they were doing their, like, body fat. Can we move on? Yes, let's move on. I want to turn our attention now one more time to Milano, Cortina, and the Winter Olympics. While we welcome in our guest today, truly one of the most captivating personalities and athletes to grace the Olympic village. She's a member of the US Luge team, recently won the United States first ever World cup in women's doubles luge and finished fifth in the debut Olympics. Four women's doubles luge. But you may know her for famously looking for love in a hopeless place. Parentheses, the Olympic Village. It's our new friend, Sophia Kirkby. Sophia, welcome to Casual.
Sophia Kirkby
Hi. Thank you so much for having me on here.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, thank you for being here. Very exciting. Let's start by talking about your sport. This was the first Olympics for women's doubles luge. Can you talk a little bit? We've got. We're a podcast for casual sports fans. Can you talk a little bit about what dub, what makes doubles luge special and specific, why it's different from the other luge? Obviously it's two people, but like, what that means for the sport and then how you got into that Type of losing.
Sophia Kirkby
Specifically, what makes luge so special is that it is the childhood activity that we as humans took to the next level. I compete in women's doubles luge, which just made its Olympic debut for the Milano Cortorina 2026 Winter Olympics. I was so proud to be part of that. It made me feel very honored to have been one of the first to create this path of women participating in this sport that we just didn't have before. Doubles luge was an open category. However, all the spots were taken by men, because in my sport, strength and weight are huge factors when it comes to fast times.
Katie Nolan
Huh. That actually makes a lot of sense. So you're saying, like, being bigger makes you go faster down the sled? Do I sound like an idiot talking about load?
Sophia Kirkby
Well, you're sledding down a hill, and. And gravity is just your friend here.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. So technically. So stacking two women atop each other is actually helpful. Right? That helps you weigh down and go faster, I assume.
Sophia Kirkby
So having two women on one sled stacked on each other, it's just a different category. I could say yeah, because we're less aerodynamic than a singles athlete because we have more of a drag. But since it's two people, we are a lot heavier. And that can be both beneficial or it can cause what's called top heavy problems, because now we're more likely to crash in some situations than you could get away with doing singles.
Katie Nolan
How do you. What's the process of finding your partner that you're going to do that with? Like, do you have to like the person? Or have there been doubles luge teams that absolutely hate each other, but when push comes to shove, they stack on up and go down the track.
Sophia Kirkby
The development of luge partners is different in everyone's situation. In mine and my partner situation, the pandemic was just happening. And women's doubles luge hadn't been officially named to the next Olympics. However, there was talks and discussion, and we had only one women doubles luge sled at the time. And our coaches wanted to begin a program where we had more sleds, because you don't just want to have one, you want to have backups as well. So they put me and my competitor, Siobhan Forgan, together because we had done singles like everyone else. You begin doing singles when you're a child. And so we were put together for our height differences and the way we both learned how to drive, we learned from the same sets of coaches, roughly on the same track. So it was a good Fit. And we were able to surpass the previous women's team, and we got the team position for the Olympics.
Katie Nolan
So exciting. I mean, to be a part of the first Olympics of the sport. That's gotta be. I mean, you'll remember this forever. That's amazing.
Isabella
Mm.
Katie Nolan
So exciting. You grew up in. In Lake Placid, New York, right? That's where you got the. That's where the Winter Olympic bug bit you. What a city to have that happen, right?
Sophia Kirkby
I'm from this area.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. Amazing. I've been there. I went there. I used to go there for my brother's hockey tournament. And I remember looking up at those huge ski jumps and being like, damn, that's crazy. It's such a cool place, Lake Placid.
Sophia Kirkby
I love it.
Katie Nolan
And people should go if they get the chance. One of the things that sort of put you on our radar is that I loved this, that you used social media in a way to be like, hey, so I'm here at the Olympic Village. Lots of people are here at the Olympic Village. I'm single and ready to mingle, and I'd like to meet some people. What was that experience like going through that on social media during the Olympics when everybody's eyes are on Milano, Cortina?
Sophia Kirkby
It was a lot of fun for me because I'm a pretty open girl. I have so many friends. I will tell them what's going on in my life, because it's just fun and good to catch up, and then they get to know a little bit about me. So I came up with the idea of sharing about my dating experience and just trying to reach out and find dates, because we're the dating selection. Where I live is Slim Pickens. And my event was one of the first events done at the Olympics. Like, my event was completed on February 12th, and closing ceremony was the 22nd. So I had 10 days to run around and do whatever I wanted. And I was stuck in Cortina. Well, not stuck. I was gracefully given the opportunity to stay longer, which is not what all nations have. A lot of the luge athletes left the next day. But I was in Cortina. I wanted to make the most of it. I wanted to go on fun dates and meet cute boys. And I didn't have a single bad date, which is a great success.
Katie Nolan
Yes, let's talk about the dates. Because, listen, I was worried about you. I heard that a fan responded to your I don't want to say plea. That makes you sound desperate, and you're not. You just let people know you were single. A fan was like, I'll come to you. I will get an Airbnb near the Olympic Village, and I want to take you on a date. And I was like, okay, but at the same time, like, where are you getting the money to come out here and do that on a. On a. On a whim? How are you getting the money to get an Airbnb that's right near the village? And then also, what if this guy's just, like, a. Not a good guy? And so I want to hear about how these dates went and how you navigated this. You guys went to the spa for your first date.
Sophia Kirkby
We went to the spa for the first date, yeah.
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How.
Katie Nolan
How was it? Did you go on another date? Are you still dating him? Where do we stand?
Sophia Kirkby
After the Olympics, I had a great experience of meeting new people and just taking daily risks. Like, I wanted to put myself out there and say that I made the most of it. And I was very entertained. I met lots of new people, and I went on so many dates. Like, I didn't eat all three meals in the Olympic Village after my event. I was always going out and doing something with someone. And I understand your concerns. With the guy who came in from the uk I saw his DM right before I blew up.
Katie Nolan
Okay, that makes sense.
Sophia Kirkby
I was in, like, this was back when I had 3,000 followers, which is crazy to say. Was one month ago. Whoa.
Katie Nolan
What are you at now?
Sophia Kirkby
I'm at, like, 53,000.
Katie Nolan
Damn, girl. Okay.
Sophia Kirkby
And so with the guy from the uk, he had messaged me before. I had too many followers, and I wasn't going to message him back. I just saw the request. But I was in doping control for my last World cup, meaning I was randomly selected to provide a sample to make sure that we are doing clean sports. And I was with my other girls that got selected. And we're just waiting forever this time. It took a long time. They only had one tester, and I got bored, and I was just. I whipped out my phone. I was like, okay, let's entertain ourselves. Let's see what these boys have been messaging me.
Katie Nolan
And so you saw this guy, and I assume he was your type. He was cute.
Sophia Kirkby
You know what? His profile picture was not very detailed, and he didn't post any pictures. So I was like, there's no way I'm gonna talk to this guy. He had a great opener. But I was showing my competitors the top woman for the Latvian team. I was just like, look at this. And then she goes like, he Said something really nice. Also, he's cute. And I'm like, that's just. That's not. It's not a great picture. She goes, you should message him. And I go, no, I'm not gonna message him. She goes, message him. I go, okay, okay.
Katie Nolan
And so you did. And so you went on a spa date and we wish him the best of luck or we're still texting him.
Sophia Kirkby
He's a good character. I still message him here and there.
Katie Nolan
Okay, cool. So, I mean, would you say it was a success being the most eligible bachelorette in the Olympic Village?
Sophia Kirkby
I would say it was a huge success being known as the Olympics most eligible Bachelorette for the 2026 Games.
Katie Nolan
It was super fun to follow. I will say it got me thinking about, like, wishing there was a reality show that like, followed the singles that were in the Olympic Village because you guys are all like, athletes at the peak of your physical capabilities. Feels like, you know, they're always giving away condoms. Which, by the way, is that misreported when they say, like, we only they ran out of condoms within the first week. Is that something you guys are like, talking about in the village or are you like, look, we don't even use theirs. We bring our own. It just feels like a storyline we're always talking about with the Olympics. And I wonder from an Olympian if it boots on the ground. If you're noticing that, like, damn, they're
Sophia Kirkby
out of condoms For a souvenir. I wanted to grab a couple condoms. This is something I've done for multiple Olympics. I have condoms that go Back to the 2020 Lausanne Winter Youth Games. And so I've been fond by the condoms. Just fun packaging. Like the condom is separate and it's usually in a paper packaging that the Olympics made themselves. You know, you got this, like, cool Olympic paper and it's so lightweight. It's easy to travel with. And then it's funny, there's like, you know, you got the Olympic rings on one side and then you have an instruction manual on the other. So a great also gift for my friends, my girlfriends. I wanted to grab some. But with my event, my event was a couple days later than our singles deluge athletes. So I was in Germany training until the day before opening ceremony, and the condoms were gone. They were out.
Katie Nolan
No way before the opening ceremony.
Sophia Kirkby
But I think part of that is I looked at the amount that was brought to the Games and it was 10,000, which you may think that that's a lot and it is a lot of condoms, but in comparison to what I read in articles from Paris. I don't know exact for sure, but a lot of news articles were saying that they had 200,000 condoms for Paris. And that's just a huge proportional difference. You have one retired, I believe he was a skater. He said that he stole 3,000 condoms for souvenirs.
Katie Nolan
Oh my God. 3,000 condoms.
Sophia Kirkby
Yeah. I wonder how big his suitcase was for that one. But you know, you'll just have people that grab so many and it's not that they're going to use it, it's that it's a fun insider souvenir.
Katie Nolan
Thank you for this because it has proven a theory I've had which is like, just cuz you're grabbing a bunch doesn't mean you're out here using them. People are always reporting the like, they flew through 10,000 condoms and you're like, I don't know if factually that lines up. It's that they've just taken them because why wouldn't you want the Olympic rings on one side and the instructions on how to use a condom on the other side? You're absolutely right. It's perfect memorabilia. It's not the only memorabilia that you get, you know, involved with. You've got your ceramics side business. And what I thought was really sweet is that you kind of partnered with a local place in Italy to help sell your pins that you were making for. For casual fans who don't know about the pin culture that surrounds the Olympics. Can you sort of explain what that is and, and how it works or.
Sophia Kirkby
The pin culture for the Olympics is very traditional. It's been used for decades now. And what this is is it's a small, simple item that often have personalized designs or designs made by the Olympic countries themselves. People, fans and athletes are able to trade with each other and it almost becomes a currency during the Games. It's just such an embedded tradition now that it's well known and it's a fun side quest or activity you can do while being at the Olympics.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. How important is it to have a hobby like that when you're competing at such a high level? Does it help keep you grounded and, you know, well rounded as a person,
Sophia Kirkby
having a hobby outside of my Olympic sports has been very beneficial to me when it comes to items that I may want and my own mental health. Yeah, I was able to just take my thoughts away from sports. I was able to put my mind to something else and for some activities my fingers get really muddy. So it's also a Great way for me to stay off my phone.
Katie Nolan
God, that's so true. I honestly feel like most of my hobbies at this point in my life are to keep me from picking up my stupid phone that I'm constantly looking at and scrolling on. So that resonates. Can we get those pins that you had that you made for the for women's double luge on your Etsy shop? Or are those just like if you were in Italy? You can have them, but we don't sell them.
Sophia Kirkby
Outside of that, I have plenty of pins available on my Amazon handmade page.
Katie Nolan
Okay. Amazon handmade. We'll have to look for that and go get some of those pins.
Sophia Kirkby
I also have something else fun that I can mention. Is that all right?
Katie Nolan
Yeah, go ahead.
Sophia Kirkby
So my pins and just any pins, they truly do become a currency. Believe it or not, I didn't do my laundry once in the Olympics. I was paying people in pins to do my laundry for me. I would drop it off, I'd give them a handful of pins, and I said, look, can this just be in the basket over here in the dry section? Because they would monitor. They would make sure that if it was wet, they would just keep running the dryers. They were very helpful, our volunteers in the laundromat. So it was too simple, and they were there, and they were happy to do it. I would drop off my laundry, I'd put it in the washer. Sometimes I wouldn't even be the one that started the button. They would hit the button starter, and then at the end of the day, I would collect my clean, dried laundry on the shelf.
Katie Nolan
Amazing. All of that powered by pins.
Sophia Kirkby
And I also did other services, like I brought my own handmade cappuccino cups, and I would get a cappuccino cup from the stand. We had a coffee stand so they could make us fresh coffee, which is awesome. But I didn't really have a way to wash it, so I bribed the kitchen staff to wash my cappuccino cups for me in the Olympic Village.
Katie Nolan
With cups, like, you gave them more or you gave them pins?
Sophia Kirkby
I gave them pins, Yeah. I gave them pins to wash my cups for me.
Katie Nolan
Amazing. I mean, look, it's bartering. It's a perfect barter system. You brought the stuff, and you used it to make things happen for you. Very resourceful.
Sophia Kirkby
Yeah, that's kind of why I wanted to call myself the Pin Trading Queen, because I quite literally made my own currency.
Katie Nolan
Amazing. In general, did the Olympic Village live up to the hype for you? We heard a lot about the lava cake. I don't know if there was another food item that you liked from the village.
Sophia Kirkby
We did not have lava cake in my village. My village's specialty was tiramisu.
Katie Nolan
Oh, okay. So did you like. Was it good tiramisu?
Sophia Kirkby
It was great tiramisu.
Katie Nolan
Yeah.
Sophia Kirkby
I really enjoyed, especially some of the items, like the apple juice. It was an Italian company that had provided the apple juice, and it was, like, some of the best pressed apple juice of my life. Like, I had to limit myself to two a day.
Katie Nolan
You had to cut yourself off. No more apple juice. God. How good is a good apple juice, though? Underrated as a juice, Once you become, like, an adult, people drink it less, but it's so good.
Sophia Kirkby
Especially, like, fresh apple juice or apple cider.
Katie Nolan
Oh, I know. All right, let's talk about the Olympics at large. Did you get to go because I know you stayed longer. Did you get to go to other events and. And see them live in person, or were you more just, like, experiencing the city and not focused as much on the actual Games?
Sophia Kirkby
I kept a good balance, in my opinion. I only went to the events in Cortina because it wasn't as easy for me. Logistics to go to other events since we were so spread out when it came to the towns and the hosting locations. So I saw bobsled and curling. The only events that I missed was the skiing and skeleton. Skeleton was the day right after mine. So I was recovering and skiing. I was on my way. I was walking right to it. And these two media women who I have bumped into because they work directly with the ioc, they were getting on a bus, and they're like, hey, we're about to go grab drinks at the top of the mountain. You want to join us? And I was gonna go watch, like, Michaela. She was doing her gold medal event.
Katie Nolan
Oh, my God.
Sophia Kirkby
And I was just like, yeah, I feel like grabbing a drink on a mountain. So I just chose that one instead.
Katie Nolan
Damn. And listen, in hindsight, maybe not the right call, but at the moment when you get confronted with something like that and you go like, you know what it's like when you try to go ski? And someone's like, well, I'm actually headed in to grab a drink and sit in the Jacuzzi for the. At the apres ski. And you're like, like, yeah, I think I'll just skip the skiing and I'll go straight to grabbing a drink. So completely relatable and understandable decision that you made. Was there A moment during the Olympics other than obviously the debut of your sport and how fantastic that is that you will always remember. Was there like a. Whether you watched it on TV or streaming or anything, just something from this Olympics that you really loved as a moment
Sophia Kirkby
from the Olympics? I think I loved everything.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. I mean it was a good Olympics this year.
Sophia Kirkby
I was journaling everything. Almost every night I would journal what happened with my day and that just helped me have a better memory of what I did each day. And now I have a log that I can go back to and I can almost mentally relive.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, that's really smart. It's really smart. I'm glad you did it. It's one of those things I always say I'm gonna do and then I don't do. And you're right. When it's a two week event like that with so much going on and so much other stuff you've got to focus on, you'll. You'll think you'll remember it if you don't write it down. It can be hard to do. So amazing that you did that. And that'll be so fun to look back at. Alana Meyer's Taylor was a great story that we all loved and we're rooting for her to finally go and get her gold. And she did in monobob. Stupid question. I'm prefacing it with that because I know it's a stupid question, but for people that aren't as familiar with the sliding sports, is, is like, do the skills translate? Like as a doubles luge? When you look at skeleton or you look at monobob, are you like, I could. These are close enough. I could make it work. Or are they so different that you couldn't possibly have your skills translate to either like other sports?
Sophia Kirkby
Personally, I have never done bobsled or skeleton in the driving positions. I was a break woman for one athlete that just wanted to get some runs in. However, I've never driven and I've only been told by like a coach that we had, he coached luge and bobsled and now he's just one of our workers at the Olympic Training center. He said that I could drive a bobsledder skeleton, no problem.
Katie Nolan
Okay.
Sophia Kirkby
But that's just coach's thoughts. That's not my own thoughts or experience.
Katie Nolan
Sure.
Sophia Kirkby
It's just that from his perspective, he goes, yeah, you could drive it very well because I have been doing this sport since I was eight.
Katie Nolan
Oh my God.
Sophia Kirkby
And Bob's letters begin oftentimes after College when they're 22 or so, so I have the driving theory locked in where they're just learning and picking it up when they're 20 or so.
Katie Nolan
Okay, so this could be a future turn that we see from you.
Sophia Kirkby
No, I'm most likely not going to do bobsled.
Katie Nolan
Okay, all right, fine. I just thought it'd be interesting.
Sophia Kirkby
Those guys are big and muscly. I'm muscley, but they're muscly in the legs. Meanwhile, I have the traps. My mother was a gymnast, so I have her lats.
Katie Nolan
Huh. Did you try gymnastics?
Sophia Kirkby
Nope.
Katie Nolan
No.
Sophia Kirkby
I did figure skating before I did luge, so it was really fun. I got to see Alyssa Liu and Amber. I chatted with them here and there. Saw them on the security line and just chatted about a few things. I told Alyssa. I was like, oh, yeah, I really loved your routine. I did skating before I. I switched over to luge when I was 8.
Katie Nolan
And what was she like? Oh, that's so cool.
Sophia Kirkby
Yeah, yeah. She was like, oh, that's so cool. She's like, so what are you? What's your sport? I told her, doubles luge. And it's just really fun, the crossovers with other sports and just comparing how crazy we think each other are.
Katie Nolan
Yeah. And it's just so. It's been so fun to watch from over here. Just like the people get to know you guys. It's been so fun to be like, yeah, that's our figure skater and that's our loot. Like, it's been so great. And you guys were so. What an amazing Olympic and an amazing experience. And thank you for coming here and talking to us about it. Last thing I'll ask you is, what's next for Sophia Kirkby? Are you taking a nice vacation?
Sophia Kirkby
I do plan to take a vacation. I haven't decided exactly what I'm doing yet, but I'm thinking about booking a flight this weekend to the uk. We'll see.
Katie Nolan
I wonder what that could be. I wonder what you could be doing in the uk.
Sophia Kirkby
In the uk, I would be visiting a boy.
Katie Nolan
Okay, then. Well, we're gonna wish you the best of luck with that and with your sport. And thank you again, Sophia, for being here with us. Congratulations on everything and continued success in the future.
Sophia Kirkby
Thank you.
Katie Nolan
Everyone deserves to be connected.
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Katie Nolan
I mean, wow, that was so great. Thank you again to Sophia Kirkby for beaming in here and telling us about her experience in the Olympic Village, which really sounds wonderful. Okay, we have to let these people go. Brady and Chris and Isabella. People have stuff to do. They gotta go. But we want to see if they saw that. So here in the final segment, we're gonna do one of our favorites called did you see that? Which is really kind of a vague concept where you can write in and ask us if we saw something or we can just put stories we didn't get to in this part. So we're gonna start with.
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With.
Katie Nolan
Did you see that Pat Riley got a statue in la? Legendary Lakers coach, current Miami Heat president Pat Riley was honored with a statue outside a crypto.com arena, which is where the Lakers play on Sunday. And the nearly 8 foot tall, 510lb bronze rendering features the famously stylish Riley in his preferred attire, a Giorgio Armani suit. We actually got a voicemail about this, I believe. Yep, let's listen. Hi, it's Cami in la. Love you mean it. Did you guys see that? The Lakers gave Pat Riley a statue
Sophia Kirkby
of Nicolas Cage for some reason.
Katie Nolan
I mean, congrats to both of them, I guess. I mean, truly. We've talked about statues in sports before, and we showed them to Isabella, Cristiano Ronaldo, Tom Brady. There was also the Tom Brady courtroom sketch we've discussed. And so now we're adding in the. This photo of Pat Riley and Isabella. Does that look to you like Pat Riley?
Isabella
Okay, so I didn't know what Pat Riley looked like. And so to me, that's Nicholas Cage, man.
Katie Nolan
I mean, it really does look like our national treasure.
Isabella
That is. That is Nicholas Cage.
Katie Nolan
H. The unbearable weight of massive statue. Crazy. It looks exactly like Nicolas Cage. It's. It. I would say his face is a little off, you know, Face off.
Brady
I mean, it's in L. A. I wonder if someone tried to make a statue of Nicolas Cage and just couldn't sell it.
Katie Nolan
They were like, hey, anybody look kind of like Nicolas Cage? That deserves to be honored. Because all we got to do is put it. What is it with this? All of them having just a fist up in the air, like I. All right, so that looks like Nicholas Cage. It is what it is. This. It's a great statue of Nicholas K. So. All right, let's see. Did you see this? A Giants vs Cubs Spring Training game. Now, you might be going, of course I didn't. Why would I be watching that? Well, you might have seen it because upcoming hall of Fame Class of 2026 inductee Jeff Kent joined the San Francisco Giants broadcast booth for their spring training matchup against the Cubs on Sunday. During his appearance, play by play voice John Miller at asked Kent about a knee injury he suffered back in 1998. How many years ago is that? I know it's going to hurt my feelings, but that's like 38. Brady's on mute, but he doesn't realize 27 years ago.
Brady
It's 10 years ago.
Katie Nolan
Yes. Thank you. It's what it should be. A knee injury he suffered when a rod slid hard into second base while attempting to break up a double play. Jeff did not hold back a rod who was.
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He was your size and he came
Katie Nolan
in hard on you and, and, and you know, you survived it. But I think he got banged up a little bit. I think you went on the deal for a little bit.
Chris
Yeah, I did.
Katie Nolan
He tore my knee up he went. He slid and rolled his fat ass past the base. The son of a. And put me out for a little while. I was. Yeah, I was not happy about that because he was a middle infielder and we were beating him up pretty good. He didn't need to be doing that. Geez Louise.
Isabella
Damn.
Katie Nolan
Geez Louise. So if you're wondering future in broadcasting. Probably not. Probably not for Jeff Kent.
Brady
I love it because John Miller is the quintessential smooth, pleasant baseball voice. He's. Yeah, he's all that voice.
Katie Nolan
He's talking to you. Coming to you live from the Giants spring training game.
Brady
And Jeff Kent's just prickly and bitter and rolls in with that son of a bitch.
Katie Nolan
I mean, wild. Wild. It was so long ago, Jeff. And then last. Did you see that? And you know the answer is yes for me because it involves my babe Dunkin Donuts. They are selling 48 ounce buckets of iced coffee in limited markets in Massachusetts. It's a collectible coffee bucket at select stores in Mass. And New Hampshire like Allston. Shout out Alston. I used to bartend there. Amherst, Bellingham, Brighton, Brockton, Falmouth, New Bedford, Uxbridge. Just feels like the. The Jimmy Fallon, Ben Affleck. We're just naming Massachusetts Uxbridge and Wilmington. Last week, Duncan also began a test run of selling a. A single left handed mitten for holding iced coffee in the winter. When did we all decide it had to be in our left hands? What do you. What if this my iced coffee hand.
Brady
I assume that Massachusetts residents only do things one way.
Katie Nolan
Yeah, I guess. I guess so. I would drink this.
Isabella
I would too.
Brady
It's so much. It's so big. It doesn't even try to fit in a cup holder.
Katie Nolan
How many? Oh, that is an issue. But it would be really funny if it was like, a bucket that had that tiny little bottom. Like, they already do that with, like, the Lark. The large iced coffee already has this very small. And then it goes like. But I'm thick. Imagine on a bucket with just. It's just basically to keep it from wiggling. I don't know. It would be kind of crazy.
Brady
All the reels are just Massachusettsians just holding it like a newborn, just cradling it in one arm.
Katie Nolan
It would make it useless as a bucket if it had that little knob in. But maybe they could, for the future, make it so that you can just pop the knobbin out if you intend to put it in your car and you can smush it back up into it like a collapsible little. These are good ideas. I'll have to call up corporate and let them know. How many ounces is a large currently? I would guess.
Isabella
I would guess maybe like 24.
Katie Nolan
Oh, 24. Okay. Because I think a medium is like 16. And also, the ice ratio is going to make a huge difference here. So if you're working at a Dunkin Donuts and someone gets a bucket, don't give them all ice. Okay.
Isabella
And the problem is, because it's so big, it's gonna. The ice is probably gonna melt, right?
Katie Nolan
Like, you do have to put in enough ice that it keeps the whole thing cold, but don't make it. So I take three sips, and I notice it's just a pile of ice in a bucket.
Brady
Internet says the big boy is 32 ounces.
Katie Nolan
32. And then this one is 48.
Isabella
Oh, that's no biggie.
Katie Nolan
Aye, aye, aye. That's a lot of ounces of coffee, Dan. I'll tell you what. Dan will take two sips of it and leave it on a table somewhere. Did you want me to put this bucket in there? The fridge? Are we coming back to this, or. At this point, it's coffee water. All right, at this point, the podcast is over. A really good episode today. Big thanks again to our guest, Sophia Kirkby, and thanks to our casualties, Brady, Isabella, and Chris, who are. Why'd you laugh? What's so funny? How dare I thank Brady.
Sophia Kirkby
The Stanley vacation of the book with
Katie Nolan
those little, like, a little Labubu on it. Crazy.
Isabella
This the skinny little bottom inside of a car,
Katie Nolan
please. Okay, so that's it for the episode. Isabella's gonna recover from that. If you want to reach out to us, if you bought the bucket and you want to tell us about your experience of trying to put it in your car cup holder? Or how you feel about this collapsible little nubbin idea? Casuals with Katy nolan gmail.com 646-801-0043 on IG and tick tock we are at Casual as the podcast. That's it for us for this week. We will see you back here next week starting on Tuesday audio wise and Wednesday video on YouTube.com Katie Nolan we love you. We mean it. Bye y'. All.
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Katie Nolan
Another day, another buzz delayed.
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Look on the bright side, you can
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Date: February 26, 2026
Host: Katie Nolan
Guests: Sophia Kirkby (Olympic Luger), Casuals team – Isabella, Chris, Brady
This episode of Casuals with Katie Nolan is a Winter Olympics special packed with stories from athletes, serious and silly sports news, and a fun, detailed interview with Sophia Kirkby, US Olympic luger and self-proclaimed "Pin Trading Queen." The team discusses the Olympic experience, love and life in the athlete village, the infamous "condom collector" phenomenon, and how dating, memorabilia, and bartering play out in the unique pressure-cooker of the Games.
Katie and the Casuals also riff on recent headlines: owner oddities in pro sports, controversy around the US women’s hockey team, sports manifesting, and absurd new merch (like a 48-ounce Dunkin’ coffee bucket). The tone is irreverent, lively, and welcoming to all fans, “sports-curious” to obsessed.
[76:13 – 83:20]
On sports and unity vs. politics:
“The whole point was it to be, like, togetherness that you can love both.” — Katie (12:10)
On the usefulness of hobbies:
“Most of my hobbies at this point in my life are to keep me from picking up my stupid phone.” — Katie (65:08)
On Olympic 'condom collecting':
“I have condoms that go back to the 2020 Lausanne Winter Youth Games… it’s a fun insider souvenir.” — Sophia (62:26)
On dating at the Olympics:
“I had 10 days to run around and do whatever I wanted... and I didn’t have a single bad date.” — Sophia (56:31)
This episode offers the classic Casuals mix: laughs, digs at sports institutions, and a charming, inside look at life as a young Olympian. With Sophia Kirkby’s interview, listeners experience Olympic Village culture—from bartering with pins and dating across continents to collecting condoms as quirky souvenirs—grounded in the joy and vulnerability of a real athlete’s story. The hosts keep things approachable, topical, and witty for listeners of all sports backgrounds.
If you missed the episode, this summary delivers the best moments, quotable laughs, and Olympic tales that made it a standout in the Casuals feed.