Kundinger Inc. partners with AUBO Robotics USA
‘I am incredibly grateful to be a small part of the team’
December 15, 2025
GREEN BAY – Next spring, in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay (UWGB), the Green Bay Blizzard indoor football team is set to take the field for one night as the “Frozen Phoenix” – marking, Athletic Director Josh Moon said, the Division I “university’s first-ever football game.”
“Saturday, April 18, [2026], the 2025 Indoor Football League (IFL) Eastern Conference champions, the Green Bay Blizzard, and UWGB invite you to freeze with us,” he said.
To transform into the Frozen Phoenix, Blizzard Co-owner Kathy Treankler said the Resch Center and the Blizzard’s team will adorn an all-new UWGB brand.
“There’s a lot of branding that has gone into it,” she said. “We have the football branded, the jerseys are branded – everything about the day will be UWGB.”
New ways to experience the Blizzard
Though UWGB’s brand is taking center stage that day, Director of Sales Ryan Hopson said the Blizzard’s roster will still be taking the field.
“[The game] will still affect our IFL standings, but we will be playing as our ‘alter ego,’” he said. “The final score will be Frozen Phoenix versus whoever [the opposing team] is that night…, [but] it’s still the Blizzard playing an indoor football game in the IFL.”
Treankler – who said “UWGB is a partnership as well as a way of life” – said the idea to play a game as the UWGB Frozen Phoenix was inspired by another IFL team.
“We had some [other team] in the IFL that had represented a college team,” she said. “So, immediately when we saw that, Ryan and I [thought], ‘Wait a minute.’”
UWGB Chancellor Michael Alexander said the long-standing “legend” behind why “Northeast Wisconsin’s Division I university” doesn’t have a football team centers on the Green Bay Packers.
“At the time, which seems now a bit surreal, the Packers were worried that if we started a university, and we had a college football team, there wouldn’t be enough support for football – that people would not go to a game on Saturday and on Sunday – and perhaps that would be a risk to the Packers,” he said.
As a result, Alexander said UWGB was one of the “early schools” to develop its “amazing soccer program.”
“Vince Lombardi said, ‘You know what you should do at UWGB? You should start this new game called soccer [and] leave the football to the Packers,’” he said.
However, with its new partnership with the Blizzard, Moon said UWGB students – along with the school’s cheerleaders and pep band – will take their first step onto a football field, while the Blizzard adopts an alter ego for the first time.
“So, this is not only [UWGB’s] first ever football game, [it’s] the first ever alter-ego night for the Blizzard,” he said.
Even further, because of a new deal between the IFL and FanDuel – “America’s #1 Sportsbook and the premier mobile sports betting operator,” per fanduel.com – Hopson said IFL games, including the Green Bay Blizzard’s, will soon be available to stream on the sports content platform with 12-plus million registered users across the country.
“The partnership with FanDuel Sports Network is going to be a game changer for the IFL and for Blizzard fans,” he said. “The Blizzard are proud to be part of the IFL… [and] we are excited for even more people to get to experience Blizzard Football and the IFL via the FanDuel Sports Network Partnership. [We’ll] share more news [on that] very soon.”
A second game?
In addition to helping answer the “common question” Moon and Alexander said they’ve repeatedly fielded since joining the university – “why don’t you have football?” – Moon said UWGB also sought a partnership with the Blizzard because of the organization’s “positive impact” on the community.
“We partner with other companies [and] other organizations to keep making [Green Bay] a better place to live, work, play and educate,” Moon said. “So, anything we can do with any partner like that, we’re going to do it.”
Alexander said the university’s partnership with the Blizzard, and especially the Treanklers, embodies UWGB’s commitment to community.
“Everything we do at UWGB is about community – our internal community and the 16 counties that surround UWGB,” he said. “To make those counties a better place to live, work and play, it’s about the importance of having great partners to be able to achieve those first two things – and we’re incredibly lucky enough to have Larry and Kathy Treankler, who are unbelievable in this regard.”
Blizzard Co-owner Larry said the Blizzard and UWGB organizations share numerous “synergies” – making their ongoing partnership not only appropriate, but mutually beneficial.
“That’s one of the things that Kathy and I are so passionate about – our student-athletes here at UWGB and then our athletes who play for us [as the] Green Bay [Blizzard],” he said. “The young men and women here who play at [UW]GB are in their teens to early 20s, and our football players are in their early to mid-to-late 20s.”
At UWGB, Moon said he anticipates excitement from the student body to see a “product on the field that’s representative” of their school.
“It’s a phenomenal atmosphere… [and] a great opportunity for them to go out, have some fun and have that pride as a student,” he said.
Curating an event for that age cohort, Kathy Treankler said, is going to be a new experience for the Blizzard as they aim to fill Resch Center seats with UWGB students and young adults for the April 18 game.
“We normally are about families, so it’s normally about family fun,” he said. “Well, older kids are family, too.”
With plans for a themed snowglobe giveaway and jersey auction to benefit “various causes that both UWGB as well as the Blizzard support,” Treankler said she doesn’t anticipate any challenges in marketing to the young-adult crowd.
“With each theme night… we have the people who always come, and then there’s an influx of those other people that are there for the cause or for the theme,” she said. “So, this won’t be any different.”
The Frozen Phoenix’s inaugural game, Hopson said, is the only one currently scheduled.
“Until,” he said, “there are 8,000 people in the Resch [Center] on April 18, and we’re like, ‘Okay, we should probably bring this back.’”
Though the team has only one game scheduled under its new alter ego, Kathy said there have already been discussions regarding a regular appearance by the UWGB Frozen Phoenix.
“We’ve talked about [how] it could be one game a season that we dedicate to [UW]GB and then come up with some sort of [cause],” she said. “Whether it be rais[ing money] for boosters or for some other cause we’re both passionate about – there are so many differentthings we can do.”
To learn more, head to the Green Bay Blizzard’s Facebook Page or its website, greenbayblizzard.com.
