UVM men's basketball team tips off in Florida competing in an ESPN Invitational tournament.

Plus a preview of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Italy and the Vermonters taking part in the games.

And we consider how legalized gambling in the state has changed the game for Vermonters who like to wager all that and more ahead o a special Thanksgiving edition of Vermont this week.

From the Vermont public studio in Winooski, this is Vermont this week, made possible in part by the Lintilhac Foundation and Milne Travel.

Here's moderator Mitch Wertlieb.

Good evening everyone.

I'm Mitch Wertlieb.

It's Friday, November 28th.

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.

And joining us today on the panel we have Mark Davis with Vermont Public, Peggy Shinn, a freelance reporter based in Rutland who's covered eight Olympic Games and joining us remotely from Florida today, Jack Fitzsimmons with WCAX.

Thank you al so much for being here, folks.

Looking at home, you may notice something a little different in our attire today.

We're taking it easy.

We're going a little casual because it's the sports show.

Today.

We're going to be talking all kinds of sports here in Vermont.

And Jack Fitzsimmons, I want to start with you.

Thanks for joining us from Florida today where you were covering an invitational tournament.

UVM men's basketball team is involved.

What is this tournament?

What are the games that are being played?

And where do you expect to see from Vermont?

Well, Mitch, this is an ESPN Events Invitational.

This is a pretty common thing in college basketball around kind of the week of Thanksgiving, the week leading into Thanksgiving, the teams will get an opportunity to play 2 or 3 games against, kind of teams, various, parts of the country that are kind of roughly their level, UVM men's basketball team, obviously kind of one of the premier mid-major programs in the country is in this tournamen with a number of other really, really good mid-major programs.

The first team coming up against Liberty, is one of the best, certainly, team you regularly see in the NCAA tournament, year after year.

So that will be an interesting test for UVM over the course of three games to kind of try and figure out where they are here early on in the season.

Obviously with mid-major college basketball, finally, conference play is going to matter more than anything else.

But these mid-major tournaments set in the middle of the season, are a good way to kind of judge yourself relative to center.

And Jack, what about the team this year?

What's your feel for how good this team could be?

We know in the past, UVM men's basketball has been a powerhouse.

It's earl going in the season right now.

But what are the expectations for this team, this year?

This feels like one of the more offensively talented teams to the caps.

And in a number of years, they brought back two star guards, T.J.

early and T.J.

Lang, both of whom have been All-Conference performers in the past.

They brought in a lot of guys, ten of them from the transfer portal.

There's a couple of new, freshmen as well that are contributing in the early part of the season.

They certainly, still need to kind of figure out the defense a little bit the last time.

I think that 94 points to Buffalo they ended up losing that game by four.

But when you've got the offensive skill set, it makes it easier, when you've got a coaching staff that's been around the block for a while, they've got a good system in place.

A lot of it is just some of its effort, but some of it, just kind of figuring out how they can play together better defensively.

And if they can figure that out, I think they have the opportunity to be very, very good and be right where they want to be in March.

Now, the UVM women are, taking part in another warm climate, place right now.

You know, they've really improved vastly over the last couple of seasons.

The UVM women's basketball team.

Where are they playing right now?

What about their expectations for this season?

So the evening women are out in Hawaii.

They're on a very long road trip, just like they were last year around this time.

I believe they played a game at Lehigh, which is in Pennsylvania.

They then went down to High Point, North Carolina, a lot to Seattle, Washington to play this, the homecoming game for two of their players, Kiera and Leah.

And we're both from Seattle and from Seattle.

They then went out to Hawaii where they can play three games as well.

Again, yeah, you certainly have to look first and foremost at, at least Krejci and the staff that she has and kind of the consistency that they've been able to have within the last couple of years, kind of really, really elevating that program after, a down decade, to be frank.

And obviously now they've been to the, I've been to the NCAA tournament, to the past three seasons.

You've been in the conference.

You've been each of the last three years.

They were picked to win the league again this year.

So, the cat's certainly, looking like a team that can compete for that conference title again and maybe get into the NCAA tournament and we'll see what happens.

We mentioned Kira Hansen being kind of one of the senior leaders on that team.

Chloe, who's from Shelburne, is also a CBU grad, and she's one of the the kind of premier players on that team, as well as is Nikola Pria, who is a frontcourt player who is, probably the best frontcour player, certainly one of the 2 or 3 best frontcourt players in the entire, conference.

So, Vermont certainly looking good in the early part of the season.

And, we'll see if they can kind of continue that as we get into conference play and about a month or so.

One more thing, Jack, with UVM before we move on, from the topic and sadly, we have to report a loss.

A bit of an upset here.

Kind of shocking the UVM Men's Division one soccer team, which was the national champions.

Of course, they are now out of the tournament after a loss to Hofstra just yesterday.

What happened in that game?

It's an interesting situation.

This is something that, myself and Michael doing kind of picked up right away when we saw the bracket reveal, just really that Hofstra is a top 25 team and they have been for the last several years.

They were seeded team and UVM actually went down to Long Island and and upset them in the in the same round of 32 last year.

So we kind of saw tha come up as the potential draw.

It's like, this team is going to know them pretty well.

This team is going to be able to adjust to their strengths and weaknesses.

And Hofstra, unfortunately for the cats, was able to come up to Burlington and get that overtime winner.

It was the third time in 365 days that those two teams it played in.

Both of the previous teams had also been decided by one goal.

So, sometimes in soccer, that's just the way it goes.

Is, is just a couple of bounces go against you and, then it can be tough.

I mean, obviously we saw the Cinderella run that they were able to make last year or they would argue that they weren't really a Cinderella, but they were not a seeded team.

They were not one of the 16 teams that got a national seed last year.

So to be able to win the national championship was an incredible accomplishment.

They had been in at least the sweet 16 three years in a row, all three of those times as an unseeded team knocking off a seeded team in this round of 32.

So it's definitely difficult.

It's definitely disappointing, especially considering that there is a good chunk of, senior leadership that's now going to be moving on.

But at the same time, it's can kind of get yourself into a situation where, when you're playing in this round, everybody is good.

Head coach Rob Dow kept emphasizing before the game that it's great to be the number one national seed, but really all that it guarantees is one home game.

And and sometimes the other team just has a better day.

And then that's that's what happened on Sunday.

Yeah.

No question I want to correct myself too because folks watching this now I said yesterday that game was early.

So we're taping this earlier this week.

So yeah UVM out.

It's amazing.

You know the one loss they were undefeated up until that one loss.

And of course that's the one that knocks them out of the playoffs.

So it's still a great season.

And they gave their folks, the fans, quite a thrill.

Absolutely.

Peggy, I want to turn to you now because we've got something coming up next year, but it's coming up pretty quickly in February, the Olympic Games.

Tell us about some of the Vermonters that you're watching and what they're going to be competing in.

So we've got several Vermonters across many sports competing, from alpine skiing and cross-country skiing to even bobsled, skeleton and luge.

Really?

We need to keep our eye on Ben Ogden and Julia Kern and Jesse Diggins, who, even though she's from Minnesota, we can claim her as a Vermonter because she owns a property and she's trained in Stratton since 2012.

I think Ben is going to be medal contender in the sprint, men's sprint, team sprint, and I think the men might actually have a chance for a podium in the relay.

There's, the men's team is really coming on strong in cross-country.

Ryan Cochran.

Siegel, an alpine skiing, you know, born and bred Vermonter.

And, he, he could do very well.

The men's race at Birmingham, the women's race at Cortina.

They're five hours apart.

But there's a new team combined event because they can't do events like they did in the past, where they combine the men and the women because they're so far apart.

So they're going to race with within their gender.

So a downhill skier and a slalom skier, the man a downhill skier and a slalom skier in the women, Mikaela Shiffrin and, Breezy Johnson want to go to the World Championships in this event last year.

So Ryan and Ben Ritchey, who's also from Vermont, could do very well.

They finished fourth at world championships in this team event.

A funny story about Ben Ogden.

Speaking of born and bred Vermonters, I figured he was a born and bred Vermonter because he's such a proud Vermonter.

He's a UVM graduate, NCAA champion for UVM and all the time.

Yeah, yeah.

I asked his sister to confirm I was like, Ben was born in Rutland or Bennington.

Right.

And she wrote back, funny enough, we were born in New Hampshire, and she shared a story that in 2022, before the Beijing Games, he, was being interviewed by an NBC researcher.

So they could have his NBC profile up on the, you know, the on the web.

And the NBC researcher confirmed, like, well, you were born in Vermont, right?

And he said, no, embarrassingly New Hampshire.

So the NBC researcher thought that embarrassing New Hampshire was a town.

So his birthplace is listed as embarrassing.

New Hampshire, it really is.

It's really embarrassing.

New Hampshire.

Yeah, she sent me a screenshot of that.

And we want to apologize to any of our, friends watching in the upper Valley here.

We don't we don't share that sentiment about Hampshire right now.

No, definitely not, but I thought it was a priceless story worth sharing.

I think Ryan Cochran Seagull is our only born and bred Vermonter.

In biathlon, we have, Deidre Irwin, who came so close to winning a medal in 2022.

In biathlon, biathlon is the only sport where the U.S.

has never won an Olympic medal.

Remind us again.

For those who may not know what biathlon is such an unusual sport.

Biathlon is a combination of cross-country skiing and then they have to stop in the shooting range.

Either, twice or four times, depending on the event.

So it's a combination.

It's a it comes from the military.

It's a combination of cross-country skiing and shooting.

So Dieter Erwin, I think had she shot clean in 2022, one would have won a medal.

She finished seventh.

So she's got a real shot this year.

She's a member of the Army National Vermont Army National Guard.

And then Chloe Levins is from Rutland.

And I've seen her chase her brothers and sisters around since she was two years old.

She's a Middlebury graduate and also a golfer.

She's a two time Vermont State High School golf champion, and she played golf at Middlebury and, won a few collegiate tournaments, went to NCAA A's, and she's a real contender.

She had some health struggles before the previous couple of Olympics, but she's healthy now and she's a real contender to make the team.

And she equates the shooting biathlon with golf.

Like putting they take the same mental skill.

And in the spring she coaches, she's the Middlebury assistant golf coach.

Wow.

Then we can't forget about the Kraft Sperry Green Racing Project.

They have quite a few by athletes.

UVM grad Bjorn Westervelt.

Grace Karsten Gay, who's, Saint Mike's graduate.

They all trained with Sperry.

Then we've got bobsled, skeleton and luge and a lot of the Olympians are really happy that for the first time since 2010, the Olympics are returning to an actual win place that's used to hosting winter sports like Sochi.

How many people have gone to Sochi for a ski vacation?

That was 2014.

Then we went to Korea in 2018.

That's really not known as a as a winter sports Mecca.

And then Beijing during Covid was just nuts.

So they're really happy to be returning to Italy with Cortina Bermejo, all these venues that they've raced as a natural ski area type of place.

Yeah, places where they know they know not only the courses but they like the food.

There's good coffee, there's good wine.

Their family can come.

So they're really excited about that.

The only venues that are new, I think there's some issue with hockey, like they're they're changing venues, but they had to rebuild the Cortina bobsled track.

So that's all new.

We've got Jeff Gabor from Milton, Vermont.

He's a bobsledder.

He's unfortunately having to crowdfund his way onto the World Cup this year.

So he's kind of an outside to make the 2026 Olympic team.

He's a a bobsled pilot.

Then we have Sarah Roderick, who's a skeleton athlete, UVM graduate.

She competed in pentathlon at UVM, and she also is a South Burlington High School track coach.

She is.

Yeah, she is.

And, she's hoping to make her first Olympic team in the in the sport of skeleton, which is sliding.

Luge is when you go on your back feet first skeleton is when you go on your stomach headfirst.

And bobsled is when you're, you know, you know, crazy bobsled driving down the track.

Incredible.

So yeah, there are a lot of local athletes to watch for here, a lot have your eye on many of them, yes.

Oh, and I forgot Paula molson UVM graduate, NCAA champion from UVM.

She recently bought a house in Vermont with her husband and she is on fire.

She won, or didn't win.

She finished second in the first giant slalom World Cup giant slalom back in October.

And then, she's been doing really well in slalom.

We have had two slaloms the past couple of weeks and she finished fourth, I believe, in one and fifth in the other.

So she's a real, real contender.

In fact, the women' giant slalom team is so heavy.

It's going to be, I think, harder to make the team this year for the Americans than it is to actually win a medal in Cortina.

Should be a good problem to have really.

Right.

And she'll be one of the women who's trying to make the team is Elizabeth Bo.

She's a very new, skier.

She's actually from Salt Lake City, but she comes from a long, a storied skiing family, the Sullivans from, the Wilmington, Vermont area.

I went to high school with her Aunt Martha and she's really coming on strong and giant slalom.

So we've got very strong teams.

And, Peggy, very briefly, Mikaela Shiffrin, you know, not born in Vermont but trained at Burke Academy, of course.

You know, a regional athlete.

Remind us very briefly about the incredible accomplishment she had last year.

She set records that have never been set before.

So.

Right she did.

She came in to the Killington World Cup last year, which was Thanksgiving weekend a year ago there.

It's on hold this year for a year.

And she was on fire.

She'd won the two slaloms going into that race.

And then she had a horrific crash where she was injured and had to sit out about two months.

But she came back and she ended up winning her 100th World Cup race, which nobody's ever done before.

The closest they've come is, Ingmar Stenmark, a Swedish skier.

86 World Cup wins.

So Mikaela is going to be going for her fourth, fifth.

Six Olympic medals, perhaps, hoping to, you know, not have the same issues she had in 2022.

But you never know.

The Olympics is an animal where, you know, skiers or any athlete you've never heard of comes up and wins a medal.

And the favorites end up just having tough days so you don't know.

But she's got a her she's got a great mindset going into it.

You know, she's already set so many records that any Olympic medal is just icing on the cake.

Wouldn't bet against her.

Thanks so much for that update.

Mark Davis, I want to turn to you.

I was surprised that Vermont is now into its second year of full legalized sports betting.

I thought it was actually only a year, but what do we know about sports betting in Vermont now that it's finally legal here?

How Vermonters have taken part?

Has it been a lot of participation?

It appears as though Vermonters are pretty good at sports gambling, or at least less bad than everyone else.

Like, let's take a step back here.

These sportsbooks make money because gamblers lose more often than they win.

The states take a cut of that revenue from when you lose.

Yeah.

We're almost at the two year anniversary.

Year one.

The state thought we'd mak around $7 million out of this.

Turned out to be like 6.3 million.

That gap is because Vermonters want a little bit more than maybe it was initially anticipated.

These are early years.

These projections are a little tough to to nail down.

To state the obvious, this stuff is everywhere.

Now, you cannot turn on a sporting event without ads for DraftKings or FanDuel just everywhere you go.

And so worth mentioning.

There's obviously concern about, gambling addiction and treatment.

A lot of that money from the state is supposedly is goes towards, awareness efforts, treatment efforts.

We've also seen nationally some unfolding and frankly, quite predictable scandals in the world of betting with athletes engaging in and questionable behavior, to perhaps, you know, make money off of this.

We've seen it in the NBA, MLB very recently.

So, you know, we are not alone here, but more states have this than than the adults.

The ads are everywhere.

The concerns are everywhere.

Like all things, if you do it in moderation, probably.

Okay.

But this is a very addictive behavior.

And it's been on a very, addictive device.

And that's a recipe for trouble.

Yeah, it certainly can be.

All right, let's move on to something else.

Talking here specifically about what you're wearing.

The shirt.

It's kind of burning a retina in my eyes as a long time fan of the Boston Bruins, you are wearing your Canadiens jersey.

Yeah.

So, I still like you, Marc.

We want to have a proble at here, here today with this.

In all seriousness, I find it amazing that the Canadiens on the Bruins this year, I seemed kind of on a parallel track.

Neither team really expected to contend for a Stanley Cup, necessarily, but the Canadiens had a huge surge last year, last season to make the playoffs.

They are, I believe, the youngest team in the NHL right now.

The Bruins are doing better than expected as well.

I mean, they were supposed to be in a rebuilding year.

Both teams of the playoffs start.

Tomorrow would be in.

What are some of the issues, though with the Canadiens, some things that you're concerned about as a fan now.

So first off, we've got to make an effort here to make the Canadiens Vermont's official professional sports team.

They are the closest one by far.

This needs to be a thing.

We can talk about that later on in Boston.

The Habs last spring were the youngest, team to make the playoffs in decades.

They're actually younger this season, so that's a ver exciting thing for the future.

They are loaded with young talents, young talents up and down.

It's it's unpredictable.

The Habs came out firing the first part of the season hit a little bit of a rough patch here the past couple of weeks combined with some injuries.

Several key players, including either the biggest problem is their defenseman, Caden goalie is going to be out for a few months now.

So you combine youth with injuries and, I think a real, extreme parity in the Eastern Conference right now.

No one seems like they're going to be running away with this.

But your Bruins having a nice bounceback season, you've got to be pretty excited.

Well they've got Morgan Geeky who last year had this huge surge as the Bruins were plummeting in the standings.

He was finding some chemistry with David Foster not going to line.

He now is tied for the league lead in goals.

Which is astounding.

He's got 17 already.

The Bruins are getting better play from Jeremy Swayman this year in net, which which helps.

You know I don't think they're contending team.

But I do think that they are doing better than expected.

I just want them to make the playoffs.

I did note as well that Bruins had a really lovely tribute for Brad Marchand, who, of course, who was the longtime, he was the team captain.

He had been there for 16 years, helped them win the Stanley Cup in 2011, played his first game back in Boston since being traded to Florida.

Emotional tribute when they showed his highlight reel on the jumbotron.

He was crying.

He let the tears come.

Montreal did something very similar with the late Ken Dryden.

What can you tell us about that?

Yeah, you know, 24 Stanley Cups meant you're gonna have a lot of legends in your franchise.

Ken Dryden, one of the preeminent, Habs legends Hall of Fame goal or one goalie, won six Stanley Cups in the 70s.

In addition to that, he famously took a year off to get his law degree.

After his hockey career, he served in Canada's parliament.

And, oh, by the way, he wrote probably the greatest sports book of all time, in my opinion.

You got to read the game that you and I have talked about this and told me about this.

So we're talking about a legendary, figure and a gorgeous ceremony and that home opener, they essentially turned down the lights in the entire in the ice, and they left Ken Dryden's very famous goalie mask propped up on a goal.

And the plan put a spotlight on it, and not a lot of dry eyes in the house.

Hockey Habs, the Bruins, they do those ceremonies so, so beautifully.

Yeah, I mean, that's chills.

And as a Boston Bruins fan, I can even say that I mean, the guy was just outstanding.

I am going to read that book at some point.

Jack Fitzsimmons, we have to bring up very quickly the New England Patriots, tied for the best record in the NFL right now.

Back to everyone hating them again.

It looks like.

But, you know, I have a hard time looking at that team and saying, oh yeah, they can contend for a Super Bowl.

Are they good enough to actually I think they might be.

It's entirely going to be a question of, I don't know whether they can can maintain the momentum that they're dealing with right now.

Obviously, Drake Maye showed signs last year as a rookie when he came in that he could potentially really be the guy.

And they were kind of trying to figure out their coaching situation.

They brought in, Brian Vrabel back, who had obviously been kind of a, a legend as a player, with the Patriots.

And he obviously had successful run with Tennessee.

Until that organization is just, yikes.

The Tennessee Titans are not exactly in a good spot for several reasons right now, but at least they're getting a new stadium soon, so that's good.

But yeah the Patriots it's it's it's interesting becaus you look at the top of the AFC and you expect to see oh the Kansas City Chiefs.

You expect to see the Ravens.

And it really hasn't played out that way.

The Chiefs were able to get a big win in overtime against Indianapolis who was another one of these teams like the Patriots who were really good in that kind of 2000 to 20 tens window.

They kind of fallen off a little bit.

The Patriots obviously losing Tom Brady and and the Colts losing Peyton Manning.

But the other team to Peyton Manning played for the Denver Broncos, another team that you got to kind of look out for in the AFC.

I think the NFC might be a little bit better than the AFC, but it's really hard to kind of tell.

And I don't see any reason that if the Patriots can kind of continue to maintain momentum.

I was wondering how much of it was.

So they played a fairly easy schedule, actually.

From Washington.

So I saw some similarities to what the commanders were able to do last year.

Kind of taking advantage of a little bit of an easy schedule.

But the Patriots have really kind of started to pick up momentum.

They got that win in Buffalo.

And they're kind of starting to blow teams out the next town.

You hope to see when you're playing teams that you feel like you should beat.

And that's that's what they're doing.

So they could b they certainly could be a team at the end of the year that you're looking at and saying, you know what?

Now that's expected of to expect them to be this so that they might be good enough to win the Super Bowl, because there really isn't a team that stands out as the clear and obvious favorite, especially with, Philadelphia losing to, to Dallas in their last game, that really would be something.

And the Pats are been a great road team as well this year.

They haven't lost on the road yet.

Very quickly we have to mention, baseball since I'm wearing my Red Sox shirt.

Mark Davis, I know you're an Orioles fan.

Give me two names of a player you would love to have to see the Orioles pick up in the offseason.

Oh, it's the same for every team.

It's Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers.

I doubt it.

Everyone could use an ace.

The other name is Kyle Tucker.

Who's out there that, you know, formerly the Astros Cubs last year.

Big ticket free agent.

Not usually the kind of player my team goes after.

What about you for the Red Sox?

I would love to see Pete Alonso in a Red Sox uniform.

I the Red Sox need a big right handed ba in the middle of their lineup.

Yes.

You're giving up a little bit of defense.

He's not the greatest defensive first baseman.

But if the Red Sox were willing to go with Triston Casas last year, who was not that great defensively at first base, either, then there's no reason you can't go for Pete Alonso and get his 40 or so home runs, or maybe even more pitching, of course.

Yes, the Red Sox do need to pair somebody with Garrett Crochet ball would be incredible.

There's other names, too.

There's Joe Ryan of the twins.

We're just going to have to wait and see.

Baseball seems far off, though.

It does the hot stove season.

We're still celebrating one of the greatest game sevens in the World Series ever from the Dodgers and Blue Jays.

Let's hope that momentum keeps going for for MLB next season.

That whole World Series was absolutely incredible.

That is all the time we have for today.

But I do want to say, if you enjoyed our little sports talk here today, stay tuned.

We're going to be doing something come next year in February.

And for more public with sports.

I can't wait to be a part of that.

In the meantime thank you so much to our panel today, Mark Davis with Vermont Public.

Peggy Shin, freelance reporter who's covered eight Olympic Games, and Jack Fitzsimmons from Florida at WCA.

Thank you all so much for your time.

I'm Mitch Wortley.

I'll see you next Friday when they make me put the tie back on.

Meantime, have a great week.

And.