Transcript provided for this page: speaker-labeled transcript from a machine transcription of a Spotify playback recording, lightly corrected during review. A few uncertain words are best-effort guesses, marked [?] in the source document. Timestamps are as provided in the source document.
[0:00] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Welcome to Home with Alexis Michaud, [interesting] stories and conversations with the individuals that make up the fabric of our community. In every episode we will give a shout out to a local business, provide some home tips, and have an interesting conversation with someone who makes our community a better place to call home. Today's local business shout out goes to the Vegas Golden Knights Practice Facility City National Arena in Summerlin. We take our kids here to watch practice, eat high quality pizza, and hang out with our friends. It's a new experience to be able to take our kids to a professional sports arena and they are incredibly enthusiastic about our team. Take your kids or just hang out with your friends. The vibe is fun, the food is great, and the experience? Memorable. Today's guest is Ken Boehlke of SinBin.vegas, a popular website about all things Vegas Golden Knights. To hear him describe his success, at some points you'd think he was a guy in the right place at the right time. But there is so much more to Ken than that. At the age of 13, he realized he wasn't going to play professional sports for a living, so he instead pivoted to setting his sights on a career where he could talk about professional athletes for a living. And that's exactly what he's done. He's unapologetically honest, witty, and speaks with a comedic tone and flair that few are gifted with. His skillset is well-earned and honed, and he's a pleasure to speak with. Today on the show we have Ken Boehlke, creator of the SinBin.vegas website, which is all things news opinions on the Golden Knights. Ken, welcome to the show.
[2:00] KEN BOEHLKE: Thanks for having me.
[2:01] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh Ken, I've known you now for, I don't know, not too long, maybe six or seven months.
[2:07] KEN BOEHLKE: Yup.
[2:08] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And didn't know very much about you. Loved your voice because it's like the best radio voice.
[2:14] KEN BOEHLKE: Well, I want to say that, but it sounds scary.
[2:16] ALEXIS MICHAUD: It can be. It can be, but just this amazing radio voice. And then we got to talking, and I had no idea what your primary work is. But before we jump into it...
[2:30] KEN BOEHLKE: It's because I don't have one.
[2:32] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I don't think that's true.
[2:34] KEN BOEHLKE: Kind of though.
[2:35] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I've done research on you. A lot of people know, they know about the work you do.
[2:39] KEN BOEHLKE: Good.
[2:40] ALEXIS MICHAUD: They don't say that much.
[2:41] KEN BOEHLKE: They don't need to know me.
[2:42] ALEXIS MICHAUD: They might not know you, but they know about your work.
[2:43] KEN BOEHLKE: They'll figure it out eventually.
[2:44] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So the first question I ask everybody is, what did you want to be when you were going to grow up?
[2:53] KEN BOEHLKE: Oddly enough, pretty damn close to exactly what I'm doing.
[2:58] ALEXIS MICHAUD: That's impressive.
[2:59] KEN BOEHLKE: I realized probably at 12 or 13 that professional athletes not happening.
[3:06] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[3:07] KEN BOEHLKE: Like I didn't grow until I was in college.
[3:09] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh wow.
[3:10] KEN BOEHLKE: I was 5'2 in high school.
[3:11] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And how tall are you now?
[3:12] KEN BOEHLKE: 6'4.
[3:13] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah, super tall.
[3:14] KEN BOEHLKE: And I mean, I'm still 150 pounds, so like I'm not professional athletes, not really in the cards. Like maybe I could have been like a halfway decent volleyball player, maybe.
[3:25] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[3:25] KEN BOEHLKE: But like, yeah, you're not. And I played baseball and soccer and it wasn't happening for me. And I knew it. I'm like, yeah, this is probably not going to be good. I saw my dad. He was 6'4", but he told me you're not going to grow until college. I was like, all right, this ain't going to happen. This whole family didn't grow. I'm like, okay, what's next? what's the next best thing? And whenever I got in the car with my dad, we would always listen to sports radio. And I thought, well, I could probably do that. Could probably be the guy yapping at the guys that are playing. You know?
[3:56] ALEXIS MICHAUD: But hold on, there was like an assumption, I think, that you were making that's interesting to me. So as a kid, do all boys think they're gonna be professional athletes?
[4:05] KEN BOEHLKE: For the most part, the ones that are good. I mean, so like when you play, obviously competition is what it is. because there are winners, there are losers, and if you're good, you know you're good. And when you're good depends on what size pond you're in. For me, I was good at soccer, I was always the best player on my team, then we would go to a bigger team, and I was okay, I was good, I was never bad, I was never a problem. So there was always a possibility, like okay, you could be all right at this. And then as you get into bigger and bigger and bigger ponds, you realize I'm not good at all. I'm actually bad. Oh, shit. It's gonna be like, oh, man.
[4:47] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Is it devastating or just like, it's a reality?
[4:49] KEN BOEHLKE: You're not as good as that guy. Like, what am I supposed to do? I'm five foot one, that guy's six four, 280. Like, what am I supposed to do with it? I can't get around him. So, yeah, so I thought, okay, well, I like sports. It's kind of the only thing I'm passionate about. I didn't like cars, I didn't like girls, I didn't like anything at the time. I still don't like cars. But I don't, I was like, okay, well, how do I get into sports? And that was kind of the way was to talk about it on the radio. So I started trying to be that in high school, trying to do play by play on, on football games, on soccer games. I tried to do public address where I'm the guy that now betting.
[5:31] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh yes. Totally hear that.
[5:33] KEN BOEHLKE: You know, I did a radio show where we talked about our school's teams and and then also the city's teams that grew up in Chicago.
[5:41] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah, let's talk about that.
[5:42] KEN BOEHLKE: So it was, yeah, I mean, it was kind of like the foray into it and I really hope none of that exists anymore because I'm sure I was godawful.
[5:50] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Well, everybody has to start somewhere.
[5:52] KEN BOEHLKE: Right, I'm sure it was just horrendous.
[5:54] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Did you create the show?
[5:57] KEN BOEHLKE: I guess technically, I mean, it was kind of just me and another guy who, he was similar to me but he was really unathletic. Like at least I was somewhat athletic. He was just not athletic at all, but he wanted to do the same idea.
[6:11] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, he wasn't going to be an athlete for sure.
[6:13] KEN BOEHLKE: He knew it. So he's like, but I love sports too.
[6:16] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Right.
[6:17] KEN BOEHLKE: So we started the show and we would do it once a week before school. We went in, it was at eight o'clock. School started at nine. We started at eight and we went to the bell ring.
[6:26] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And then like, where did you play the show?
[6:28] KEN BOEHLKE: It was on some sort of, it was on some sort of, I don't know, they had a radio station at school. know how. Okay. I'm not really sure to be honest. It's actually pretty expensive to get those. I don't know. Okay. Maybe it was, it was, I'm, it was definitely not like streaming on the internet because like that was fairly early for that. And it was possible, but like by the time I was in high school, like I don't remember watching video on the internet. I remember listening to audio, but I don't think it was someone listened though. My brother would listen.
[6:59] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I was gonna say, do people in the hallways at high school talk about your radio show?
[7:03] KEN BOEHLKE: No.
[7:03] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Or do any of the athletes?
[7:03] KEN BOEHLKE: No, it's kind of like, so like you got, so you have like the football players that everybody talks about and then whatever baseball the sports that are interesting and then you have like AV Club and like drama club and chess club, like we were more in that spectrum.
[7:16] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[7:16] KEN BOEHLKE: No one gave a shit.
[7:21] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay, but you had fun doing it.
[7:21] KEN BOEHLKE: Well of course it was great and like yeah we would have my friends would listen and call in from time to time and we would put them on and mess around. Yeah, so it was it was really just like a stupid hobby but it was something.
[7:33] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah.
[7:33] KEN BOEHLKE: It told you kind of can you do this or not? Can you be entertaining?
[7:40] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So what does it look like as you're, you're recording the show but then you're doing I mean maybe this is too big of a word. Were you doing the production around it or was it just like jump in, talk, start, stop?
[7:48] KEN BOEHLKE: Pretty much that.
[7:52] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[7:52] KEN BOEHLKE: It was, so the way most radio stations work is they are constantly running something so it's some sort of network or programming or something and it feeds in from hell I don't know wherever yeah well we would just turn that off and turn on us okay so you just okay get rid of that okay turn on ours and I don't remember I think we just started with a song I remember the song, it was Good Charlotte's The Anthem.
[8:15] ALEXIS MICHAUD: That's an awesome song. What happened to Good Charlotte, did they make it?
[8:20] KEN BOEHLKE: They are terrific. They were just at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center for free.
[8:26] ALEXIS MICHAUD: What?
[8:26] KEN BOEHLKE: And I was not here. Okay. I would have liked to have heard that song but that was my song because I had there because like 15 year old me was like well the anthem to the show, let's use the anthem.
[8:35] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Brilliant.
[8:35] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah. So very smart at the time.
[8:42] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So you're in Illinois?
[8:42] KEN BOEHLKE: Yep.
[8:42] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Outside Chicago?
[8:42] KEN BOEHLKE: Southwest suburbs, yeah. Palos Park.
[8:42] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[8:48] KEN BOEHLKE: Palos Hills is where school was, but.
[8:48] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And how do you get, well I guess before we jump So what do you do after high school? You're not gonna be an athlete. You're getting yourself into a radio show, which is Now I mean you say it's not but it's turning into quite a career
[9:03] KEN BOEHLKE: It's doing okay.
[9:03] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And where did you go after high school?
[9:03] KEN BOEHLKE: I went to the University of Missouri.
[9:03] ALEXIS MICHAUD: For what? What were you doing? For journalism? For broadcast journalism? What do you learn? A broadcast journalism degree?
[9:09] KEN BOEHLKE: You don't. No, so it's Again, my goal was always sports talk radio. I always had the dream that I will get up in the morning or in the afternoon and I will go to the radio station and I will turn on the mic and I will talk about sports and then I will go home and I will watch the sports. That was always the idea.
[9:38] ALEXIS MICHAUD: That's always the plan. Simple ideas. Are often the best.
[9:41] KEN BOEHLKE: That was always the plan.
[9:42] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[9:43] KEN BOEHLKE: So I thought, okay, well, what is that? What does that mean? If you want to be a pharmacist, you go to pharmacy school. If you want to be a doctor, you go for a PhD. Well, what does that mean? From what I was told, that's journalism. It turns out it's not at all. It's really not. Sports Talk Radio is not journalism. Journalism's something completely different. Nonetheless, I thought, OK, well, where's the best journalism school? And there were three. One was in Syracuse, New York. No thank you. Sounds awful. Way far away from home. Horribly cold. I have no interest in New York. Everyone from the east coast seems mean.
[10:21] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh geez!
[10:21] KEN BOEHLKE: I'm good. I'm out on Syracuse. Two was Northwestern. And in Illinois. That sounded good, but I'm not that smart. You gotta be like brilliant to get into Northwestern. So that wasn't, that was out. I was considering still maybe we'll apply. No.
[10:41] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[10:41] KEN BOEHLKE: Then the other one was Missouri. And the more I read about Missouri, the more it was different. They had a more hands-on approach. Rather than teaching you in a class, they would just chuck you in the field and say, do journalism.
[10:55] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, that is the best way.
[10:55] KEN BOEHLKE: And I'm like, all right. That sounds cool.
[10:55] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yes.
[10:55] KEN BOEHLKE: I like the idea of going away from home, but not too far. It's six hours away.
[10:59] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[10:59] KEN BOEHLKE: Let's do it. So from probably midway through sophomore year of high school, I knew that's where I'm going to school.
[11:09] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Holy cow.
[11:09] KEN BOEHLKE: And it was not hard to get in there because it just wasn't.
[11:15] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[11:15] KEN BOEHLKE: And so I knew.
[11:15] ALEXIS MICHAUD: But they still had a good school.
[11:15] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, for journalism, it's hard to get through. It wasn't hard to get in. It's hard to get through.
[11:19] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[11:19] KEN BOEHLKE: Not really. Well, not for me, but okay. I don't know. School was never hard for me.
[11:23] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah.
[11:23] KEN BOEHLKE: I didn't really, it wasn't. It was always just a game.
[11:27] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yes.
[11:27] KEN BOEHLKE: I figured the game out. Do the least amount of work to get through. That was the plan.
[11:32] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Interesting. School wasn't hard for me either. But I have this weird brain where I can memorize the information, take the test, do well, and then it's purged.
[11:44] KEN BOEHLKE: And then forget about it.
[11:45] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah, which I don't know how great that is.
[11:46] KEN BOEHLKE: That's good. That's good for school.
[11:48] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah.
[11:49] KEN BOEHLKE: So yeah, so I went there and like there was no sports program. There was no, it wasn't really what I wanted to do.
[11:57] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[11:58] KEN BOEHLKE: But I was there, so I did what I was supposed to do. And that was like reporting on news. So I worked for an NPR station, worked as in quotes.
[12:05] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Uh-huh.
[12:06] KEN BOEHLKE: Was like how I got my credits at school. So I would go to the radio station and we would do stories. So the first year I would sit in the radio station and they would hand me press releases or whatever and I would make calls and do a couple interviews and write a story around it and I'd do a 40 second story with a soundbite in it and that was the story.
[12:23] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay, that actually sounds challenging to like get information together and 40 and have it just be what
[12:32] KEN BOEHLKE: I mean, it depends on what it was. So like, let's say it's rural Missouri. So it's not, there's not a lot going on. You know, obviously what's happening on the school is important to everybody, but outside of that, there's not a ton going on. So like, one would be like, they're ripping down one of the dormitories and building a new one. So the story would be, here's what's happening. Here's the president of the school saying why this is happening. Here's a student saying this is stupid, I live there. And then the end of the story. So like that was-
[13:08] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, right, oh, right, oh, right.
[13:09] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah.
[13:10] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay, that's interesting. But, so did you, I'm sure you took some class coursework.
[13:15] KEN BOEHLKE: Oh yeah, I mean, it was, it's like any college half of it's your gen ed stuff. And I was never interested in any of it. So it was again, do the least amount of work to get a B.
[13:27] ALEXIS MICHAUD: You don't even think it's a big deal that you worked for like an NPR station, I think is really cool.
[13:30] KEN BOEHLKE: I think, I mean I kind of forced it. No, that was like that was class, okay, there was like, okay Well, you're in broadcast one You go to the radio station because you said you want to do radio and half the kids went to the TV station and again That's what's cool about Missouri like you decide. Okay. I'm going into journalism Do you pick what you want to do? I said radio so they sent me to an NPR station And the kids who said TV, they sent them to a CBS TV affiliate. The kids who said they wanted to write, they sent them to a newspaper. And they're all school run and they're all run by teachers. And that's how it works. So I went and I did that and I never left the radio station. I worked again in quotes there until I graduated.
[14:16] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And you've been with a couple radio stations, not just that one.
[14:19] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, then afterwards I worked in Chicago for a few different ones. and then I came out here and it was, it's always been news. I always had done news. I always wanted to do sports, but school was news. And because I was at a news school, then I got a news internship and then I got a news job and then I came out here and now I'm doing political news. And it was always news and I always wanted to get into sports, but that was my way in the door.
[14:47] ALEXIS MICHAUD: What political news? What are you doing?
[14:49] KEN BOEHLKE: I worked for KXNT, which is 840 AM here, which is... I'm trying to think... I've worked for Kevin Wall, Jim Villanucci, and Alan Stock, who are the three hosts that I was the producer for.
[15:02] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[15:03] KEN BOEHLKE: And they do right-wing political stuff.
[15:05] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[15:06] KEN BOEHLKE: Not me, but... But it was work. I was there. I mean, it's still... it is what you make it.
[15:12] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yes.
[15:13] KEN BOEHLKE: You know, I can make it fun.
[15:14] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I think you can make anything fun.
[15:15] KEN BOEHLKE: That's the plan.
[15:16] ALEXIS MICHAUD: We've talked about you know how like paranoid I am when I go to the grocery store now and I look at the shopping carts Because you had this whole conversation about these germs everywhere.
[15:22] KEN BOEHLKE: Why do people wipe the handle of the shopping cart? It bothers me so much.
[15:28] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So I haven't been wiping it.
[15:28] KEN BOEHLKE: You don't have to.
[15:28] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And I feel like I'm just wild.
[15:34] KEN BOEHLKE: You're crazy.
[15:34] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I feel crazy. I know. I put my bag in there without cleaning it and I grab those nasty handles and I push my way through the market and I'm like I don't think I'm ever gonna get used to this but I'm trying it out.
[15:46] KEN BOEHLKE: I think you're, you're, you're the selective germaphobe population.
[15:46] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah, it's me.
[15:46] KEN BOEHLKE: It's growing.
[15:52] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Uh-huh.
[15:52] KEN BOEHLKE: We need to fix this. Okay, because everything you touch has been touched by someone else everything
[16:00] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I'm not disagreeing.
[16:00] KEN BOEHLKE: Hey, but they give you [unclear] your money, but the difference, way worse.
[16:05] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I might as well. I don't really carry money, but this is the thing that I think is different poker chips they give you wipes so you're selectively choosing I don't need
[16:18] KEN BOEHLKE: To make the choice to eliminate germs if you want to think what if there were wipes or spray every door everywhere you went but this is a very different situation that's because we demanded people have demanded people started bringing their own wipes and then Smith's was like or Kroger was like we should put them right there go to Kroger instead of Albertsons.
[16:38] ALEXIS MICHAUD: [unclear] Anyhow, okay, so tell me, what brought you to Vegas?
[16:44] KEN BOEHLKE: So my wife and I... were we married at the time? Yeah, I guess we were married at the time. We were living in Illinois, and we were living in, like, even farther southwest Naperville, Lisle area, for those who know. and our lease was running out. Okay, and I worked at Apple and I worked at a radio station downtown I worked at an Apple store in Naperville in a radio station downtown nowhere near each other. They're an hour away So two or three times a week I would drive in downtown or take the train or whatever Okay, and then she worked at Maggiano's. Yep, which is your classic Italian chain There's one at downtown Summerlin on the strip. Mm-hmm. And so the lease was running out and we said, all right Well, why first off why are we living here? What's the reason for this? And we didn't have any good answer. It just was, well, she lived, worked over there, and I worked over here, but one is Apple, and one is Maggiano's. Why are we in Naperville, Illinois? This does not make sense. How is this benefiting anyone in any way? So it wasn't. So we thought, all right, let's move downtown Chicago. There's a Maggiano's downtown, there's two Apple stores downtown, there's radio stations downtown, let's just move downtown. out. Okay. Financially, that's an absolute nightmare. Yeah. Not working. Not gonna happen. No. Based on what we're making. So then we thought, all right, well, let's go somewhere that benefits one or the other of us, if not both. Okay. That was the idea. How can we find somewhere that benefits one or the other? And we, our first thought was, let's go to Tampa. I'm a Buccaneers fan. And I've always wanted to work either for the Buccaneers or around the Buccaneers.
[18:26] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Did you head down there and check it out?
[18:28] KEN BOEHLKE: We looked at prices and all of that and weather and everything and realized science doesn't really make sense, not to mention the benefit of Tampa was the Bucks were there. They play eight times a year. We're really gonna move somewhere for eight days out of 365. That seems stupid. So then we happened to have a vacation plan to Vegas in March. And she just said as a joke like what if we just move there when we go there
[18:56] ALEXIS MICHAUD: What did you know of Vegas at that time?
[18:56] KEN BOEHLKE: The strip. I didn't know there were mountains. I didn't know mountain that I don't I don't know how I didn't look out the window There was like skyscrapers on the other side of you know yeah, okay, so yeah, so then she's like well What about Vegas and I thought well? That's just weird like who why lives in Vegas? I always love Vegas even when I was a kid I was always into gambling.
[19:19] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Really?
[19:20] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, I got myself in trouble many times in school.
[19:24] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Like playing cards?
[19:25] KEN BOEHLKE: All sorts of different stuff. We would gamble on sports. We would gamble on who can roll the penny farther down the hall. We would get, I used to, at my bus stop going to middle school, we used to, each kid used to bring a roly poly, you know those things?
[19:39] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yes, what you do?
[19:40] KEN BOEHLKE: We used to bring one on the bus and then we would race them.
[19:44] ALEXIS MICHAUD: That's freaking hilarious.
[19:45] KEN BOEHLKE: And then sometimes the bus would bounce and the roly-polies would end up all over the place.
[19:49] ALEXIS MICHAUD: How'd they live?
[19:50] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, so that, but like I always liked gambling. I always liked, I always had the Vegas video games where I could play craps and blackjack and whatnot.
[19:58] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So maybe you shouldn't live in Vegas.
[19:59] KEN BOEHLKE: Probably not, that was the original thought. But then we looked and we're like, well, it's super cheap. We started looking at like where to live. And it's very easy. And we ended up like three miles east of the strip on Flamingo and Eastern.
[20:14] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh wow.
[20:15] KEN BOEHLKE: Like right there. Yeah. I worked at Maggiano's on the strip. I worked at Apple on the strip and I figured, well there's radio stations, I'll just show up.
[20:23] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And did you?
[20:23] KEN BOEHLKE: They'll give me a job and that's what happened.
[20:26] ALEXIS MICHAUD: You literally, did you even call anybody?
[20:27] KEN BOEHLKE: No, I just was like, hey, I work for CBS in Chicago. Like I'd love to come check the station out and maybe if I can do something, that'd be awesome. And like I walked in and was like, I don't even care if you pay me right now. Like I'd eventually like you to pay me.
[20:43] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Like you're so hired.
[20:44] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, and they're like, all right, well, let's see. And then this other kid quit, and that's how I got my job.
[20:49] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And what do you do there?
[20:50] KEN BOEHLKE: I don't do it anymore.
[20:52] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[20:53] KEN BOEHLKE: I was a producer, so I was the guy who answered the phones during the talk show. I made it so that the commercials would play. And then if there was some sort of news conference or something, I would record it and then cut up the bits of audio and play them.
[21:12] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And you had to do it really fast, didn't you?
[21:13] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, yeah, it was pretty soon. You had to be quick. That's always it's not a that's not an old person's game No offense to the older people
[21:22] ALEXIS MICHAUD: We were under a lot of pressure to get it
[21:27] KEN BOEHLKE: Pressures only what you want to make it that's true You know like at some point you realize like if the host sounds like an idiot on the air You probably gonna do it anyway. Yeah What does it matter? Right. And really, even if the radio station goes off the air for like nine seconds... Eh!
[21:45] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I totally agree with you.
[21:47] KEN BOEHLKE: You know, what does it really matter?
[21:48] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So one of the questions I asked you before the interview was, if you were living your life, what was it, as an answer to a question, what would the question be? Yeah. And your response was what? [22:00] Break: home tip
[22:00] ALEXIS MICHAUD: After the break, Ken describes what draws us into sports and the profound impact the Golden Knights have had on our community. Today's home tip is about evaluating Realtors. There are so many phenomenal agents in Las Vegas, but they will always serve you well to do a bit of homework before hiring one. A recent review provided by some of my favorite clients made me so proud because my goal is efficient professional concierge level service utilizing my legal skills as an attorney to get my clients their dream home. Jeff C wrote the following review for me on Google. He said, working with Alexis to help us purchase our home was amazing. Her knowledge of the Las Vegas area and complete recall of property details and communities are stunning. She understood our needs and [unclear] and she utilized her knowledge of the local housing market to save us time during our home search. Lastly, she leveraged her expertise as a former attorney to represent our interests and negotiate favorable terms. She is our go-to for all things real estate. What makes me most proud about that is Jeff is in the mortgage business and has worked with hundreds of realtors and for him to write that review made me so proud because my goal is to take care of my clients and turn them into friends. [23:28] Back to the interview
[23:28] KEN BOEHLKE: It was, why does everyone take everything so damn seriously?
[23:34] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I so agree with you.
[23:34] KEN BOEHLKE: It's just, it's not, I mean, there are things that will happen that are, that are serious. Like obviously There's there's illness. There's death. There's a lot that goes on that that is serious. That's the moment to take seriously Yes, but everything else is not
[23:55] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I can't agree with you [more]
[23:56] KEN BOEHLKE: Whether it's your job or it's driving or it's the grocery store or whatever like I don't understand Why everything's so damn serious?
[24:02] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I don't either, and it doesn't, there's no point for it. And like the amount of energy that must be spent by so many folks on the worry Almost dangerous.
[24:14] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, it's, it's, I just kind of like look at it and I feel like I'm watching like Like I'm either in a bubble or there in a bottle. I usually am really quiet about it Just everybody's just gotta calm the half down, you know, just relax for a second
[24:32] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And like you said about death and illness, like life will throw you the real thing.
[24:32] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, there's plenty of time for that, but otherwise kind of just keep moving. And even that, a lot of it's out of your control. Yes. Like if it's out of your control, then all you should be doing is making the best out of it. Not that there's, you know, whatever. You're not, death is awful. You can't fix that problem. But like, what did you learn from what happened? How do you make this make you better or someone else better? How do you do something that makes it all better? You can't just be upset about it. Like what does that do? I know.
[25:11] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I mean, there's clearly like a grieving process, but yes, I agree.
[25:14] KEN BOEHLKE: Of course, but even that, there should be a purpose to it.
[25:17] ALEXIS MICHAUD: You know what? I regret, I don't have many regrets, but this one time I said something, I was in a really, really, really high pressure situation and my former life as a lawyer. And I just, I probably would have lost my job had I not gotten the thing done that needed to be done, also I could only do so much and I was doing every freaking thing I could. Not in a, you know, in a I'm gonna get this done but at the end of the day it's either I did or I didn't and if I didn't I knew I did everything I possibly could. So I mentioned to the person who's, he was a very high pressure boss and I'm not even looking at him. I'm on my computer probably on the phone I'm doing something I'm like you know what? We're not curing cancer here we're gonna get it done. And the only regret that I had was I think potentially maybe somebody in his family had it. And I just didn't know it when I said it. But anyway, so yes, I agree. I like when I saw your response, I was like, oh my goodness. It's just everything.
[26:20] KEN BOEHLKE: And I think there are people that like my dad's a good example. He just doesn't care about anything. It's not that it's not in a bad way. Yeah, he just doesn't care like nothing bothers him. And he'll probably live to be a hundred. And you realize it, and then first you think, whatever, but then once you realize it, you're like, well that makes perfect sense to get mad about. Yeah, and for those that are like, but you have to care to change the world, it's not what we're talking about. You care about what you wanna care about.
[26:48] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yes, yes.
[26:49] KEN BOEHLKE: It doesn't matter.
[26:51] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Right.
[26:53] KEN BOEHLKE: And it's not, nothing's gonna be the end of the world if it doesn't go that way.
[26:58] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yes.
[26:59] KEN BOEHLKE: And I'm not like, I'm not religious. I'm not, I don't have any sort of that going. So like, I don't, coincidence is not like, I don't really worry about it. I don't think like everything happens for a reason. I just think, well, it happened now what?
[27:15] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yes.
[27:16] KEN BOEHLKE: Like I don't, I'm not, whatever happened in the past, I figured it out.
[27:19] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah, I am religious and, but I still might, well, it's here.
[27:26] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, like what are we gonna do?
[27:27] ALEXIS MICHAUD: What are we gonna do? Okay, so, coincidence. You're here. Yeah. And someone that you call the creator. Yeah. Starts to talk about maybe bringing a hockey team to Vegas. Right. And what are you doing at the time, and how did you get this idea?
[27:49] KEN BOEHLKE: So I still worked at the radio station at the time. Okay. And when it first kinda popped up, It was kind of in the ballpark of like all the other times it's popped up in Vegas.
[28:03] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yes.
[28:04] KEN BOEHLKE: And like I'm fairly new to Vegas at the time. I'd been here for probably three or four years at the time. So I didn't know really the history. So I kind of like I do. If I don't know something, I try and figure out what is this? Why are people so skeptical about this? So we would be on the radio and we would talk about, well, we're getting a hockey team and like every caller would say the same thing. No, we're not. We talk about professional sports every year. And that's what everyone said. I'm like, okay, let me figure out why. Why were these all flopping? And pretty much every time it came to the same thing, somebody was in it for something else. Every single time. They wanted the land, they wanted money, they wanted something other than sports.
[28:48] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, I did not know that.
[28:50] KEN BOEHLKE: And for the most part, it's people taking advantage of free land. They say, well, we'll build a stadium on this land, and the city's like, that sounds awesome. Let's do that. And then by the time they give them the land, they're like, well, we're good. And that has happened a number of times. And that's kind of how the Raiders thing started, which still boggles my mind that that actually happened. So fast. And all of it was just cheap, [unclear], we're doing this, which I still don't know how that's happening but from the from the hockey perspective it's very different. MGM built their arena and said we don't care if we get professional sports we would prefer it. Yeah. It's 44 dates that would be in that building that are guaranteed that would be awesome. Yeah that would be awesome. But we're MGM we have four arenas already why do we need this? Right. We want a bigger arena so we have 17,000 rather than 12.
[29:49] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah.
[29:49] KEN BOEHLKE: Made perfect sense.
[29:49] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Mm-hmm. I was a little skeptical about where they built it. All the time. These buildings, you look at the land and you know there's no room here. Yeah. So like half the stadium is gonna be on the 15. Is that how it works? I know it. And then when it went up, you're like, I feel like I could touch it from the freeway.
[30:07] KEN BOEHLKE: Oh, here it is. Yeah. Just right there. Yeah. So yeah, so that was going on and I was not a hockey fan. I didn't never had really watched hockey. I've watched the playoffs I've never had a team to cheer for. Yeah, not anti-hockey, just not to do it. I just didn't really care. Okay. So I didn't, it wasn't something that like drew me in right away. It wasn't like, oh hockey, you're in. Like if it were football, if the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were moving to Vegas, I'm all in immediately. Yeah. I'm in. Yeah. Whatever. Baseball, basketball, I was into, I wasn't into hockey, I was into soccer. Well there was a soccer plan going on too downtown. What is that? I forget what that name of that little symphony park. They were trying to build that. Well that one got blown up. Yeah. And it became hockey is like realistically might actually happen. So funny in the desert. And the commissioner comes out and Foley is yapping and saying what he's saying and and one day I'm literally in bed getting ready to sleep and I'm thinking, all right, let's say it happens. Yeah. Who are you gonna be? Like, what are you gonna do? You're in a city that doesn't have professional sports and now they're getting it. Yeah. From the ground up like, who are you? Are you guy that hates this because you never liked hockey? Are you guy that dives headfirst and says this is everything? Are you somewhere in between? Yeah. Are you waiting for the next thing? What are you and my thought was well The only way I'm gonna actually love this is if I get to go to every game Yeah, I'm in for the story because I like the story of sport more than the actual sport for at times So I which is weird. I think that once people realize that then they it's why people don't want their team to lose
[32:00] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Well, what's your, what is story of sport to you?
[32:00] KEN BOEHLKE: So like it's Every season is like a season of a TV show. There's a narrative that goes along with it. Whatever you think is gonna happen never happens. And there's different loops and twists and turns and whatever to it and then it abruptly ends. Like a TV show and then you wait until it comes back. And what's nice about sports is it's different every single time. Every night's different, every game's different, every player's different, everything's different every single year. You can watch the same sport a hundred times in a row. It's different every single time.
[32:40] ALEXIS MICHAUD: That is so true.
[32:41] KEN BOEHLKE: And so to me, I knew, well, I've never watched this sport, but I like other sports. I don't see why I wouldn't be able to get into this. So I was interested in now the arc of how does this happen? How do we get the team? What is the, where do all the players come from? How does this work? Yeah. And I thought to myself, well, okay, I could probably be that guy for the radio station that knows everything. But then when I went to work, I said, well, to Jason, the other guy, he's the other guy on the site now. And he was the other producer at the radio station. I said, Hey, when this happens, do you think we both go to every single game for free with a press pass? And he goes, probably not. One of us maybe. Because I just I don't think we're we're not sports like we might be able to finagle one. I go, all right, so we've got one, let's do something to create the other one. I want to go to every game and I don't want to pay to go. That's the plan. So I thought well I've done blogging in the past, I've written about other teams, I've created my own blogs in the past. I thought what if we just launch one right now? And how like when was this? July of 2015. And when was it confirmed that we were Definitely getting a team of 2016 and they played in October of 2017 So it was a while before they played. Yeah, and my my biggest thing with with a website like that is It has to be consistent Yeah, you don't go there once a week. You go there every day Okay, if there's not something new you stop going there And as you just need that from experience. I knew that from what I consumed So if I like my website about the Buccaneers, there's a number of them. I like one. They publish stuff every day. And every single time I'm bored at work, that's where I go. Or there's one with the White Sox or there's one with whatever. Whatever my teams are. And I thought, well, that's important. And I remember saying, do you think we can publish one story every single day until they play? And he goes, no. Yeah. Do you even, we gotta be able to do it. Like if we can't do that, we're not doing it. And he goes, I think I can probably give you one a week. I'm like, all right, I'll fill in the other five. We decided we're taking Sundays off because we like football. And we still take Sundays off. And the people that are gonna consume this are watching football. Hopefully, I mean, I don't know, not hopefully. I just like Sunday. We take Sundays off. I'm watching football. And really, Sundays off doesn't even make sense anymore because I usually write the story the night before publish it the next day so really it's now Saturday's off but whatever.
[35:33] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[35:34] KEN BOEHLKE: So we started and really the way it started was like hey we're here we're gonna write anyone who ever says Vegas and hockey that's the main story. So we just looked for anything anybody mentions it on the radio anybody mentions it in a story anybody says anything anytime the commissioner says a word if Foley breathes that's gonna be the story. We did it for probably three or four months before it started getting some people noticing like, hey, they're actually covering this. And people from the organization started calling me and I met with Foley and from there it went nuts.
[36:11] ALEXIS MICHAUD: What do you think the crux was or the most important, if there is one most important conversation or negotiation or whatever it was that brought the team here? What do you think was like the pinnacle?
[36:24] KEN BOEHLKE: From the, like the NHL saying we want to give Vegas the team, I think it's just Foley's money.
[36:30] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[36:31] KEN BOEHLKE: I think it's just they have wanted new markets because it's good for hockey. Yep. Hockey's a sport that isn't popular where they don't have a team. Like in Vegas, no one cares.
[36:43] ALEXIS MICHAUD: True.
[36:44] KEN BOEHLKE: In many cities, no one cares.
[36:45] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I have like Canadian friends.
[36:47] KEN BOEHLKE: Right, the Canadian friends, but like in Canada.
[36:48] ALEXIS MICHAUD: That's it, I have two.
[36:50] KEN BOEHLKE: Everybody cares. And really, what's the point of bringing another team to Canada? They already care. Yeah. So it doesn't do us any good. It doesn't grow the sport. So they've wanted Seattle, they've wanted Houston, they've wanted Kansas City. And I think what happened was, Foley said, well, they're building a stadium. That's my stadium right there. It's already here. Yeah. I don't have to do anything. We're not asking for public money. That's happening. So you've got your building. Whatever the price is, I just want a professional sports team. And that's what his motivation was. And I think all they had to do was have Vegas prove that they could even come close to supporting the team.
[37:31] ALEXIS MICHAUD: How do you prove that?
[37:32] KEN BOEHLKE: By selling tickets before the team existed. Which happened. And a lot of people bought them. And I don't think, I think it was false. I don't even think it was real. They just needed people to prove.
[37:46] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Like fake people bought the tickets?
[37:47] KEN BOEHLKE: It wasn't fake. It was just, they were 125 bucks.
[37:49] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I don't know, is that good or not good?
[37:53] KEN BOEHLKE: That's nothing. The ticket cost $2,000.
[37:55] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay, I get to go into boxes with my friends?
[37:58] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah.
[37:58] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So I don't know how much these tickets cost.
[38:01] KEN BOEHLKE: The way it worked at the beginning was they said, all right, if you want to buy a season ticket deposit, it would be 10% or roughly 10% of the cost. So it was $120 or so, and then your ticket was going to cost somewhere in the ballpark of $1,200 per seat. What the heck? And I don't think people realized what that actually meant. I think they just said, well, okay, this might happen. If it happens, I want the tickets.
[38:31] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Right.
[38:32] KEN BOEHLKE: And I think a lot of people viewed it like I did, saying, well, if we get a professional hockey team, every single city is gonna travel here. Yeah. Everyone is gonna come here. How are my tickets not gonna have value? They are.
[38:46] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, so it's like an investment.
[38:47] KEN BOEHLKE: It's a lot of people. [unclear] That's how I did. Yes. And where else are you gonna gamble? And so they had 10,000 ticket deposits in a month or so.
[38:55] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Is that fast?
[38:55] KEN BOEHLKE: Not really.
[38:55] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[38:55] KEN BOEHLKE: Winnipeg sold it out in 30 minutes. Seattle just did theirs for their team that they're about to get and they did theirs in like two days. 15,000, 20,000. It wasn't good. Okay. Looking back you think, well, it was good enough. Okay. And really again, it came back to Foley had money and he said, I don't give a shit but the price is. I'll pay whatever it is. Okay. And the building was going up. Yeah. And they said, well, maybe. And then the perfect storm happens. Oh, man. And, and I think always, I think anybody who actually knew Vegas, I think always understood that Vegas wanted something to call their own.
[39:32] ALEXIS MICHAUD: For sure. I'm a native.
[39:32] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, we've had little league teams that are good. And like people go to the bar to watch little league teams like UNLV is on another level when they're good. They're not at anything ever, unfortunately. But there were times. There was a time. And like everybody that was here still remembers. And even like 2006, they went to the tournament. And it was a big deal. Yeah. And it's a big deal on the national stage because everybody knows Vegas. Yep. And then, you know, you think first professional sport team, I remember saying, no matter what sport it is, the first one will succeed. Just because we all want to race for somebody. Everybody wanted to have a hat that says I'm from Vegas. But you can't wear a hat that says I'm from Vegas, you look like an idiot.
[40:19] ALEXIS MICHAUD: This is very true.
[40:20] KEN BOEHLKE: If you go to the store on the strip and you buy the Las Vegas tourism hat, you look like an idiot. But now if you wear a hat that says Golden Knights on it, you're actually from Vegas. And people are like, what's that? I'm from Vegas, this is our team. It was gonna work, soccer, basketball, football, it didn't matter. And I think hockey ended up being the best option because it was the easiest for people to just jump in blind.
[40:44] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Like why not another sport? I don't understand.
[40:46] KEN BOEHLKE: Because with any other sport you have a history. The everybody has a history of hockey. Everybody has their history of baseball. Their parents liked the team, their family liked the team, whatever. Yeah. And it's hard to give away your other team. And we had that with hockey. People said, well, they're my second team. But for the most part in this city, the Golden Knights are team people's first team because they didn't have one.
[41:10] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, for sure.
[41:11] KEN BOEHLKE: Where if the Raiders, is everybody gonna be a Raider fan? Of course not. Right. Yeah, no, they already have teams. So it made it a little easier that people could say, all right, what the hell? I'm a Golden Knights fan now.
[41:24] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So now you're covering everything.
[41:28] KEN BOEHLKE: Yes, everything. Yeah, Golden Knights related. Dumb stuff.
[41:32] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Do you say dumb stuff?
[41:32] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, lots of dumb stuff.
[41:34] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Is that how you're feeling every day?
[41:35] KEN BOEHLKE: Well, I mean, they would do stuff before they had the team or the team, like before they had the team, they did nothing because they couldn't. Right. Because they weren't allowed to go out and say, we are getting a team because they didn't have it. Once they got the team, then they started doing dumb stuff. They would go to car dealerships and say that they're the NHL team. Meet one of the guys or like, they would just do weird dumb stuff. And I always went to all of it.
[42:06] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Well, it wasn't that dumb if you're following it. And they're integrating themselves into the community.
[42:09] KEN BOEHLKE: They were dumb. It was all dumb. They were integrating themselves horrendously into the community. Okay. I go back to that and I remember saying like this is the worst. They're wasting so much time.
[42:19] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Aww.
[42:19] KEN BOEHLKE: And they got lucky because something happened and I get, um, it's mean that I say it that way.
[42:24] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah.
[42:25] KEN BOEHLKE: Something happened that everybody was like, we need to be a fan of this now. And if that had not happened, I don't know what the team looks like.
[42:36] ALEXIS MICHAUD: What? Are you referring to winning or are you referring to October 1?
[42:39] KEN BOEHLKE: October 1.
[42:40] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay, and then winning held I didn't look at it that way I looked at it you're already here and this happens, but you're entrenched in this and to me It was like they were a new team. I'm not that interested yet. It was much more about that event And then that was the first game, right, that night?
[42:55] KEN BOEHLKE: That was actually their third game.
[42:59] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, see, I didn't pay attention, that's, and that's kind of until that point.
[42:59] KEN BOEHLKE: Okay, so like they were having issues getting the games on TV They weren't going to be on TV until the night of the first game. I still, no one will show me the TV ratings of the very first game. I was there. It was in Dallas. Okay. They played their very first game in franchise history. They won. They played awful. Still one of the worst games I've ever seen them play. They played terribly. But Fleury was awesome and they won. They scored two goals late, James Neal. And no one cared. Yeah. No one, I mean, and now looking back, it was on October 6th, who gives a damn, it's a hockey team, I don't care, 58 people died in my backyard. I don't care about that, I get that.
[43:47] ALEXIS MICHAUD: You don't care about what?
[43:48] KEN BOEHLKE: About the hockey game in Dallas.
[43:50] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay, yes, yes, yes.
[43:52] KEN BOEHLKE: I've never, this is new, I'll figure that out later. Yeah. That's fine. But then October 10th, when they were at home and it became like the vigil, that's basically what it was. Right. wonder what happens if the Golden Knights didn't exist? Because you have everybody in the community wants to gather somewhere to like honor or mourn or whatever. Right. What would we have done? It just would have been vigils all over town. And it would have been awful. And it wouldn't have been powerful. That's true. Where we had this... We've never had a sense of community with that exception. Right. And so now everybody gets connected and drawn into that. Yeah. So without October 1, I don't know how quickly that would have happened. But then they started to win. Everybody loves a winning team. They were invested. And the game they went to, they were awesome. And they love hockey. If you go to a hockey game and you care, it's awesome. Yeah, it is. And I did not know that I watched a hockey game before the night went to that game not knowing what it even was and then this happens then they drop the puck the guys in gold better win I'm here yeah these people like they gotta win and then they did scored four goals in like five minutes it was awesome surreal but again it was like out of a fairy tale it's a very it's very emotional and yeah right but I don't know what it looks like I don't I don't know how long does it take till everybody's on board? What if it had been like the normal expansion team where that doesn't happen?
[45:37] ALEXIS MICHAUD: But is there a normal like-
[45:39] KEN BOEHLKE: They stink.
[45:39] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Is there a normal expansion team like quotes normal into cities that don't have teams? I mean, isn't that like, that's a huge factor for us. We don't have one, we want one.
[45:47] KEN BOEHLKE: They usually stink. They're usually terrible. Like the history of expansion teams is you're awful. And we all knew going in, like I remember the site, remember saying, we're not gonna make any money for a while because no one's going to care because they're going to be horrible. And then they weren't.
[46:07] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So it's interesting because you're you are immersed in this. I just got interested in the nights. I'm so sorry to say because they were good. It was interesting. And then there and then I really loved the sense of community from growing up here. And I would never go into a restaurant and just talk to a stranger and now strangers were talking to me and we were connecting and I again I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that the community needed something
[46:36] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, they were the something.
[46:36] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yes. I think eventually it would have happened.
[46:36] KEN BOEHLKE: I do too I guess I yeah sped the process up at a ridiculous pace like an insane pace that it went from nobody cared at all. Like when you say I'm immersed in it, there's a group of 3,000 people maybe that knew they were even playing. Okay. The preseason games, all this, like no one cared. Yeah. And now you care.
[47:09] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah.
[47:10] KEN BOEHLKE: And the right winning helped.
[47:13] ALEXIS MICHAUD: For sure. I'm so grateful to have that team though. And now they're everything now. And it's just fun. It's fun to, because I'm from here, but I left town for how long time? Undergraduate law school work came back. And now that I'm raising my kids here, and that I can take them over to the City National Arena, and that some of the schools, the hockey players' kids went there. And to see like, at the time my, I think she was five. We thought there was gonna be a game, we were wrong. She has her jersey on, and she throws herself on the And I'm like, what's going on with you? I thought I was gonna see Marchessault I'm like, we'll see him soon I've waited all day for this hockey game and I'm like, who are you? And she was like really into it and then um, I at some point he had come to school and he told the kids like oh I have Fridays off So then when I later tell her there's a game on Friday. No, he has Fridays off I'm like, okay, it must have just been that Friday. I don't know what to tell you, you know It's definitely playing. But that's neat that my kids are growing up with this team. And like I said to you before we started this, I love to watch the sport. I love that it's fast. I like soccer a lot in the background in my house because it's pretty and I appreciate those athletes. You really have to care if you like soccer. You have to care if my husband played soccer so that you know, but when I watch hockey and TV doesn't do it justice in any way shape or form, they can't keep up with the puck. It needs to be bright orange or something, because you can hardly see it.
[48:47] KEN BOEHLKE: They tried that once, and it was a nightmare.
[48:49] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Why?
[48:50] KEN BOEHLKE: Because if it wasn't fast enough, the tracker wasn't fast enough. It would be better now, but...
[48:56] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, just the way the product was made?
[48:57] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah, which is bad.
[48:58] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay.
[48:59] KEN BOEHLKE: The little hockey was called.
[49:00] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay. Anyway, so, but now you have this... You've had this website for long before anybody even said hockey's for sure going to be here. And you have a lot of people. I think in a short period of time who are engaged and following you and it's growing, where do you want to take it?
[49:26] KEN BOEHLKE: Just keep going. I just, I mean again like I said with the way that sports work, every year is different. So once you're in, you're in. And people will fall out and people will, other things will come up. It's still sports. It's still entertainment. It's still, it's not the end of the world. It's not the biggest thing in most people's lives, but it's the best thing in most people's lives. It's an escape. And it will continue to be the best thing because sports are the best entertainment in the world. They have been since the beginning of time. Like gladiators were sports. The Olympics. Everything. It's always been competition is the best.
[50:05] ALEXIS MICHAUD: When you talked about the story of sports or the story of the game, I thought you were gonna go in a different direction. And so when I think about Olympians and athletes, what I am most interested in, and I don't wanna like make it fluffy, is that it's the human interest though. I wanna know where you came from, what motivated you, how much do you practice, what hurdles have you overcome? And then I really care about you. I'm interested, I'm invested.
[50:31] KEN BOEHLKE: And that's why I don't like the Olympics. Okay. Is because I'm thrust into this out of nowhere. Right? Like all of a sudden I'm supposed to care about the guy on the pole vault. Yeah. Why? Right. I've never seen him do this before. And they can run a nice package about his family and whatever for eight minutes. Yeah. Great. But like that's what I like about pro sports. Just the same.
[50:57] ALEXIS MICHAUD: On the journey with them?
[50:58] KEN BOEHLKE: Like Jonathan Marchessault has been there since day one. I said his name wrong. We've seen like we've seen the ups. We've seen the downs. We know what happened. We know when he gets hurt. We know when he has a bad game. We know when he's mad, when he's happy, when whatever. And we're on the same ride. Pro sports are so much more like Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad or Stranger Things or whatever than you really ever imagined. Why? It's the exact same product. It's the exact same thing. It just happens more. And there's more to it. It's so much deeper because it's real. It's the hero's arc. It's real.
[51:38] ALEXIS MICHAUD: You were describing that earlier.
[51:39] KEN BOEHLKE: Nobody knows who's gonna win. Nobody does. That's why it's awesome. It is awesome. Because you don't know. You don't know the outcome. Somebody knows how Stranger Things 3 is gonna end. Not me yet because I haven't watched it. But somebody knows. No one knows who's gonna win the Stanley Cup next year. And that's why the story is so much fun. And that's again why I don't like the Olympics because I don't know the actual story. You can show it to me in a short period but that's not gonna do it. I need four years of you telling me what's going on here. Like if they finally win this year, we can go back to losing the first year. We can go back to the first game in Dallas. We can go back to the bogus cross check that cost them this season. Like the story is always going to be there. St. Louis, they just won. They haven't won in 50 something years.
[52:29] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, that's cool.
[52:30] KEN BOEHLKE: That's amazing for the city because they wanted it every year. They've played it every year.
[52:34] ALEXIS MICHAUD: You've been really patient.
[52:36] KEN BOEHLKE: And it never happened. So that's why that's when that's for me that it's hard to continue telling that story because it can be redundant when they're not playing. Okay. In the off season it can be redundant. So we come up with different stories or look at different things in different avenues or whatever. And that's kind of the challenge for me is how do I keep it interesting? How am I keeping the story going when it's not actually going?
[53:06] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And being different is another thing you talked about. You don't want to be the same as anybody ever.
[53:11] KEN BOEHLKE: No. Like if it happens a lot, so like there'll be events where something big will happen in a game and everyone will flock to that player. Well, I like to do something different. They're all going to talk to him and get the same quotes and get the same story and that's going to be out there. I'm not adding to that. What can I do that's different? How can I find a different angle on this? How can I do it a different way? Whether that's, and I've done a number of different things. Like for trades, for instance, instead of reporting on the trade, I turn my phone on and tell you what I think about it. And then you can interact with me and we can chat about what we think about it. And if I'm wrong, you can call me an idiot. And if you're wrong, I'll call you an idiot. And that's kind of different. No one else is doing that. And now if everybody starts doing that, maybe I'll pivot to something different.
[54:04] ALEXIS MICHAUD: You for sure.
[54:05] KEN BOEHLKE: I will.
[54:06] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I think you will.
[54:07] KEN BOEHLKE: And that's the key is I always want to be doing something more and different. I always want to be doing more, which is not easy because people are getting better. It was easier when everyone sucked. But now they're getting better. Now I need to do more.
[54:20] ALEXIS MICHAUD: It'll make you better.
[54:21] KEN BOEHLKE: Right. And that's the idea. Yeah.
[54:23] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So I could listen to you forever and I'm questioning, I'm just gonna ask you this last question. So you came here how many years ago?
[54:31] KEN BOEHLKE: 2013, so six.
[54:31] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay and now you are you have like completely integrated yourself into this community so quickly. What do you love about living in Las Vegas or Nevada?
[54:54] KEN BOEHLKE: I mean first of all it's just the where it is, how the weather's nice, the ease of everything. Like everything's, there's not a lot wrong with here unless you really can't deal with 110 degrees in which case you can. Yeah. You'll be fine. It's a lot better than negative 10, believe me. But it's more so that the way this community embraces other people is so much better than everywhere else.
[55:26] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Why? Tell me.
[55:28] KEN BOEHLKE: Because everyone that the talent base is so eclectic. There's such a wide range of people that do different things. There's a wide range of people that are good at different things. And what's different here is that they're all willing to help each other, but in a very selfish way.
[55:50] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay, tell me what like what does that look like?
[55:52] KEN BOEHLKE: In that, so like a performer will come assist someone else to help both of them.
[56:01] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Right.
[56:02] KEN BOEHLKE: They get more publicity that helps. Like let's say let's say it's real estate. You're selling real estate.
[56:08] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Right.
[56:09] KEN BOEHLKE: A performer will come to the open house because they know you.
[56:12] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Right.
[56:13] KEN BOEHLKE: It's a win and win. They're gonna be like, oh, look at all these fans that are gonna come to my show now, and they're gonna tell all their friends, where you're like, this is awesome, I have the Blue Man group at my open house. This is amazing. Like, it doesn't happen like that elsewhere. It just doesn't. There's like an old boys network everywhere in every other city, because it's in older cities. Where here we don't have it.
[56:34] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So what you described, I don't think is bad. It's like the rising tide raises all boats.
[56:38] KEN BOEHLKE: Okay, I thought it was a criticism. I didn't understand. It's just it's it's it's rare and it doesn't happen a lot. We're like if you were to ask somebody Pretty much in any case in Vegas. Will you help me? They're always going to listen. They may not always do it, but they're going to listen, but they'll probably point you somewhere Or they're like I'm not the person or I don't want to do it for whatever reason, but I want you to go here Oh, yeah, I'll help push you for it because everybody knows everybody for sure Which I don't understand how that's possible because it's way too many people to know everybody but they do
[57:09] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh yeah.
[57:09] KEN BOEHLKE: And maybe it's, maybe it's just a group of people that the people that like I I don't think I'm an entertainer but I kind of fall into that category yes where I kind of am in a way yes so then I kind of have a group of entertainers that are certainly not the the top level but like the beneath that and there are conduits to the top level and then there are also conduits to the level underneath the up-and-coming people. Yeah. And in Vegas everybody's cool with everybody and no one's from here really. Some people are, you are right? Right. But for the most part people aren't. So everyone's fairly accepting of the new guy.
[57:49] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, of course.
[57:49] KEN BOEHLKE: Which is unlike anywhere else. Nobody's accepting of the new guy in Chicago. I feel like the new people were like, like there's a spotlight on you. Where are you from? What's going on? We want you to feel apart. How can I make, how can I utilize, and again, I think it's selfishness, but it's a good selfishness. Everyone sees the next guy as how can they help me get better at what I'm doing. That's why hockey was so quickly brought in. This is new. This is so weird, but I think it can make me better at what I'm doing. I can be better at selling a house because of hockey. I can be better at being a journalist because of hockey. I can be a better performer. I can put my name out there more. The lawyers are all jumping on top of it. Like everyone uses the new thing to pump up themselves, which is fine. Just like you said, rising tide. Yeah. And I don't know why it's like that and hopefully it never changes, but it is.
[58:47] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, I think, I guess I keep getting thrown by the selfishness part, but I see what you're saying. we're, I don't know, we're happy people.
[58:56] KEN BOEHLKE: I just think people, people are selfish and that's not a problem. Why wouldn't you be? Like, that doesn't mean you can't give back. Right. But even when people give back, there's a reason for it. And there's nothing wrong with that.
[59:13] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah, okay, you know what, true. And one of the things I asked you was like, how would people describe you? And was it brutally honest?
[59:18] KEN BOEHLKE: Yeah. I think that's true. I mean, service makes me feel good. Way more than I think it benefits other people. Of course I go to do it to be like, person needs help. But the reality is I always thought, I always walk away going, I think I'm better off. That's good. Yeah. And then again, it's not my motivator by the way, but it's true. It's one of them. Yeah. It doesn't have to be the main one, but if it wasn't there at all, if it made you feel like shit, you wouldn't do it. Yeah, if it made me feel awful, I wouldn't do it. That's totally true. And that's, and again, that's for whatever reason, this is where the brutally honest part comes in. Yeah. I'm not afraid to admit that. I'm not afraid to admit that I think October 1 made the Golden Knights better. That's mean. It's weird, but it's true. I'm not afraid to say that.
[60:07] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I'm still noodling on it.
[60:07] KEN BOEHLKE: Like I'm not going, yeah. It is. It is. Like whether we want to admit it or not, it's true. People got drawn in to that team based on that event. Interesting. It happened. They may have gotten drawn in eventually. I don't know, but it happened. And the same, like why people help other people, because it might help you.
[60:32] ALEXIS MICHAUD: You know what's throwing me is, I don't watch the news very often, but I watched, obviously I was watching the news a lot during October one, and probably the 10 days or so following it, and I saw the clip of the Golden Knights doing like whatever they did right before the game towards it, and I was probably cooking or doing something in my kitchen, and I was doing something else, it wasn't the focus. And when I looked at it, my reaction was, Oh, that's weird. That's nice. You're new here. Right. That was my reaction to it. And then I moved on. And so I didn't realize, I guess, the impact that that had.
[61:05] KEN BOEHLKE: I think that it was just the ability that everybody had to come together. And then sports do have a healing power in that there is a winner. And I can sit in a chair and watch someone do something, but if that side does better than that side, I win. And then it's good. It made 18,000 people in the building win on a day where there wasn't a lot of winning going around here at the time. And we won on that one. It doesn't fix what happened, of course not. That cliche gets thrown around all the time. Well, we had to win this game. Well, no. What would have happened if you lost? I didn't know that. Yeah, no. I mean, what does it have anything to do with the other? It's better. It made you happy. It made people happy for a moment. And you had all the first responders in the building and all this and survivors in the building and whatever. And it connected people to make them happy. It found a way to make them happy, which is hard to do. Which is why sports are awesome.
[62:15] ALEXIS MICHAUD: That is so true, Ken.
[62:17] KEN BOEHLKE: Sports are good.
[62:18] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Thank you so much for your time.
[62:21] KEN BOEHLKE: Oh man, I appreciate this.
[62:23] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Absolutely. I could have talked with Ken for hours, jumping from subject to subject. What I found most captivating about this conversation was how he described each season of hockey or any sport, equating it to Game of Thrones. Watching the season play out in front of our eyes, the highs, the lows, the twists and turns, the human element is what draws us in and keeps us coming back for more. It's an escape from our everyday lives, yet it brings our community closer together and provides a common ground that Las Vegas has rarely experienced. Sports are an escape, and bringing people into the day to day and making them want to come back for more on a daily basis is an art. Ken Boehlke, the escape artist, is another member of our community who makes Las Vegas a wonderful place to come.
