Federico Staksrud Has One Job: Take Down the St. Louis Shock

[00:00:00] Zane, I think Zane's team hero, but Zane is more like he's hero side characters. So like you're like Mushu in Mulan or like the chameleon in Tangled. Like you're not the main character, but you're like the funny guy. You're like Donkey and Shrek. Like that is huge. You're a hero, donkey. Donkey and Shrek is so good. Donkey and Shrek is amazing. Wow. What are you then, Nico? What are you?

[00:00:30] I'm team villain. Nico Shrek. I think Nico is Shrek. Welcome everyone to another episode of the PicklePod. This week we got a packed episode. We got Zane, MLP Chicago. Zane taking one for the team, sitting on the bench with his bucket hat. He's here doing the exact same

[00:00:58] thing for the next 90 minutes. Bucket hat, ass on the bench. It's going to be a great episode. I got to play hybrid pickleball. For those who don't know, wheelchair pickleball, which is probably what I need to be doing anyway. But we got a ton of things to talk about. We got Federico Staksrud on the pod. We're gonna talk about his trade. We're gonna talk about whether or not the fives or the shock are the team to beat, or is there a dark horse?

[00:01:23] Maybe it's Dallas. I don't know. There's a ton going on. But guys, if you have already made it this far and you plan on listening to the next 90 minutes, do us a favor, hit all the buttons. Whether you're on your phone or on the computer, on YouTube, on Spotify, hit subscribe, like, comment, thumbs up, whatever it is, as long as it's not thumbs down, we want to see it. And if you want all the

[00:01:45] information from The Dink, head over to subscribe.thedinkpickleball.com. Subscribe to the newsletter. You're gonna like more of what you got there.

[00:01:54] Zane, where do we start? Yeah, well, the newsletter is where I get a ton of my information as well. Alex Weaver and I are partnering up to do a deeper dive into the recent proton fraud allegations, which are crazy, and which we'll have to dive into a little bit in the show as well. But Alex goes in depth and the newsletter really is legit great way of staying up to date with everything going on in Pro Pig Ball. So check that one out. And

[00:02:24] I don't know. Where do you want to start, Nico? Zane, before I do want to give The Dink a quick victory lap. People might be throwing up in the back of their mouth. But you mentioned the Dink newsletter, Alex Weaver. There is for those you don't know, and those who are not on Pickleball Twitter, there is like a media personality pick them league for Major League Pickleball. It is the most prestigious thing in maybe all of Pickleball. You have Alex Weaver, Thomas Shields, myself, Eric Tice, all representing The Dink. You got Chris

[00:02:54] Callie Sorry, Not Sorry. You got Alex Lance from The Kitchen. You have NML guys. You have Hannah Johns. There's a ton of different people all vying for supremacy. Don't disrespect Heyshe like that. Include Heyshe in there too. Heyshe. Heyshe as well. Johnny 5.0. Maddie Pickles. You can disrespect those guys. That's fine. Just don't disrespect Heyshe. So anyway, we're almost at the end of the season. Believe it or not, speaking of no disrespect, Jim Kloss,

[00:03:23] the prior season champion, smartest guy in Pickleball. But this year, the Dink has the number one spot, the tied for number one spot, the number three spot. And if Eric Tice didn't have to abstain from some things and always pick the Chicago Black Bears, he'd probably be number one overall. So Dink representing, I'm not sure those other guys may be in second to last. I'm not sure who those other guys are, but they may or may not get offended if we talk about them or their podcast. But victory lap for

[00:03:53] the Dink so far. Victory lap for the Dink. Love it. I don't got anything else to say. The good stuff. That's fine. Don't disrespect Heyshe. Never, never. She is the person when like, when she hits, nobody else hits. She is the pick with your heart type of person, which is fantastic, which has worked really well for her, you know, a notorious Dallas Flash super fan. And they've been

[00:04:18] doing great for the last two weeks. Nobody else picked them like to do as well as she has. So maybe why don't we start? We want to start with the Dallas Flash and MLP Chicago? Sure. Well, let's run it. Dallas Flash overhyped. I hate to say it. They've beaten hardly anybody over the last two weeks. Now, Columbus, very good win. So I'll take that statement back immediately. They beat Columbus. They beat Columbus. But the Columbus is really

[00:04:47] like their, that's their best, that's their signature win. They beat a Brooklyn team without, without Rachel in women's doubles. They don't beat that Brooklyn team if Rachel is in women's doubles. It is surprising to me that, that they won that dream breaker still and in extremely convincing fashion. But they played the two weakest events of the year by a country mile. And they

[00:05:13] won them, which I'm not like, that's a good accomplishment to win these, right? Beating Columbus is great. Beating Brooklyn is great. But like, the fact that it was Dallas versus Brooklyn in a, in a week final, like that's a, that's a week final. I guess, you know, I, to me, I still think they are one of three teams that have won two or more MLP events this year. They're one of, I think four teams total that have won an event. Uh, I don't

[00:05:39] think the Brooklyn pickleball team or the Columbus sliders have won one. So you play who they put in front of you and they're beating them left and right in convincing fashion. As you mentioned, J.W. Johnson going like seven and one against Chris Hayworth, insane, overhyped maybe, but I still think now there's a top two and there might actually just be a second tier of four. I might put the Dallas

[00:06:09] flash in there, but they got to be in the conversation with the Columbus sliders and the LA mad drops after beating them and back to back weeks, right? Yeah. I'd put them in that, like that second tier. Now they've gone from third tier to second tier, definitely. So they're in that grouping of Brooklyn. I probably would still put Columbus somewhere between you got the shock and the fives. I'd put Columbus kind of in between as a third team. And then you've got Brooklyn, LA Dallas kind

[00:06:37] of in that next tier St. Laura. Sorry. After that comes like Palm beach and Texas. And then there's kind of the rest of the teams that are looking for, for playoff spots after that. So they're good. They are good. They're better than a lot of people expected. I don't think they're winning a championship. That's for sure. I don't, I don't think they are either, but I think they are at least have odds

[00:07:02] for a championship title. They could at least upset somebody and at minimum can be one of the three or four or five seeded teams, which I don't think anybody thought could happen. I think everybody started the season of there's a top five and everybody else Dallas left for dead Mark Molten owner GM of the Dallas flash. Is there an argument for him to now actually be GM of the year?

[00:07:28] No, I mean, best trade all season, maybe the best pickup off of, I don't know. I guess it was a trade, but Alex strong, you know, buddies with, with Danny Townsend, those two moves. Fantastic. If you would have told me, Hey, this person, you're going to lose your top two women and still win two events, which is probably if they kept their exact team from last year, I don't even think the odds would be that they would win two events this year. So interesting. I don't, um,

[00:07:57] I mean that team from last year crushes these two events, the same two events. So, I mean, you can kind of thank the schedule for some of that, some of that win. Now they made some, they've made good moves. I like where, where Dallas is at for sure. And they're, they're gelling pretty well, but like, I don't know. I guess it might be somewhat slim picking for GM of the year. So I don't know. Uh, I don't even know how you would, how you would judge something like that.

[00:08:24] Like what do you put Harwood in there for going and getting all these pieces? Like, you know, how do you, how do you even judge? Do you put Johnny Goldberg in there for probably making half a mil with his roster? Like I was going to say Johnny Goldberg, probably, probably the person I honestly, Mark might be the guy, because if you think about this, we now can revisionist history, his decision to drop Georgia. Is that still the right decision? Who should he have dropped? Because

[00:08:51] after, if you've been watching MLP the last two weeks, JW Johnson is the best player on planet earth. Like no doubt. He did. He's moving. He hasn't moved around so much in mixed doubles for, for a while playing with Georgia. They kind of got that, the, you know, sort of their, their style down, but he's playing big with, uh, with Brooke now, uh, playing great. Yeah. So, so good for him. Maybe it's his new pickle paddle. Who's to say, honestly, could be pickle paddle slash paddle tech paddle. I don't know.

[00:09:20] And in that, in that finals with Dallas and Brooklyn, I think the biggest shocker to me was the absolute beat down that they put in the second spot in mixed doubles. I saw, I actually, the biggest surprise was Chris Hayward. Let's talk about that in a second here. But did you watch Augie and Danny play in that finals? Like, I thought they were unstoppable. I didn't like know what they could do. Riley Newman

[00:09:45] looked completely lost. So did, uh, Jackie Kawamoto. Like I just, like, I thought Jackie and Riley would be significantly favored in that match. And it just looked like they, they had nothing, anything fast came back even faster, relentless attacks. Like it looked like they could never beat that team. Like there was no chance. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. I was not able to watch much this weekend.

[00:10:09] I was able to sneak some, some views of the slice, got to watch most of, of their matches, but that is, that's about it, unfortunately. So didn't see that. Saw the end result, did watch the dream breaker beat down. And that's the most surprising part for, for me. Like I figured Augie and Danny would mesh really well together because Augie obviously plays the right side and Danny loves playing the left. And there's not too many ladies that want to play the left in mixed doubles. But, uh, I tuned in for

[00:10:38] that dream breaker and I couldn't believe that, uh, the, the smackdown that J-Dub put on Chris and, you know, I think Augie is an underrated singles player, particularly for four points at a time and he's clutch in a dream breaker. So four, four with Alshon doesn't particularly surprise me, but seven, one for J-Dub does. Yeah. And it probably did. Yeah. I mean, 12, 12 to five,

[00:11:06] the men of the flash beating the men of the Brooklyn pickleball team. And that they, those, that is by far the best men's dream breaker lineup. So it makes me wonder like, is dream breaker power like overrated? Like as long as you don't have an absolute liability, does it actually matter? Like did the shock actually do that much by getting Hunter Johnson? Like it's only eight points, you know what I'm saying? So, and, and it looked, JW had control of pretty much all of those points.

[00:11:35] It was interesting to watch. Like, uh, you never saw Chris really get in JW great passing shots, but I don't know. I mean, to me, it just screams Brooklyn pickleball team is in trouble. Like maybe they're not who we thought they were. They aren't who they thought we were. Oh God, how do you still screw this up? I just said it for you. You had the other version done and I just said it again. You messed it up. I have the yips. It's like a yips on the specific sentence. Like

[00:12:04] some, you know, Connor Garnett can't serve occasionally. I can't say this specific meme, but, and I can't get Zoe Wiles last name done. Yeah. You did it this time. But I, my thought is one, maybe Riley and Jackie are overrated as a mixed two team. And two, if they don't have a stranglehold on dream breakers, they're in huge trouble. And I think my thought is even with Rachel Rohrabacher, that team is not that much better at dream breakers, right? Like they rely so heavily

[00:12:33] on getting a huge lead with their men and the men's field is so tight that I don't actually think it's that big of an issue. I think I, they're that big of a, of a plus for them. I think it's way better to have top tier women in your dream breaker lineup than it is to have the men, even though the men obviously play more points. Yeah, no, I would agree with that. I just think that the, that the difference between the top men and the bottom men in, uh, in dream breakers is a lot

[00:13:02] closer than the top women to the bottom women. Right. So, you know, you're, you're maybe looking for a five, three advantage out of each of your men's teams, but like maybe the, maybe a six, two or something from, from the women. And so, yeah, I mean, like, I think Rachel coming back into singles at some point for Hannah Blatt, you know, maybe that goes from a three, five spread

[00:13:27] on average to a five, three spread on average, which is, you know, which is big, but, uh, yeah, even having the best men's players in the world, like, you know, that's, that's maybe giving you one, one extra point per rotation, which is huge, but it's not everything. Right. So yeah, I mean, I think they get a little bit better when Rachel comes back to singles, but, uh, and there is some

[00:13:53] randomness too. Like, I just don't, I do think that JW is a good matchup against Chris Hayworth, but I don't see, I don't see Dallas winning that super regularly. Yeah. I don't think so either. I still think Dallas has the vibes, you know, the Brooklyn has, you know, Riley hitting the paddle out of Christian Alshon's hand with probably like the clip of them of, of the tournament and just

[00:14:18] Alshon just like, just kind of shaking his head, looking, looking frustrated, confused. I'm not sure, but, uh, I was ready for Alshon to then kick him in the head like that, that video from two years ago, uh, where they slap battles at the net. Maybe, maybe that moment was the, the turning point, uh, in their, in their event, which caused them to lose. But I don't know, Brooklyn, I'm still, you know, proud of them for, for making it to the finals. The team is cursed. You know,

[00:14:46] we've had conversations on the side through texts and DMS like, is it Jake Elvar super fan? Is he the curse? I'm not sure what it is, but they can't catch a break. Scooter injuries, sickness, injury, regular injuries, uh, scoreboard injuries on you. Yeah. So I don't know. We'll see what happens, but they, they need maybe like a rain dance or something. Yeah, no, it was weird. I mean, they played, they played a bunch of different lineups. They had Rohrabacher was out of women's

[00:15:14] the entire time, but in mixed the entire time. Riley was in and out of mixed doubles. Hayworth was in for him a couple of times in mixed. Alshon, I think was out for one in mixed. Maybe, or maybe I'm wrong. Like you switched it up like a ton, which is a little strange, but oh well. All right. Zane. So just a second ago, we're talking about GM of the year and, you know, we don't give you enough credit for being GM of the year. Maybe you're not the GM. Maybe you're

[00:15:44] actually a player that probably has the highest salary on your entire team. I don't know. Or highest draft number, but Zane, I want, I want to get your thoughts on, you know, I think you played just a couple of games. You ended up with your role from the, um, New Jersey fives. You were on the bench. Your team did great. Zoe Wild called you out, uh, said that your team might be better with you on the bench. I want to hear a little bit about that decision, a little bit about the Chicago

[00:16:12] experience. I think you guys, you guys were doing a ton. Alshon throughout the first pitch, you guys played against them. Megan Dazon is trying to blast people in the face. Anyway, give me, give me a little bit more of the Chicago slice, uh, recap. Yeah, no, it was a sweet week in Chicago. So we all got there on Monday. Uh, we went to Grant park downtown Chicago, which was like iconic. They're skyscrapers in the background sunset. The sky was all pink. We're there.

[00:16:41] And I have actually like a crazy story. So we were debating, like the rest of the team was going undercover. Like LC was pretending to be like a little sister. I'd never played before. Like Jamie was pretending to not speak English. Like they were all going undercover and we were like, or the, the people were recording it, but we had made the decision, you know, not to inflate my ego any more than it already is that I was probably too recognizable to show up to the pickleball court

[00:17:09] for this event. And so I got there while they're still doing their thing. I met up with another paddle tech employee and we were kind of waiting like on the outskirts and we were debating it, right? We're like, am I too noticeable to go over there? Like what I blow their cover right now. And I swear to God, as we are having this debate, a guy with his pickleball paddle bikes past us,

[00:17:37] does a double take helmet falls off, goes onto the ground. He hits his helmet with the bike and kind of like stumbles off. Doesn't like acknowledge that, but just turns around and goes, you're Zain Navratil. Literally on cue as we're having the conversation, I turned to Maddie and I'm like, that answers that. So anyway, that was some cool social content. After that, you know,

[00:18:02] we did a bunch of random stuff. Like we played instead of playing with a, with a beer in one hand, because we got a bunch of 13, 15, 18 year olds, we played with a pizza in one hand. So that was fun. Well, you know, I served up some chainsaws too. And yeah, it was just a good time after that. So that was Monday. On Tuesday, we, uh, we had the event outside of Wrigley Field where

[00:18:28] we set up a pickleball court and, uh, we had the, we, uh, we had the Chicago slice playing against the paddle tech and pickle all-stars, which is pretty sweet. Cause obviously paddle tech just picked up J-Dub, Georgia and Tyra to their team. So pretty fricking stacked team over there. They had Cam Chafin, Riley Newman, who couldn't play because of that scooter injury. They had Christian,

[00:18:56] Georgia, Tyra, J-Dub. So it was a, it was a really solid squad from their end played against us. I want a little bit of credit. I started out hot. I hit Christian Alshon with a nasty Nelson on 0.1. So successful Nelson was an exhibition, but you know, nasty nonetheless. Let's see after that, he got to go in and throw the, the first pitch. And if you got, if you saw any of his stuff on

[00:19:23] social media, like I was not thinking that he was about to go throw a strike. Vegas did not have good odds on that, but he threw a fricking good pitch. Like he actually threw a strike. So shout out, Christian, hard work pays off strike in the first pitch. That's impressive. You know, to me, I'm one is the nerves have got to be through the roof trying to throw a first pitch

[00:19:47] strike. Right. And if you saw Christian, he's doing, we sports, he's practicing everything like this. There was like a, basically like a Rocky montage of Christian trying to train for this. You know, he, he took an entire tournament off. He was dialed. My question though, Zane, is how did he get chosen to be the first pitch guy? Did you, did, did Paddle Tech like look at the roster and say, who is the only athlete here, but this guy, we're going to pick him to throw it.

[00:20:14] Or did they say, we've had enough of Zane trying to do cross sports stuff. Like how did that happen? I actually, I don't know. Um, I think probably cause paddle or cause a Christian re-signed with Paddle Tech and you know, he's kind of the, I would say the face of Paddle Tech before all the J-Dub, Georgia and whatnot stuff. So, uh, yeah, I mean, I think he's the, he's the probably most well-known

[00:20:40] pickleballer of the group or, or yeah. So that would be, that'd be my guess. Zane, I have a quick, a quick detour from what is happening and maybe we do this in, in more detail later, but is Paddle Tech, if Paddle Tech was an MLP team, does that team beat every other MLP team? You know what? That's so funny. We were, I was debating that because the Paddle

[00:21:03] Tech team would be Christian, J-Dub, Georgia and Tyra with maybe Cam Chafin coming in for the Dream Breaker. Like better question is, does that team beat the shock? Cause you can't really compare them to the fives cause Georgia's on the fives, right? Does that team beat the shock? That's tough. That is tough. I, I don't know. I don't think so. It's close. I don't think so, but like, but like fascinating, right? That's a good team.

[00:21:33] But now, now Zane, does that team beat every other Paddle Brands team? If each Paddle Brand had an MLP team, does that team, is that the best team? Hmm. I mean, I'd imagine it's probably second to Yola cause you got Fed, Ben, Anna Bright, and I don't know who would be their second women for, for Yola. I mean, you could keep Kate Fahey if you wanted.

[00:21:56] But then also you got Franklin, you got Paris and Hayden and Anna Lee. Anna Lee. I mean, that'd be pretty fascinating. Those are definitely the big three. Imagine the rivalry match between Paddle Tech and Franklin. That'd be pretty electric. You got both, you got J-Dev and Georgia switching over. You got Anna Lee switching over. Like, that'd be a pretty, pretty good grudge match.

[00:22:23] I think so too. And I actually, I think that all three of those teams are relatively even to where, like, if there was a tournament, there's not necessarily a clear favorite. I don't know. I mean, that'd be pretty, that'd be pretty sweet. Yeah, that'd be sick. I've, I've said for a while, I think it'd be super cool to do a MLP of Paddle Brands. Like, get all of the Paddle Brands that sponsor MLP, or are UPAA approved, or whatever you want to do, to submit their lineups. Like,

[00:22:52] how electric would that be? I think it'd be awesome. And then maybe you, you do what they did in, at, at Beer City Open, and you have like a indie brand all-stars, you know, or you're like, you take the, you know, the onesie, twosie, like whoever's playing with like a Luz, or an RPM, or whatever, and you, you format that ragtag team as well. But I love it. All right.

[00:23:16] Well, leave us a comment. Which team do you think wins the, the Paddle Brand ball? And, uh, which team is sneaky good, right? Is there like an engaged team, or a Fakalos team, or an RPM team, or something that's sneaky good with a couple of, couple of athletes that could make it happen? So, I like that debate. That's, that's a pretty interesting one. All right. We'll flush it out a little more. We'll pass it in the Pro Pickball Talk Discord as well. Remember to do that shit, Nico.

[00:23:43] I will. I'm, I'm glad that last week you woke up at 3 a.m. to put in a poll where you got absolutely stomped, uh, in our last draft. So, I think I'm on like a three or four game win streak. I don't know. But, hold on, hold on. People pointed out that you cheated. Jonathan Trong is in the top 20. I win by technicality, and I will take that. I am not above that. All right. So, let me ask you this. In an MLP team, you cannot have three players in the top 20,

[00:24:11] correct? The top 20 of their gender. So, I'm just following MLP rules? No, no, no, no, no. These are my rules. That we, that we said for this poll last week. You said no top 20. I assumed you meant what MLP also means when they say no three top 20. So, I was only looking at men's. Uh, you can get an asterisk for this one. Just like I got an asterisk for that one where I won like two out of three polls and you still give yourself credit. Uh, we got a lot of asterisks in these. We, you know, luckily.

[00:24:40] We really need an impartial third party for this. Oh, yeah. It's going to call me out when I try to say that Israel's part of Africa. It's true. It's true. But, uh, yeah, I think we're basically even coming into the homestretch of the year. We got a couple more of these going. So, I don't know. Somebody, if there's a historian, can let us know like where we're at, uh, on the season. I'd love that. Pro Pickleball Discord, please do the math. Somebody figure out where we're at season standings.

[00:25:04] Yeah, I'm winning. But, uh, so dude, what I didn't realize was how big of a deal talking, you know, to go back to talking about me again. Of course. How big of a deal that actually doing the seventh inning stretch is. Like, I actually, for some reason, didn't realize that that was like a somewhat uniquely Wrigley Field tradition. There are a bunch of others that do it, but it's not nearly as big anywhere other than Wrigley.

[00:25:32] So, me and Elsie got to do that, and she was freaking out the entire day. I only started freaking out right when we went up there and saw 40,000 Cubs fans down there, and there was like no sign whatsoever. We're just like waiting there, chilling. Third out happens in the top of the seventh. We're like, all right, now what? They're like, go, go, go, go, go. Okay. But we did it. We got it done.

[00:26:00] And, uh, yeah, that was pretty freaking cool. Funny story too. Elsie threw out a signed hat to, you know, you throw out a signed hat after you sing the seventh inning stretch. The person who caught it was a, was a friend of a friend. And they texted me that they have the, they have the signed thing. It's a pickleball player, which is like so random. So that was pretty cool. Pretty cool. Pretty cool experience. So the Chicago group did a ton around the city.

[00:26:27] We did some clinics as well. Really, really cool home event. And the facility and everything was sick. I think that, I mean, I, I was only there for a day, but I feel like this was an A plus event. Yeah. But you were only there for a day. Yeah. I didn't. Are you talking about at Chicago or are you talking about at MLP? Oh, you're talking about at Wrigley. I was only at MLP for Thursday. We played Thursday. I didn't know this. We beat, we beat the bouncers. And then I had to go after Thursday, I had to go to Tennessee.

[00:26:57] So my Jenny's, my wife's sister was getting married to my college roommate. And so I was the best man and Jenny was the matron of honor. So we had to go, had to go do that. But actually funny story about those two. They met at the very first MLP event over in Dreamland. So Matt and Stephanie

[00:27:21] were both living, they were living in San Antonio and Colleen at that point. And they both came to come watch that event. And they both watched with my parents over there. And they met in the beer line over at Dreamland and have been together ever since. And then tied the knot on Saturday. So yeah, congrats to them and a little MLP love story. Wow. That's impressive. Where did they, they got married in Tennessee? What part of Tennessee

[00:27:50] were they? Where they got married? Middle of nowhere. Middle of nowhere. That is. No, I know like basically Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg and all the other big cities. It was like half an hour from Gatlinburg. Ah, love that place. I love Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Okay, cool. So, so this kind of like ruined, like to be quite honest, Zane, I probably am not the only one here, guys. If you're listening, you can let me know in the, in the comment section. When the Chicago Slice come on, I just go, I just pull up the Match Day app and I just see what's happening.

[00:28:19] Like, this is my chance to like, I go do dishes. Um, you know, I clean up the house. And so I was like, oh, Zane's not in the lineup again and again. I didn't even know you left. So this, maybe this is AJ Kohler's moment, like his Tom Brady moment. You, you left, you know, unfortunate circumstance. You're out. Now he's there. They're, they're coming up, uh, you know, just win after win. I guess you, you said you beat the Atlanta bouncer. So I guess your spot must probably safe, but you guys look, you look good and you guys are like this

[00:28:45] close to the playoffs. Like, are you guys, where are you like 13th in the rankings right now? No. Well, so first off, AJ played great. Um, John played great. The ladies played great. Emma Nelson, uh, in her first event fit right in with us. So I couldn't be more excited for the, for the squad. Uh, Jamie stepped up in a really big way, uh, in terms of like leadership for the team. So I don't know. I was like, uh, a proud, a proud dad. I think Zoe wild

[00:29:12] tweeted that out too, among some other very mean things that she's joking, obviously, but no, everybody stepped up. It was awesome. And so we got 12 points, which actually puts us currently sitting in the playoff picture, but there are a few other teams that we're competing with like Miami, Las Vegas, Orlando and California. So it is definitely going to come down to Orlando

[00:29:38] for who can, who can secure the, uh, the, the most points there. But as of right now, we're one point ahead of a couple of teams sitting in 12th. They have a better group for Orlando than we do. And several of them are in the same group. So we've got some work to do in, in Orlando this week, but the squad is playing good ball. So yeah, they're looking, they're looking great. I, I wrote you guys off after you guys made the trade and this is probably my fault, but you guys made the trade. Yeah. Uh, you

[00:30:07] know, no more Hunter, no more Mari. Mari's doing great immediately, uh, on the Atlanta bouncers. They've been playing pretty well. And, and then you guys basically just got smoked, uh, immediately after that. Uh, so I wrote you guys off for dead, looked great this week, got one more week. I'm rooting for you guys, believe it or not. Even though it'd be more fun on the pod if you guys don't make it, but I have a hard time rooting for you. Against, you know, 13, 14, 15 year olds, uh, playing, playing pro sports. Uh, so I think

[00:30:34] you guys got America's heart and maybe that's what you were doing as well by drafted all these people or trading for him. I think we're a fun team to watch for, I mean, like how can you, how can you cheer against LC or, or Emma? Like Jamie is an icon. Looch is playing really good ball. Like, and AJ, just the, the veteran out there crushing it this, this week, the, the, the calm uncle AJ vet. Like, I think we're a fun team to fun team to watch and it's definitely a fun

[00:31:03] team to be a part of these. I mean, the kids are getting better minute by minute. Like they show up literally better the next day. It's crazy how fast they're getting good. So. Oh yeah. I'm excited to see what happens in next year and the year after that. So like, how fast can they get good? But this happens in rec courts everywhere where you like see this 13 year old that has some kind of athletic ability and he plays and you're like, Oh, you're like a three, five. And like, you, you show up like four weeks later, he's a four or five. And then two weeks after

[00:31:31] that, he's a five Oh, like that, that it's incredible how fast they go. So, you know, I, I wouldn't be surprised if your team is, you know, in, in that second tier next year, if everybody progresses the way they are. I mean, I think Looch is, is actually, uh, has gotten so much better. It doesn't get as much credit as anybody else of the, you know, the younger group because he's already won two golds and singles and people think about him in singles. But I was at pickle con last week and I was talking

[00:31:57] to Ryan Morneau from pickleball breakdowns. And he was like, I'm going to do a piece right now on, on John Lucian goings because he's the most underrated guy in all of pickleball. So shout out, shout out to him now. Yeah. I mean, we didn't pick up John to be our, our dream breaker dude. No, like I think John is, is proving immediately how good he is at doubles. He's never really had that like shot. Right. And so he's also taking that opportunity immediately. And like, he's fired

[00:32:26] up to play, like he's fired up to be in the lineup. Like we got a team of people that want the ball, which is, which is good, especially for youngsters. So. Yeah, that's important. Uh, so I think the one thing that youngsters sometimes have to look out for is bullying. And I want to ask you about what happened with the Megan design blue card. Was there like, I only saw a highlight from this, but I, I remember she, she got blasted kind of like upper shoulder face and then just took the ball

[00:32:51] and whacked it. And I'm not sure. Did it hit Emma Nelson? Um, did it not hit her? Like, was it an accident? Is there any more to this story? What, what, what happened? Honestly, I wasn't there. I don't know anything other than what we all saw online. And to be like, first off, like, I'm sure Megan would acknowledge this. I think it was a huge and inappropriate overreaction from her. Like Emma's speed up was, it wasn't even like a bag

[00:33:18] attempt. Like it was pretty slow and it looked like Megan kind of just dodged the wrong way and then got caught. Like it's possible that ball was going in like, so huge overreaction. Like I'm sure she would acknowledge that too. And you know, I think she made a comment like, yeah, it's not my finest moment. Like, I'm sorry. Good for her. Right. And I also feel like she got a little bit hosed

[00:33:44] because she smacks the ball back. She shouldn't have done that. Like, I think the camera angle that we all saw the clip from makes it look way worse than it is. Cause he can't really see how far away the ball is from Emma. Like she turns and she hits it. Emma's general direction, but I don't think she hit it at Emma. Like I think she hit it. I mean, it looks to me, if you really look at it, it looks to me like it's 10, 12, 15 feet away. Like, I don't think

[00:34:11] it was hit at Emma general direction, but I don't think it was hit at Emma. Interesting context though. Jamie and Emma were up nine to Caitlin. I'm sorry. Caitlin and Megan brought it all the way back to seven, nine. I think that shot was at nine, seven, two for the slice. So hitting her puts that at 10,

[00:34:32] seven blue card puts it at 11, seven. So pretty crucial part of the match too. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. What are your, what are your thoughts on it? I mean, to me it was kind of a nothing burger. Like the way I think about it is it reminds me of when Novak Djokovic got like defaulted from like the U S open for smacking a ball out of frustration. I think hitting like a, the lines judge or the ball dude or whatever. It just seemed like she got hit.

[00:35:00] She was frustrated in the game, frustrated with herself, maybe frustrated. She got hit high. I don't know. But like, it was like, she closed her eyes and just hit the ball, right? Like she's not, there's no way she's aiming. Like nobody in all of pickleball would take that ball on purpose and aim it at somebody else. Right? Like I don't think a single person would do that. And so to me, it's just like similar to Hayden grabbing a ball and launching it, you know, out of the facility. She did the same thing, but it went literally straight aimed like head high and look like it was

[00:35:28] going to hit somebody. So I don't know. Like, I honestly don't find any issue with it other than the fact that like, you know, they lost the game because of it a hundred percent. Well, I mean, I think she's got to get a point penalty for it. Like it's not. So the difference is Djokovic got match forfeited. Like it wasn't match point if joke of like, so I think it was a total overreaction for when Djokovic, but I think a point penalty was accurate for there. It just happened to be a game penalty because it was on match point. So I feel like the punishment

[00:35:57] was correct. Like that's gotta be a, honestly, that feels like that should just be a straight up orange card there. Like, so they must've had a blue card to begin with or, or something. Cause yeah, I mean like that, that's gotta be a point penalty and it was, and I think that's accurate. Yeah. I mean, I just, I just, I don't even remember which one's an orange card and which one's a blue card. They still like evade me, but yeah. I think it's the same outcome

[00:36:26] should happen and whether or not she did what she did or launched the ball out of the stadium. So, all right, poor, poor Megan. Uh, and then slightly awkward cause you know, AJ is on your team and all that stuff, but yeah, so that was MLP Chicago. We got one more event coming up. We have MLP Orlando Disney, uh, at the same location that they had the bubble when they had the NBA playoffs. Uh, so it's going to be fun. It seems like all the good teams for the most part are there

[00:36:55] a ton of teams that are fighting for the 12 seed. Uh, this is going to be probably the best regular season MLP event in MLP history. Yeah, no, I think so. Um, so that's exciting. You have the shock and the fives figuring out who's the number one seed. It's probably going to come down to them playing each other in the finals. You've got Brooklyn and LA potentially going for as high as the three seed over Columbus and a bunch of teams looking to squeak in the playoffs. There

[00:37:24] are five teams with shots to make it or no, maybe four. There are four teams with realistic shots. I think that the hogs technically could get in if they win the entire thing, which wouldn't that be a story, but yeah, MLP Orlando is going to be going to be pretty sick. So I want to talk about a few other things before we get fed on. I want to talk about the dink movie because I fucking hated it. I want

[00:37:49] to talk about, I want to talk about, uh, what else do I want to talk about? Probably you. Yeah, I do want to figure out a way to talk about me some more. Oh, we had something else. Oh, I want to talk about your weekend. Actually. I want to let, I want to pretend like I don't care about your weekend. So yeah, let's do that. You want to talk about your weekend or you want to talk about the shitty movie? Sure. Uh, let's, I'll give you a brief breakdown of my weekend. Uh, it was quick. So I was at pickle con, which is actually pretty cool.

[00:38:14] It was like, it was in Kansas city. Uh, there's like 30 courts. They had like five different pickleball tournaments happening at the same time, all running by different organizations, which was super confusing. So there was like a junior tournament from a junior league and then like a senior league. And then there was like an MLP style tournament. And then there was a, like a nationals qualifier. I couldn't actually understand or figure it out. I was thinking about joining, but yeah, I,

[00:38:38] they lost me there, but, uh, they invited me over there to do some like play with the influencer and also an exhibition on hybrid pickleball. Um, so for those of you who aren't familiar, hybrid pickleball is one able-bodied person, one person in a wheelchair playing together. Um, so the, the rules for players in wheelchairs is they get two bounces. Their wheels are kind of like their feet. So that stops them from being in the kitchen. Uh, for me, I have the same normal rules

[00:39:06] that apply for me. And I had made a video saying, you know, there's no wrong time to hit a nasty Nelson, but maybe, maybe, maybe there's an exception to that rule. Uh, if I'm playing hybrid pickleball. And so, uh, of course I, I'm crazy, but I don't necessarily have the guts, uh, but like two points in the, the player, the opponent against me just sitting there about to serve in his wheelchair. And all of a sudden the ball just comes like zooming like one inch from my face as I'm at the net.

[00:39:34] And I was like, Oh shit, this motherfucker tried to nasty Nelson me. Wait, have you ever seen those clips of like the Paralympics ping pong where all they're doing is like drop shotting each other back and forth? Yes. Like, I feel like how, I mean like, look, competitive sport is competitive sport. I think nasty Nelson is more fair game in, uh, in adaptive

[00:40:01] pickleball or what did you call it? My wife used to volunteer with adaptive sports at Madison, which was a cool program. So I have that in my head, but what was it called? It was hybrid pickleball. Cause it was like one, a ball is when it's both. So yeah, in, in, in wheelchair pickleball or, or a hybrid pickleball. I mean, game is game. Yeah. Uh, one thing I learned is that they are absolutely ruthless and they know their

[00:40:31] limitations and weaknesses, uh, and they exploit it every single time. So I'd never seen more people hit slicing short serves to the, to the corner, trying to pull the other guy in the wheelchair off the court into the wall. Like, and then, you know, it was funny. I got, I got advice and it was like, all right. He's like, when you go play your, your partner who's in a wheelchair is going to tell you your number one strategy is blast the ball as hard as you can at the other guy in a wheelchair.

[00:40:59] I was like, okay, I guess, you know, like, they're just like, this is what you got to do. Uh, then we got to the point where we were just like, there's a point. If you look on my socials, uh, of me literally throwing up a lob, then a drop, then a lob, then drop and a lob and a drop, like four times in a row. And you just see this guy, like just making like a Mario cart loop back and forth, back and forth. And that worked, but it was the best experience I've ever had.

[00:41:24] And also there had to be at least like 13 nasty Nelson attempts throughout two games. Uh, the guy even had a shirt on. He took his shirt off afterwards and he had another shirt underneath that just said, you don't have the balls to nasty Nelson me. And I was like, this guy came prepared, which was fantastic. And the only nasty that actually happened was my partner, uh, hitting the other guy in the wheelchair. And what they had said is when you play, you know, traditional pickleball,

[00:41:54] you want to hit, you know, center mass relatively hard, right? And you get them. He's like, but because the other opponent in the wheelchair doesn't have as much mobility, he's like, the best thing to do is basically just lob a softball over to them. And before they know what happened, the ball is just basically just plops and hits them. So the guy basically got hit, got hit, got nasty with like a lob serve was fantastic. So I need to see it. I need to see that clip. I'll send out, I'll send a super clip of like the, literally the 13 times a nasty was attempted.

[00:42:22] Also they're a little bit shorter, closer to the net. So I don't have this huge chest to hit to. Like I basically can aim their face and that's about it. Uh, so that makes it tough, but Hey, uh, a wins, a win. It was super fun. I think pickle con might be going to Vegas next year or Arizona, but it was bigger than I thought. And I think it's only going to get bigger. I hope at some point, like they partner with like PPA in some way. I don't think it'll ever happen, but it's, it was cool. Like I liked the idea of pro sports plus like there's like fireside chats and

[00:42:51] talks and like different vendors that you don't just see, you know, like whatever muscle milk or insure, whatever it is at a PPA, like there's like the same five vendors. Like, so it was more of an experience that you could like sit around and like learn. So it was cool. 10 out of 10 would recommend pickle con. Yeah. What'd you do? Like re how long were you there for? Like other than, you know, hitting nasty Nelson's people in wheelchair and lobbing. And it actually kind of reminds me of a social post that we came up with, with the slice. Uh, did you see that?

[00:43:21] Oh no. So there's this trend where you go and interview people and you ask one question that they think they're answering. And then on, on the, on the post, you say that you have like a completely different question. So I asked them like, what's the cheapest way to win a pickleball point? And they're like, Oh, nasty Nelson. Elsie goes like probably hitting somebody in the eye. And then

[00:43:46] it cuts back to me. And I'm like, I asked the Chicago slice. What's your favorite strategy when playing against senior citizens? And then you get the reaction of all like Jamie's laughing. Elsie doesn't get it. She's like, what? John just no reaction whatsoever. Emma's loving it. AJ nowhere to be found per usual. So yeah, pretty good, pretty good post over there. But anyway,

[00:44:15] I forgot what you were talking about. I just wanted to talk about myself some more. No, no pickle con just wrapped up, but you know, hung out there, uh, met people and then got a ton of people that wanted to play me and assert their dominance. I literally just beat the shit out of every single person. Like I hadn't like no mercy. Like we did like a play against the influencer. And then one guy's like, I want to play you in singles. Cause we were playing like two versus two and he's like, I'm playing in singles. I'm like, I'm a, I'm like, not only am I going to beat you real hard and I'm going to switch it to my right hand and still beat you.

[00:44:43] So that's what I did. You know, these, whether or not they're fans or whatever, like, you know, I feel like saying you're the similar person that likes to crush dreams, throw them with a chainsaw serve. And so, and especially it feels good. Like when I get like the, uh, you know, can still hang. So, uh, yeah, it was good to just beat a bunch of people's ass for like eight hours straight. And then, uh, had a bunch of Kansas city barbecue, which I might get hate for this.

[00:45:13] Uh, Texas barbecue is much better than Kansas city barbecue. Like hands down, Texas barbecue is better. Wow. Do we actually agree on something for once? I think so. I don't, I don't know who doesn't agree unless you like live in Kansas city. I think, uh, their barbecue is good. Don't get me wrong. And also I'm not the biggest barbecue person. Like I can eat it like once every two weeks, um, maximum. Uh, it's not like a burrito that I could eat every day. Uh, but yeah, Texas barbecue undefeated Kansas city, you got some work to do. A hundred percent.

[00:45:43] You just can't beat the brisket. No, that's true. That's, it's way different, way different style of brisket. Texas brisket is fantastic. It's like, I don't know how to describe it. Squishy and big. And the other one's more like sliced deli lunch meat. I didn't get it. So yeah. Look, disgusting, disgusting. They should be ashamed of themselves. Speaking of disgusting things, should we talk about the dink movie? You hated it. What an intro. Oh my God. Okay. Do we agree on that too? One of the worst movies I've ever

[00:46:10] seen saying, I don't actually think I agree with you. So here's the thing. I watched the movie today, uh, this morning for pod research and also cause I was interested. And here's my takeaway is that if you like pickleball, it might be really frustrating and hard to watch. But if you're not a pickleball player, I think it actually might be enjoyable. And here's what I mean. Zane, do you get sent randomly, like maybe like once a month, like you, there's

[00:46:39] like a, a viral video on Tik TOK or Instagram, uh, and your non pickleball friends send it to you thinking it's hilarious. Like for example, like a guy hitting, playing pickleball with a frying pan in a farmer suit. Right? Like I, when that happened, all my non pickleball friends would send that. Right? Yeah. But here's the thing. I thought that was funny. That's it in the farmer, like tuning up old people with the frying pan. Like, yeah, that shit was actually funny.

[00:47:08] See, I find that stuff to be not super funny. I'm like, all right, I enjoy other pickleball content. I was like this stuff. Yeah. I've seen like a hundred times. It's no longer exciting. And like, so this happens like once every three months. Right. And I think the Dink movie is similar to those videos where it's like, if you're in the pickleball world, you can't appreciate some of the humor. Some of the stuff doesn't make any sense. And you're like, we don't actually say that on the court, but it's, I think it's funny for tennis players

[00:47:34] or non pickleball players or whatever. I enjoyed it. It actually got like 74% on rotten tomatoes, which is insane. Yeah. That's crazy to me. I just like, I was, I put this in my review. Like I was absolutely ready to like have a laugh at pickleball players. And I did not have, I didn't have high expectations, whatever. I watched the trailer. I had eyes or have eyes. So I, and unfortunately

[00:47:58] ears. So I didn't have high expectations and my just abysmal expectations were, were met. Like I just, I like comedy. It just wasn't funny. And it was just like a weird romance that like, there were like five, there were, there were like five funny parts of the movie. Like there were a few good one-liners, a few good jokes, but like, you know, go watch kill Tony for 70 seconds and you'll have better, better stuff. Right. Like, so maybe I think

[00:48:28] it under delivered for the amount of time, five good lines, you know, an hour and 45 minute movie, boring love story. Not like I didn't have, I didn't have any expectations of good pickleball either. So like, don't even, don't even use that as an argument against me. So you don't like the movies where like a 70 year old or like a 30 year old trying to crack a 70 year old. Like I got really confused in the middle of the movie. I'm like, oh no,

[00:48:56] what's happening here? Like I got the age. Like he's, he's coming over to her house to watch The Graduate, which I thought was funny. She's like, oh, I'm watching this movie The Graduate. He has no idea what the fuck is happening. And you know, it's definitely a movie about an older woman trying to seduce a younger man. Anyway, I thought, I thought that was pretty funny. And then I was like, I really hope that they don't kiss. I hope that there's like, no, like it was bizarre, but you know, I, it's not relatable. I've, I've never tried to crack,

[00:49:20] you know, my 65 plus mixed doubles partners, you know, to the delight of my wife. But no, I mean, I thought it was, I thought Ben Stiller's part was, was funny. I thought those lines were good. I like new girl. Like, did you ever watch new girl? Uh, that makes sense. Yep. You would. So new girl has Nick Miller. Nick Miller is like one of the goaded characters of TV history. And that's whatever his name is, Jake Johnson, the main character of the movie. And so I think probably it's also a little bit residual there, but I had to take a look because you're like,

[00:49:50] this movie sucks, uh, for anybody that likes pickleball or anybody that likes comedy or has eyes or ears or whatever. I read your review or heard your review. And so I went through and I looked, here are some movies that have lower reviews than the dink. All right. Jumanji, uh, Jumanji has a worse rating or the original has a worse rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

[00:50:16] Wild. Footloose. Footloose. Never seen it. A goofy movie. Hook. Don't know it. Top, Top Gun. Could see it. Which Top Gun? The first Top Gun. Zane, are you, are you 18 or how old are you? You're like 30. I got, how have you not seen some of these movies? Troy with Brad Pitt. Haven't seen it. My gosh, this is insane. I saw The Odyssey. That was phenomenal.

[00:50:42] I just think maybe Zane just doesn't know movies. I don't know. Zane, what's, what's, uh, like your, your top movie? Like if you gave me like your top three, like what, what, what movies are you watching? Honestly, I was just talking, it might be The Odyssey. Like The Odyssey was phenomenal. Have you seen it yet? I did. I saw it. Oh yeah. Uh, so The Odyssey has got to be up there. I like some weird ones. Like some, I like some ones like, let's see, The Usual Suspects with Kevin Spacey, not because of Kevin Spacey, but because it's

[00:51:11] a good movie. That's a great one. The Hangover, actual comedy, hilarious movie. Let's see. You know, there's plenty of good sports movies and whatnot. Yeah. The Usual Suspects. Matrix is a good movie. I've got it all listed out in a spreadsheet what my ratings are for them. Oh my gosh. Let's see. Catch Me If You Can. That's a good one with Leo DiCaprio and, uh,

[00:51:38] Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks. Yeah. There's a bunch of good ones. That's good. And The Odyssey, by the way, fantastic. I am at the age where I literally had to take a 20 minute pregame nap in the car in the parking lot of the movie theater to prepare myself for a three hour movie. Luckily for me, the movie is so fucking loud that I could never fall asleep in that movie ever. But it's fantastic. Like that movie is like, it was like hit after like every part of like every second of that

[00:52:02] movie was great. Yeah. I was wired the entire, like, I agree. I normally fall asleep for any movie that like goes past 9 PM and that's not a joke. I was wired until like 10 30. Now it might have been the just absolutely copious amounts of diet Coke that I consumed in preparation, but it was phenomenal. Zane. I think probably my best move, favorite movie. So we always do rate my duper and we'll do rate my duper later in this episode as well, but I want to get your duper

[00:52:30] rating for the dink movie. 2.5. I think that's the low. I gave it a two out of 10 in my movie rating skills. The same as the new super Mario movie from a couple months ago, which I don't know why I went to. You went to this movie in the theaters? I did. I was really bored. Wow. You have like no time. Zane, you were one of the busiest men in all of pickleball and you choose to spend

[00:52:55] two hours. Go see Mario galaxy. I've seen the movie too, but I have four kids. So, but the first Mario movie was actually really good too. And the second one wasn't bad, but I I'm giving this like a, like a 3.4, 3.5 duper. So I think it's actually better than you think. I think more people will like it then, then you'll think as well saying you're just too highbrow for a movie like the dink. So you'd like the odyssey catch me if you can. You probably like, I don't know what other

[00:53:23] highbrow movies there are, but uh, not a fan of super Mario, not a fan of the dink, not a fan of fun. It was just, it was predictable. It was not funny. There were no like redeeming qualities about the movie. So yeah. Anyway, that's my, that's my take. Go watch literally like any standup comedy routine for more than three minutes and you'll get more laughs than you did at the dink. But we did actually have a good time. We were stacking, I don't know if you saw

[00:53:52] this. We were stacking as much popcorn as we possibly could on AJ's head because he was sleeping and we were bored. So that was, that was pretty fun. Yeah. We ended up with like 20 pieces of popcorn on AJ's head before he woke up, before we woke up. When you says, when you said stacking, I thought you meant just like one on top of another. I was like, that sounds pretty hard, but you basically just like poured a bucket of popcorn on his head, one piece of popcorn at a time. On the brim, on the brim of his hat. Yeah. Okay. And on top of his hat, it was, it was entertaining.

[00:54:20] All right. All right. Well, that's a good use of time. So Zane, peep this new shirt, six zero pickleball mesh black shirt. I've never felt more athletic as a non athlete. Um, do I, do I officially look like an athlete at this point? I mean, Nico, as much as a shirt can make you look athletic. I think this one does. So take that for whatever it's worth. All right. A win is a win

[00:54:46] is a win here. Um, my guys at six zero pickleball are launching a new line of athletic wear. And it's not just like we took a, a shirt from a random factory and did no research. And then we just said, Oh, this is a pickleball shirt. We saw their logo on it. Now they actually like designed a shirt for pickleball players because one, this one is like nice and tight around the arm. So like, if you can see these, these bad boys right here, you know, I've been working out. Um, but also when I sweat my

[00:55:14] ass off, uh, it's still like feels good. I've been wearing these all week. So anyway, shout out to them. It took me forever to get a six zero paddle. Um, but, uh, I've enjoyed them and now I'm enjoying the shirts and the shorts as well. Um, so if you guys are in the market for a new set of pickleball attire, get the six zero performance line, it's pickleball gear for people that know pickleball built for pickleball players. So if you want to look like an almost athlete like me in the

[00:55:43] words of Zane, I'm not sure actually exactly sure what he said. Just head over to six zero site. That's six zero pickleball.com S I X Z E R O pickleball.com. Check them out. This is all the respect that we need for our podcast is that when we say, Hey fed, we want you to join. He's like, I can spend 20 minutes while supercharging my car. You want me to go somewhere else? I can go to like the street. No, this is perfect. This is perfect. Zane does half of his podcast in Panera bread. So

[00:56:14] we love, uh, we love a good car interview. You're, you know, you're in good company with, uh, James Ignatowich. He's here. I feel like we had a car interview this year as well. James was last year. Oh, we had, uh, we had, uh, uh, Duke Wong was in his car. Ah, yeah.

[00:56:40] You are, you're in James Ignatowich, Duke Dong, Fed Stocksroom territory. How does it feel? This is going to go in the, in the podcast live? Oh yeah. What did you think we were doing today, Fred? No, this is, this is good. This is good company for sure. This is good company for sure. That's what I want.

[00:57:02] All right. Well, on a serious note, speaking of good company, you got traded to the New Jersey fives. You now are on a team with Will Howells, Noah Cleef, Annalie Waters, your teammate, Millie Rain and Georgia Johnson, which is just a powerhouse of a team. There had been conversations about you being traded for,

[00:57:28] I don't know, probably like a month leading up to this point. Like, did you, when did you figure out it was actually going to happen? Like, when did you realize like, all right, this is, this is probably going to happen. I'm going to get traded. Um, yeah, I mean, I'm going to tell you everything because it happened. Uh, like last week, Amin, who, you know, works with us at, uh, Orlando's Quiz.

[00:57:54] He was like, Hey, what do you want to do? Like, there's these possibilities. There's these, you know, options. Uh, so I actually thought about it. I was like, you know, I mean, you know, I love being on the Quiz. I've been in the Quiz for like 30 years, but it kind of like got to the point, uh, this year that realistically it was going to be hard for us to compete. So, uh, I mean, honestly, he gave me kind of like a bunch of different options that, uh, teams that were asking for me. And I, you know, I gave him an answer, uh, you know,

[00:58:23] what I thought it was going to be. And honestly, like two days after this was, let's say a Friday or something. Two days after, you know, I asked him, is anything going to happen? Uh, and he was like, um, no, not really. We're going to just roll with this crew until the end of the season. So I was like, okay, sounds good. And then Monday, I think it was Monday, the deadline, um, they started, you know, like I started getting calls. I wasn't on a plane and I started getting

[00:58:53] calls. I couldn't answer the phone. I started getting texts from Ryan, who is the owner of the team. And then, yeah, kind of like last minute, like 20 minutes into the deadline, everything happened. And I didn't even know that it was going to be the five. So I thought it was maybe going to be honestly another team, like the mud drops or something like that. But, uh, it ended up being the five. So yeah, honestly, super excited. You know, I went to, I got a trade where I'm in a team that is

[00:59:22] first place. So it's, uh, it's pretty cool. Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, there were a lot of, uh, a lot of questions around the circumstance of it. Cause, uh, obviously it got announced like four or five hours after the, the trade deadline. Um, for, uh, I was honestly like, what the fuck is going on? Like, how does this happen after the trade deadline, after we've already moved the

[00:59:46] trade deadline 17 times this year? But I actually, I did confirm that, that I trust that this did actually go get in before the deadline, but like, from what I understand, the GMs wanted to call the players so they didn't see it on social media. So I think that's a good, good reason for, for holding the announcement. Yeah. Um, so I mean, my question after that is the crazy part is how was this the

[01:00:16] best offer that the squeeze got? Right. I mean, Nico had heard some, Nico, you want to take, go through this? Cause I thought you had heard some other, other offers that were being thrown around. No. Yeah. I mean, there, there was a ton like, so like from what I heard, at least from like the fives, like I heard that the fives were willing to give away, uh, 400,000 plus the choice of no way or will to a couple of teams. I heard that they were willing to even package in a deal with Georgia

[01:00:45] Johnson, um, with Georgia and no way and, and like 600,000 in cash to another team, uh, possibly to try and get Ben Johns. I don't know. There was like a ton. And so my thought was, I guess, how did I want, I just don't know how the squeeze didn't get no way or will. Um, and if there was anything like, like specific, like where, were you trying to go to the fives or, or, or how did, how did they only get,

[01:01:15] uh, two bench players and 400 K and they lost Millie? Like, I don't know, to me, it doesn't make sense. I don't think to anybody it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I mean, uh, honestly, like I was not involved in the trade, uh, you know, negotiations. Like I just got traded. I had nothing to do with it. Uh, I didn't even know that Millie was in the, on the trade. I was honestly really surprised that Millie got traded, uh, going from being a starter to probably on the

[01:01:44] bench of the fives, uh, right now. Um, but, uh, I mean, yeah, I don't know. Honestly, I don't know how to answer that question because I was not the, I was not the guy that actually made the decision, but, uh, yeah, I mean, you would think that maybe the squeeze was going to try to get a guy, uh, that they could use on the roster where it could be Willanoi. Uh, for me, I would say I'm

[01:02:14] happy that that didn't happen because now we have so many good options that we can use on the mixed doubles lineup and also in the men's doubles lineup. We have, you know, three really good men's doubles players that we can rotate if someone gets injured, which injuries happen or sick, whatever. We have a really good lineup. So now, uh, we're going to be tough. We're going to be tough for sure on the, on the end of the season. Yeah. Is it possible you have too many options, right? Cause I mean, I was trying to game plan when this first thing came out, we actually,

[01:02:43] we went live, Nico and I went live. You were watching the live from your plane. You, you, you stopped by. You didn't want to answer any of our questions. Um, but Hayden did. So we're like, man, the fives have a lot of options. And with one regular season event left, like, is it possible there's actually too many options? Would it have been a simpler break to actually would have potentially been better to get rid of Will or Noe just for clarity sake?

[01:03:13] Yeah, I see what you're saying. But I think honestly for us, the players, it's good. You know, it, it, it like gives us motivation of, you know, I don't want to be on the bench. I want to play hard. I want to go out and do my best. I want to compete. I think the problem is the coach and the GM, you know, they are going to have to decide and they're going to have to be the ones that, you know, be like, you know what, you're going to sit out on this one. Uh, and I think we, the players, we have to agree and also like support each other

[01:03:42] that whatever happens, we are all pushing to the same direction, which is to win a championship. And if we all do that, we have the best chances, you know, but I think that for us, it's fine. It's the coaches, uh, you know, it's in their, it's in their hands. Is there any insight right now into who's playing with who? Any, any, any partnership insights? Are you playing with Annalie or what are we looking at?

[01:04:08] Uh, we practiced yesterday, mixed doubles. We just rotate Will, Georgia and Annalie. Um, Noah is not here in Florida. So I guess tomorrow we're going to have a team practice. Um, yeah, I've been, I've been practicing around with Will and, you know, me on the right, him on the left. We'll see when Noah gets here, uh, how, how we can match. And I think it's going to be interesting. I think it's going to be a lot of, you know, also in Orlando itself,

[01:04:38] you know, against some teams, maybe we will switch it around. We'll see what happens. And, uh, yeah, it's going to be a tough decision for the coach for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Good decision though. I mean, you guys have, uh, as good of a shot as any of, of beating the, the shock. Um, yeah, that's going to be a dogfight. I said after this trade happened and I caught some flack for it, but like, I would so love to see you

[01:05:05] and the shock, the fives in the shock, go play like a four out of seven traveling series back and forth. Like just give the people what they want. Like get, no, I think like, nah, I think, I think there's really good teams. I still think Brooklyn on their full force, there's really dangerous. Columbus have great women's doubles team. And I mean, Andre and CJ, they're both, you know, top four PPA team. Um, um, missing one. Madrops.

[01:05:34] I mean, Madrops are so good. Ben Jones. Uh, I mean, I still think that it's going to be getting into that final spot is going to be super tough. Uh, I think Newport and New York is going to be super interesting. Yeah. So, you know, uh, some people were, were saying that you sort of, you know, you see this in other sports that players can sort of exert some influence on where they end up going.

[01:05:58] However, in pickleball, there really isn't too much influence that you can really have because we're not in charge of where we sign with any team can go grab a player and you can't really say no, right? Or you're not, you're technically not allowed to. Do you think in whatever version of pickleball comes down the road that we need to have a real free agency kind of like Will Howell

[01:06:28] suggested where the teams pay the players and the players actually get their choice rather than being told that they got drafted somewhere or another? I think a hundred percent, especially because it adds more motivation to the players. You know, like for example, me, me, I'm going to be in the New Jersey fives for literally three events, you know, uh, or the two or whatever. I don't know how many, how many we have left, but let's say three

[01:06:55] events and then that's it. Like, it's not that I'm like, okay, I'm starting to build something with the new team and the new coach. You know, I'm going to be with them for like three events and see you guys. We'll see next year. You know, it's just like this continuous rotation is kind of make, makes it a little bit like, well, you can really build something, you know? Uh, I think if you do that, then it's like, yeah, you have your own salary with a team and then you're working hard and you

[01:07:22] really like the, whatever franchise you are on and you, you know, that keeps you motivated. I think, and of course you can build a relationship with like the, the fans, people follow you, which I honestly, I honestly had it in Orlando for a while. Like I was with them for three years. That's a long time. I honestly knew everything about the team. You just learn so much with the, whoever works with you. They were amazing by the way. Uh, and it was an also time. And honestly,

[01:07:49] I would go to Orlando do events and people already knew me and I really kind of like, uh, remember them from, from events. And I think that's kind of cool. And that's what, you know, pickable community needs and people following you, you know, that kind of stuff makes it interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Like for example, like for, for example, when I, when I thought about the fives, I would think about St. Navratil, you know, like you were really involved with that brand, with that team.

[01:08:17] I think that you need like faces. Annali Waters is the fives. Like I couldn't see Annali Waters with anybody else, you know? Um, like that kind of stuff, I think is makes it easier to follow. It's like, yeah, that's the girl that plays for the fives. That's, you know, JW, Dallas Flash. Like you, you can't think about JW playing for Brooklyn, you know? Like, it's tough for me to, to think that way. I don't know. Yeah. So Fed, if you, let's say you could not be on the squeeze, you could not be on

[01:08:45] the fives next year. What team does Federico Stocks-Rude want to go, you know, plant down at, and become the, the face of? When you think of New Jersey, you think of AL. When you think of Orlando, you think of, of Fed. Like, where would you want to end up next year if you had a say in the matter? I mean, if, if you ask me like that, I would say Miami, like that's kind of like a team,

[01:09:11] you know, like Latino community, people will, you know, get involved with me, whatever. I was actually on that team for a little bit, but, uh, I like, I think that that would be my preference. Not because nothing, but I think like that kind of stuff, like Palm Beach Royals, whatever. Uh, I think something like that will be, will be a good fit, I would say, but I want to be in the best team. It doesn't matter. Fair enough. So not the Hogs? Sorry.

[01:09:38] Well, we actually have to play, we actually have to play the Hogs on Thursday, so ask me that question after. So when you think of the Hogs, who's the face of the Hogs? Brandon French? Ben Johns. Ben Johns. 100% Ben Johns. Forever. He's not on the Hogs anymore. Yeah, but Ben was in the Hogs. When I think of the Hogs, I think Ben and Colin. They're the Hogs, for sure. Fair enough. By the way, um, how's the, uh, how's the training going?

[01:10:09] With the fives, just like the practice, team practice? No, no, no. Paris Todd's Hogment. Learning how to count to five in English. Yeah. No, I was actually like, uh, I was mimicking Ryan doing it. That's gonna be cool. That was, that's gonna be cool. I've always been on the other side of listening. You guys count, and now I get to count, so it's gonna be interesting. And I get to play around with the clowns, so that's gonna be good too. Yeah, you hated that shit. Now you get to join it.

[01:10:39] Yeah, now, now the clowns are gonna be on my side. I'm gonna use it for my, for my force. You guys gotta count in Spanish. Like, you got, you got, you know, get the Latino crowd. Yeah, you gotta get, you gotta get something going. You gotta get something going. You gotta get New Jersey Cinco. You know what I mean? There we go. I was doing, I was yelling that last year. We were going, vamos Cinco. So, so it's when you win three points in a row, that's what it is? Or two points? What is it saying? Yeah, but we're kind of liberally interpreting that now.

[01:11:08] It was originally, you win three points in a row, and you keep, you do the count every time afterwards that you win a point. Oh, so you just keep going. Got it, got it, got it. Until you stop, until you lose a point. But now, Ryan kind of just does it whenever he wants. So, I feel like it's lost. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fortunately. Definitely. I liked, I loved it when it had a meeting. But when it didn't have a meeting, I didn't like it as much. Yeah, you were really structured, Shane. That's what happens. You're really structured, and

[01:11:35] when they throw you off your structure, you're lost. I can't function. I can't function off. Yeah, you can't. Nah, you need your exo sheets. You know me too well, dude. Yeah, I know you well. Just wait. All right, I got more important questions for you. Where do you stand? I want to know, is Federico Stockshrewd on the right side of history when it comes to the great bucket

[01:12:05] hat debate of this generation? Are you pro bucket hat or are you anti-bucket hat? I love, I love bucket hats outside of the court. On the court. Please, man. I was talking, I was actually like Joey, while I saw him playing and at least get a bucket hat that has like, I don't know, your team logo on there, like something. Like he has like a no face, like

[01:12:31] the one that you buy to go hiking with your wife on Utah. Wait, so like, so one of these? Yeah, so yeah, that's not, yeah, I mean, we're trying to ruin Pickle or what? Like what are we trying to do? Wow, Fed. I feel like I've seen some pictures of you golfing in bucket hats. Yeah, 100%. Outside the Pickle court is good. So do you, so you agree with Conor Bordeaux?

[01:12:59] That one is actually, that one is not that bad, but why, you know? Well, it's sold out, so you can't have one. They're back in stock August 12th, but yeah, you can't have one right now. How many of you guys did? Five? They sold out. You hate to see it. Wow. Anyway, Federico Stocksrude, bucket hat hater. Thank you for coming on the pod. That's all the time we have for you today. Thank you so much. Should we actually kick him off? Should we really kick him off?

[01:13:29] Nico, it's been a minute since the Lefty reset. It's been a minute. How is your, how's your health journey with Merrick gone? What are you up to these days? Yeah. So it's actually been going fantastic. I will say maybe there was a slight slip up where I went to Kansas City and ate all the barbecue that I could possibly find, which by the way, is not as good as Texas barbecue. I will die on that hill. And maybe Merrick Health could have told me that ahead of time. But what Merrick Health does, I wanted to highlight

[01:14:01] Merrick diagnostics. So there's like Merrick Health that does all of these different things, you know, from blood tests, blood work to supplementation. There's like a full gamut, right? So you can be as detailed as you want to be. But if you're just interested in the initial phases, you want to discover what's, you know, working for your body, where your markers are

[01:14:26] actually at, you just use Merrick diagnostics. All right. So we cut out all of the stuff that maybe you're not ready for. We start with a blood test and you can get a couple of markers or you can get like a full panel that tells you basically everything, whether or not you have low T, whether or not you have low vitamin D, there's a ton of different things. So you get the blood test, you take it, and then you can start your health journey however you see fit. The test comes at all different price

[01:14:56] points. You can get a test as cheap as $10 for a few biomarkers, or you can get the full gamut. You just order online. Then you walk into any quest diagnostics for a blood draw, results at your inbox, easy as that. So with Merrick, you can check out Merrick Diagnostics, head over to merrickdiagnostics.com,

[01:15:17] use code thedink for 10% off. Again, that's M-A-R-E-K-D-I-A-G-N-O-S-T-I-C-S.com and get 10% off with code thedink. All right, we're gonna play a stupid game that Nico created. Hold on, before we do this. Federico, do you like sports movies? Yeah, I love it.

[01:15:43] Okay, why don't we just do a sports movie draft with Federico? That's probably better. You got a choice. We can talk about Disney characters, or we can talk about sports movies. I feel like I will be bad at that because I know them in Spanish names and we will get all confused. You can just do it on the villain, villain, whatever. The villain, okay, we'll do that. All right. All right, so we're just trying to figure out,

[01:16:08] one is I want to figure out like team hero versus team villain. So I want to get your guys' take on this. You know, we're going to MLP Orlando, Disney capital of the world, and I want to figure out which players play on team villain, which players play on team hero, and which team is actually better. So Federico, first, I'm going to start with you. Are you team villain or are you team hero? I have my thoughts, but... No, I think I'm team villain.

[01:16:37] Historically villain, I'm trying to be a hero, but no, not it. No, not there yet. I think you're right, but you're a likable villain. You're charismatic and likable. Yeah, I'm like the one that is like, we know he's a villain, but we keep him around because he's a good time. Yeah, perfect, perfect. Who is that? Who is that? That's like the... What is it? Is it Hades from Hercules? I feel

[01:17:05] like that's like a Federico villain. Ah, that's a good question. I would think of... Like the Toy Story villains, you know? Like they're like funny villains, you know? Some of them are pretty ruthless. What about Annalie Waters? She... That's tough. She... I would say slightly hero, but like it's not that clear. It's not that clear.

[01:17:36] I think so. Like... The thing, it's like the... The thing is that the villain can't win that much. Annalie Waters is always the character in a movie that other people are going to be trying to dethrone, right? That's... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like she's so good, it's hard to like write a story about her being so freaking good. She would always be the person trying to be knocked off by the hero in a movie, which puts it kind of, I guess, as the villain.

[01:18:05] That's how I see it, you know? That's how I see it. All right. Yeah, so villain. We agree on villain. Yeah. So, and then who's the... I'm trying to think about other villains right now. Is... Hayden's got to be team villain, right? Is there anybody more villain? 100%. He's number one. Number one of the villains. Hayden's team villain.

[01:18:32] I think you got to put Gabe team hero for sure. Gabe. Yeah. Yeah, he's team hero. Gabe's easy hero. I feel like you got to go Anna Bright. J.W. Yeah. Yeah, Anna Bright team hero. J.W.'s team hero. CJ team superhero. No, CJ's team hero for sure. Yeah, CJ's like the best hero. Yeah. Zayn, you are... Andrea.

[01:19:00] I think Zayn's team hero, but Zayn is more like... He's hero side character. So you're like Mushu in Mulan or like the chameleon in Tangled. You're not the main character, but you're like the funny guy. You're like Donkey in Shrek. That is huge. Yeah, hero. Donkey. Donkey in Shrek is so good. That's brutal. Donkey in Shrek is amazing. That's brutal. Ander's like Captain America. You know?

[01:19:31] Insane hero. Wow. What are you then, Nico? Do you have any... What are you? I'm team villain. Nico's Shrek. I'm Shrek. I think... I think Nico... I said myself... No, I'm handsome Shrek. I'm Shrek once he turns into... Exactly. The human, human, human. Human Shrek. Yeah, exactly.

[01:20:01] Oh, Alshon? Villain? Oof. Oof. The one that everybody wants to kill right away. And he's like the one... So I'm not sure... You know those Disney movies where the hero or the villain really thinks he's doing the right thing? Like he doesn't understand that he's the villain? That is Christian Alshon. Christian Alshon is... Talking about Shrek movies, Christian Alshon is literally the same... What's the guy? The guy that has the long hair in the Shrek movie? Lord Farquaad?

[01:20:30] No, not Farquaad. No Farquaad. It's the blonde one. I was going to die. The blonde one. The tall blonde. Charming. Charming. It's literally... That's Chris Alshon. The same person. Yeah, I think Christian and Hayden have gotten me the clearest villains. Christian reminds me a little bit of the suitor from The Odyssey that we were just talking about too. Oh, the suitor.

[01:20:59] You've seen The Odyssey, Fed? Yeah, I saw it yesterday. Amazing. Amazing. It was phenomenal. Yeah, the suitor. Like the main suitor guy. Oh, the Robert Pattinson guy? Oh, Pattinson. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, I can see it. Giving instructions. Who else you got for us? Ben Johns. Hero here. Hero but doesn't want to even be a hero.

[01:21:31] Yeah, fair. We'll take that. What character is that? I don't even know. What Disney character? I feel like there is. There is. But I don't know. Yeah. Is that kind of like... What's the Ryan Reynolds one where he's kind of an anti-hero? Like doesn't really want to be... He's a hero, but he's kind of in it for himself. Deadpool? Deadpool, yeah.

[01:21:57] I mean, he's not a Deadpool-like character, but he shares that sort of... He's like Shazam. I don't know if you've seen Shazam, but it's the same thing. It's like, I don't want to be this guy. There's not enough... I feel like all the women in the league, we almost always just automatically put them on the hero side. But I need you guys to come up with a couple of villain women. You know what? I think Dani Townsend would relish the opportunity to be the villain.

[01:22:26] She's not really, but I think she would be good in the role. Kate. Kate Fahey, I think. I like a little villain. Villain. Little villain action. I mean, Leia is a clear villain. Oh, Leia. Leia. Oh my God. How did I know you did not immediately say that? Leia. Oh, yeah. I mean, those are the only couple. Maybe Lucy Kovalova, just because she's sassy. Villain. Villain. Villain. Villain.

[01:22:59] You sure about that one? Oh. Anybody else saying that we're thinking of that we need to put in a category? Nah, almost all the girls are heroes. It's basically just Leia, Kate, Dani. I like that pull, though. I think Dani is cast as like a hero, but she is waiting. I think she was actually hoping, I think, that she became the villain on the Dallas Flash,

[01:23:26] but then they did so well and everybody just like, she is once again the hero. So I don't think you can avoid it. But one day, one day it'll change. She'll do something that'll piss somebody off and I'm excited for the heel turn. She's ready to be Darth Vader. She's ready. All right, Fed, we'll let you get back to you. I'm sure your Tesla is charged by now and you don't like bucket hats. So it's for real time to get rid of you now.

[01:23:54] Fed, I'm just bummed, though, by the way, that we didn't get you on for the World Cup. We talk a lot about the World Cup on this podcast. We are pro soccer. All of our friends are pro soccer. We're pro Argentina. By the way, Fed, you're going to hate this. But like, so maybe we should get your take on this. But we talked to Annalie Waters, his old soccer coach. And because he said she was like, oh, Annalie can go pro in six months. I was like, this is crazy.

[01:24:22] As good as she is at pickleball, that's crazy. But we're doing the podcast in the middle of the Argentina match. And so I don't have it on. I'm recording it. And as soon as the podcast ended, he's like, all right. Messi, he's like one nothing. Messi scored. I'm like, fuck. I was like, why? I was like, don't you know? We're talking about soccer. You know, I like soccer. Why would you do this? So that guy is on my dead to me list. But I thought you got to go to a couple of games or?

[01:24:52] Yeah, it was awesome. Honestly, one of the best experience of my life. Going to watch World Cup was insane. I'm bummed at the last result. But it was honestly, it was insane. The semifinal was crazy. Did you go? Which match did you go to? I went to honestly all of them of the playoffs. Yeah, four of them. So it was great. The one of Egypt that they come back in like 10 minutes was crazy.

[01:25:23] Honestly, all of them were crazy. Like, I think that was the problem on the final. They were like so tired because every game went to extra time. So it ended up being, you know, they were dead. But yeah, it was great. It was great. Zane enjoyed it too. So every time I think the World Cup is over, I'm wrong. And Nico still manages to bring it up. That's why we have Fed on now. It's done. It is over now.

[01:25:52] So I think as soon as I felt bad, as soon as Fed got traded on his story, he had posted a picture of like Sad Messi with his silver medal. And I had said, this is going to be Fed in two months or in one month on MLP. Silver medal, Sad. He'll get to be Messi just like his hero. That'll be funny. All right. Well, sadly, soccer's done. Argentina's done. But the fives, they still got a chance. We'll see what you guys do against the shock.

[01:26:21] But thanks for coming on, Fed. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, Fed. Bye-bye. In honor of the dink, we're drafting the best sports movies of all time. Nico, you want the first pick or the next two? I will take the first pick. Go for it. All right. I am taking Rocky. Oh, my God. Rocky. That's a pretty good one. That's kind of like the sports movie of all sports movies. That's right.

[01:26:51] Hmm. Annalia of sports movies. I think you got to give me... I got to take the Sandlot. Which one? That's an epic one. I'm going to try. And then... Give me Miracle. Miracle. All right. Okay. These are two good ones here. I am going to take... Give me Remember the Titans. I think that's the Ben Johns of sports movies. I got Annalie and Ben here.

[01:27:20] I'm not trying to sway the audience, but it's looking pretty good already. And then give me Happy Gilmore. Hmm. I didn't know if we were going to go for the funny ones. Right away. Yeah, that's tough. That was definitely high on my draft board. So... I'm going to zag a little bit. I'm going to go with a modern classic of Moneyball. Phenomenal movie. A little bit different.

[01:27:47] A little bit off the beaten path in terms of sports movies. But I think it's a great one. And then... Let's see. After that... You know what? You're already cooked. Give me Dodgeball. Dodgeball! That was going to be one of my next picks. That's a good choice.

[01:28:17] That is a good one. Ben Stiller making a good movie versus the Dink. Bad. All right. Give me Space Jam. The original Space Jam. And... Let's see. I also want... Man, Sandlot was a good pick. I'm not going to lie. Give me...

[01:28:48] I'm taking Hoosiers. Like, your purest movie number one. The old school pick. That's like the Simone Jardim of pickleball movies. Yeah, no. You're definitely winning the 50 plus crowd here. So I'm going to go a little bit newer. Hmm. I get the last two here. I really liked The Blind Side. Ooh. The Blind Side.

[01:29:17] Controversial movie. It is a controversial movie. And then... Let's see. After that... I feel like I need another comedy. And I'm torn between two Will Ferrell classics. Talladega Nights and Blades of Glory. Ooh. I think Talladega Nights is a little bit more in the... In the... In the pop culture. So I'm going to... Give me Talladega Nights. That's a good choice.

[01:29:46] You know, honorable mention before I give you my last pick. Speaking of Will Ferrell is Kicking and Screaming. If you like soccer. And Will Ferrell. That movie is fucking hilarious. But it's not going to win me any points. You got to really know ball for that movie. Is Will Ferrell actually a sports movie goat? I... I think so. I mean, Talladega Nights. That movie. Blades of Glory. Give me... All right. You know what?

[01:30:13] I'm putting Talladega Nights on my injury reserve. And give me Coach Carter from the waivers. We just signed him a minute ago. I'm Palm Beach roiling this shit. All right. Who do you want on your IR? Get one more. Come on. Give me one more good one. All right. So I have... I think I've only picked five movies. So I got one more movie to pick here. Right. So with my last movie, I'm taking probably the sports movie I've seen more than any movie in history.

[01:30:43] Give me Cool Runnings. Bobsled movie. Feel the rhythm. Feel the ride. Jump on in. It's bobsled time. Or whatever it goes. If you have not seen that movie, you are dead to me. My goodness. I hate to say it, but you sold with the last pick. You had a pretty... I think you had me in the first half. Not going to lie. But you sold with the last pick. There is Cool Runnings Nation rise up. I know... Hey Shea, if you were listening to this right now, I know she is a Cool Runnings stand. She knows that coach right there.

[01:31:11] Oh, so now we like Hey Shea, huh? You had no respect. Now when you need Hey Shea, yo, let's shout out Hey Shea. Yeah. All right. I see your fucking game, Nico. Who you got on your IR? On my IR. Give me Caddyshack. No. No more IR. I take it back. That's a good pick. All right, guys. That was fun.

[01:31:37] Let us know more drafts that you want us to do because I love these sort of nonsense drafts like that. And let us know in the Pro Pickball Talk Discord who you think won. But make sure to tune in next week because we are going to know who made the playoffs. We're going to know which team is better between the Shock and the Fives. We'll probably get into the Caitlin Christian lawsuit, which we didn't even have time for this week. So lots of pickleball stuff coming up.

[01:32:05] Make sure to like, subscribe, and tune in next week. Pickle Pod. Pickle Pod. Pickle Pod.