Happy New Year & What’s Next for Our Kids Play Hockey in 2026

Happy New Year hockey friends and families around the world.
2006 was a dream to reach this time. And as we know, we have flying cars, the
cure to all disease, agelessness forever. None of that happened. We had shutdowns and
lots of other things going on. But guess what is the stable thing in your life?
Our kids play hockey. That's what you all wanted. I'm Leo Lise with Mike Pinelli
and Christy Cashina Burns. We are releasing this on the first. It's January 1st,
20206. We're coming both to wish you a happy new year, which we'll do first, and
then give you a little bit of a programming announcement for all of you, many loyal
listeners out there. But let's start with Mike Benelli, the man. Mike, it's January.
Welcome to January. Yeah, it's fun to be starting a new year and getting an
opportunity to, you know, learn again, hear from a great guest that we always have,
learn from you guys being on the show and having an opportunity just to have
another year of talking hockey and all the things that surround us in the hockey
world, whether it's nutrition or training or mental toughness or how do you buy
equipment? You know, anything goes. And I think, you know, I've learned so much from
these past couple of years. And I'm really looking forward to 2026 for sure. Well
said, Mike. And I have to say, you know, if we were to hit the rewind button, I
think all of us would be kind of surprised and really proud.
I think we're very proud of how far this show has come. And the kind of topics we
were able to expand upon, it's kind of surprising the different directions this show
went, where we took our hockey fans and how much we've learned,
how much we've grown. And the kind of guests who now asked to be on our show, our
wonderful producer Caitlin, The Glue, is amazing what she's been able to do for this
show, how much we've grown, how much we've changed, how much we've evolved. It's
really impressive. And all of you listening now, we appreciate each and every one of
you because we wouldn't be here, 2026, without you. And we react to what you want
to hear which you want to learn what we've experienced and it really works I'm very
very proud of this show so thank you for being part of it that's wonderful Chris
you know and I'll say this too our show's entering its sixth year we have made it
to kindergarten preschool I know we're we're starting to get to that age now I
think we're getting our master's degrees yeah it's true I always like to remind
this, and again, some of you have heard this who have been listening for a while,
but we have a lot of new listeners every year. The big question when we started
this show was, are we going to run out of topics? Well, this is the year we're
going to be hitting our 500th episode. So we're not running out of topics. We're
not running out of guests. The other cool thing is that, and Christy, you alluded
to this, is that the audience, your feedback is actually the fuel that has kept
this show going, right? Because there's never a lack of new questions and new
opportunities. And I think the thing that I love the most is that the other
question we asked before that first episode is there has to be an audience out
there that, you know, doesn't want hockey to feel like this crazy, crazy world in
terms of like the people. And you were out there. You were all out there and
continue to grow. And another note too as we lead into this remember when we
started the show my son who's now going to be 12 was just starting his first year
of might just got out of Adams and now he's halfway through his hockey journey and
you know my daughter's a squirt too like like so I remember what I felt when we
started and where I'm at now and I always like to mention to both of you how much
you mentioned masterclass Christy I have been the beneficiary so much of these
episodes. And that is such a gift to me, and I'm sure the millions and millions of
people listening to this show as we continue to move through the hockey universe. So
I promised you all a scheduling update as well. So this is the big news, right?
The main episodes of Our Kids Play Hockey, which had previously aired on Saturdays,
are now going to air on Thursdays for the foreseeable future. A quick reason behind
that is you guys like to listen on Thursdays. And we want to make sure that you're
hearing the episodes. You listen on Saturdays too. But the ride to the rink, our
other very, very popular show for your kids, is moving to that slot on Saturday
because there's a good chance. We talked about it. You are on the ride to the rink
on the weekend, right? No, somebody have practices on Thursday. So we just thought
this made more sense. If you have any feedback for us, let us know. Team at Our
Kids Playhockey .com or if you have any of the questions or comments, you can do it
there as well. I also want to let you know, again, today is January 1st. You may
be wondering, wow, this time every year, the loyal fans, the people who listen to
every episode, don't you guys do a recap every year of your stats? We do. In fact,
we've been doing such a good job with that every year that Buzz Sprout, which is
our podcasting host, is doing their own version of Rapt this year, right? And I
decided that we're going to wait for them to do it so we can use their stats,
thus saving me hours and hours of research with a pencil and a pen and a
calculator. I'm not kidding. I actually was doing that every year. Buzz Sprout is
actually just doing it this year. And we want to thank Buzz Sprout for that. We
should say that too. They do really great jobs hosting this podcast. And I'll get
the YouTube stats and the social stats with Keatlin our glue. But I want to thank
BuzzSpot for that. But gang, listen, January 1st, new year, new me. No, listen,
January 1st, it's a Thursday, enjoy your day. Back to work tomorrow, potentially,
back to school soon. And we'll get back to our regularly scheduled programming,
really, right after this episode. So thank you from the bottle of our hearts for
everything you do. We've got some fun stuff coming up in 2026. Guys, did I miss
anything, or should I close this up? I think We're good. Mike? Happy New Year.
Happy New Year, everybody. We'll see on the next time. We'll play hockey. Take care.