Hot Take From the Kitchen

We want to thank Coach Simion for sitting down with us this week and this whole past season to discuss Wildcat Football. We also want to thank Ken Gembel or LUCK Unlimited for sponsoring not only Coaches corner, but supporting high school athlete across Northern Michigan. We appreciate everyone tuning in for coaches corner and go cats!

It's not our last episode with Coach, but it is our last episode previewing the upcoming game for this season. We get right into this episode with a listener email. We answer that and quickly pivot to the Paul Bunyan game and who we think will win. (Only Steve answers the question! haha) We then preview the Wildcats against St. Johns, and the Lions taking on the Titans. We will miss our time with...

Only a few episodes left with coach! This week we continue to recap the previous week or Wildcat Football and the Lions. We talk about Alpena's close loss to the Soo and Detroit's huge win against Dallas but how much it hurt us to see Hutch go down. We preview this week upcoming Escanaba, Michigan taking on Illinois and Detroit's first place match up against undefeated Minnesota. We then get to kn...

We're back for Week 7 of Coaches Corner. We sit down with Coach touch on the tough loss to Gaylord and the rest of the weekend in football. We then meet Junior wide out Thorin Rogers, and learn more about him and the sports he participates in. Only couple weeks left with coach! We're gonna miss him!

We are ready for Homecoming week! This week we sit down with Coach review the previous week's games and preview the upcoming games this weekend. We meet Home Coming Court Nominee Eric Eades and learn a bit about him and why he loves football. He talks about early college program he's enrolled in and then gives us the lowdown on all the home coming event this week at school. We talk about the parad...

We are still going strong on Coaches Corner! Coach swings by and we go over all what went well and the predictions we had for the weekend. With Brad on vacation, we had one of our past guest, and pod sponsor, Dr. Ken Gembell II stop in and co-host the episode. We go over what all we think will happen in football this weekend and then meet Brady and learn a bit more about him. It's a fun episod...

This week's episode we are back with Coach Simion to preview this week's slate of games: Alpena taking on Cadillac Friday night, Michigan hosts USC and Lions are on the road to Arizone. We then meet fullback, Colt Walter, and what he loves about being part of the Alpena Wildcat football team. We appreciate Coach continuing to stop by The Kitchen each week! Go Cats!

New episode for Week 3 with Coach Simion as we review last weeks home opener against Marquette. We recap what we thought of Michigan vs. Texas and the Lions/Rams primetime match up. We preview this week's matchup against Zeeland East. We then talk about all the football this weekend with Michigan taking on Arkansas State, Lions taking on the Bucs and the big Jets football weekend in Alpena. On...

We are back with Coaches Corner where we talk about our Wildcat Football team and preview the upcoming game, and review how it went last week. We talk with coach about the tough loss to Ludington on the road, what he hopes his team can learn from it and what they worked on in practice this week. We talk a bit about our first home game against Marquette and then talk about this weekends football ga...

We are starting a new branch of our pod called Coaches Corner where we talk about our Wildcat Football team and preview the upcoming game, and review how it went last week. Since there was only a scrimmage on the road, not much to go over but we do preview The Cats road game coming up against Ludington Thursday. Each week Coach Simion will bring on a player or two that we get to meet and learn a b...

New episode drops with Alpena Hockey Coaches Ben Henry and Cam Givens. We learn about how Ben became the coach of Alpena's favorite team and his outlook on the upcoming season. Cam then takes the mic and we catch up with him since his last episode. We then discuss where we see High School athletics heading and how that could impact our school's future. We round out the episode with our Top...

We sit down with new Alpena Boys Varsity Basketball HC, Evan Neff. We learn about where Coach is from, his college basketball career and his experience and love for the game. We then talk about his hopes for Alpena basketball and the opportunities he see for growth. We round the episode out with bring back the Top 5 and we talk about our Top 5 Favorite Olympic Basketball players. It's a great epis...

New episode drops this week, with new Girls Varsity Head Coach, Mark Toppi. We learn about Mark's background, his love for basketball and his coaching experience. We then learn about his hopes for the future of Alpena Girls Basketball and some of his principles he believes in to be successful as a basketball team. Great episode to sit down and learn a bit more about Alpena new Girls basketball...

Back with another episode! This week we sit down with NEW Alpena High School Football Coach, Matt Simion! We learn his experience--which he has a ton of--what he hopes for the upcoming season and what he thinks of coming to Alpena! It's a great chance to get to learn a bit more about our new coach!

Episode #2 for Season 6 brings your Alpena Athletic Director, Jon Studley. We learn on how became a part of the Alpena community, his rich experience he has in high school athletics and some of the goals he has for Alpena High Athletics. We apologize for the lack of audio quality this episode. Steve got a new laptop and the audio didn't record correctly so we apologize and hope to have it fixe...

We are back for Season 6. Today we sit down with one of the voices of Alpena Hockey, Tom Dutcher, and discuss all things sports. We spend some times on local and national hot takes, Learn about Tom (30:19), spend some time talking about Alpena Hockey (39:58). We then pivot and talk about the Fab Five (48:14) and then our Top this week is our Favorite Michigan Football players (1:08).

We got ourselves an email so, keeping our word, we fired up the mics and brought you guys an episode! We sat down with DABS Founder, Cliff Lamay. We talk about where he grew up, what motivated him to create a Summer Basketball League and how the league is doing so far. We learn about his other side hustle--BlocBros--a DJ service he provides and then round out the episode with our Top 5 Guards of A...

We round out Season 5 with the gang from the Sunset Project. We learn a bit about each of the fellas, how they created the nonprofit and some of the things they learned along the way as well as their hopes for the organization. Steve and Brad then round out the episode with their Top 5 Characters from the hit TV Show, The Bear. Season 5 is in the books and we can't wait to talk to you all soon...

This week we have in The Kitchen Shelly Gibbs from Friends Together with Alison Jakubcin who is part of their Fundraising Committee. We learn more about Shelly, what all she does with Friends Together and what all Friends Together does for our community. We then touch base with Brad about his yearly Costume Run and how this year he has chosen to give Friends Together the proceeds from the run. Don...

We have a fantastic episode for you guys this week! We sit down with Paige Spisak from MLiveMIBest! We learn about how she found her way to the mLive team, a little bit about the content they make and how she ended up in Alpena. We then talk to her about all the things she needs to make sure she tries this summer in Alpena--especially with the Fourth around the corner! We then do a Top 5 of our fa...

Good episode for you guys this week! Robert Barrigar stops by and talks about his Insurance Agency, how their program the Agent Charitable Fund helps families across Michigan. We then talk about his involvement with Rotary, and a distributing trend we are seeing with Service Clubs. Lastly, we talk about an Insurance Agent's worse nightmare: we do a Top 5 Disaster Movies! It's a great episo...

Back to our regularly scheduled pod with a guest we've been trying to get on for a while! Chef Reid Krebs of Blue Moon Cafe took time to swing by and talk about how his first year has gone with his new restaurant. We talk about his journey to Alpena and what led him to open his own restaurant in the heart of Downtown Alpena. He talks about where he got the name and then we round out the episod...

It our annual Memorial Day Episode where just the two of us sit down and reflect. This year we decided to reflect on what all we have learned over the past five years of running a podcast. We talk about what equipment we use, what platform we recommend to use to publish the pod, and go over some of the mistakes and things that we know we could be doing better. We talk about some things we would li...

Have have another past guest returning this week--Dylan Wallace. We talk about what all has changed since he was on back in Episode 10 in 2018--we've put in over 100 episodes since then! We find out his involvement with Huron Shores/Little League and some hopeful future improvements to the complex north of Alpena. We round it out with our Top 5 Favorite MLB'ers. It's a great episode, t...

Great episode for you today. We sit down with Ben Freeland, who moved to the Alpena area from the thumb of Michigan back in 2008. We learned where he was from, about his time at SVSU and how he and his wife, Amanda landed in Alpena. We learn about his time at the hospital and his transition to Thunder Bay Fyzical. Ben shares a great story about Steve's mom, and then we get into what it's l...