Pleasanton RAGE welcomed fans to the first RAGE NIGHT of the season.
By Loralei Rohrbach
On May 27, RAGE families and fans alike excitedly walked into the Stanford Medicine Sports Complex for Fan Fest, the first of six RAGE NIGHTS in the 2025 season.
RAGE organization worked hard to involve the community from sponsors and booths to new fans for the first home game.
The planning, led by Head Coach Sarah Fawcett and Lytia Zazzeron, was an exciting challenge to create the “ultimate fan experience” as an up and coming team in the league.
Additionally, the team brought in an exciting group of companies to host experiential booths for RAGE athletes to utilize alongside younger club players and parents.
Pleasanton StretchLab, for example, was a particularly popular booth as it offered free guided stretching to help athletes and fans with muscle tightness and injury prevention.
“We’re more on the recovery side, so improving overall sport performance, increasing mobility and range of motion,” StretchLab flexoligist, Jordan Mason said.
The modern youth athlete plays competitive sports more seriously than any previous generation due to the nature of specialization and increased need for tournament and showcase participation.
“Sports in general are more fast paced than they were before,” Mason said. “So back then, we used to stretch a lot more and we had more time to recharge, but now I feel like [StretchLab] is a lot more needed for the youth and just for just athletes in general.”
Mason furthered that while StretchLab is a global brand, in Pleasanton, not many community members know they have access to all the benefits in their backyard.
“Fan Fest has been a great opportunity for us to introduce ourselves to the community and show people what we can do so we can have some returning customers.”
Another popular booth with RAGE team before their game and the younger athletes was US Cryotherapy.
“Cryotherapy is mostly for recovery, as it helps the body recover a lot faster,” said Antonio Hernandez, Pleasanton therapy provider.
At Fan Fest the team featured their localizer amenity which blows out sub temperature, anything below negative 30 degrees, which essentially helps with inflammation and pain like an ice pack. Except while an ice pack takes anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes to be effective, the localizer takes two minutes.
“The cryo chamber is also another popular amenity and is popular with athletes throughout the NBA like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant,” Hernandez said. “It is useful because when you’re in the chamber it tells your body it’s dying which forces all the blood to move away from your extremities and goes to your heart and core in the first two minutes. Then, when you come out and warm up it helps move all the protein and blood back into your muscles.”
US Cryotherapy has a Pleasanton location which RAGE team utilizes to get treatments. Hernandez explained that it helps the players get back on the field faster with their recovery process. Cryotherapy truly helps the body stay “ready to go,” whether you have a torn meniscus, a muscle strain, or just are looking to recover quickly between games.
Lastly, the official fuel of Pleasanton RAGE, Hummingbird Fuels, had a popular booth where athletes could vote on their favorite flavor of energy drink and purchase it.
“We [Hummingbird Fuels] are an energy and electrolyte mix, and our whole idea is about fueling your fun, because if you’re well fueled, you can have more fun,” co-founder Lisa Charlebois said.
The drink has 240 calories per serving, and they created it with the idea in mind that every 60 minutes of activity you would get 60 grams of carbohydrates, which allows you as an athlete to keep performing and not have to rely on fueling with food.
As a husband and wife team, Richard Charlebois, with a Master’s in food science, came up with the product when they were training for the 750-mile Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle race. They completed the brevet in 78 hours and 40 minutes, which they attributed to their energy drink.
“We are the official fuel of Pleasanton RAGE and we’re very proud. Our brand is really all about inclusion, diversity and representation and so for us to be a part of this club in a meaningful way is really core to our identity,” Lisa Charlebois said.
When asked about their commitment to investing in women’s sports, Richard Charlebois immediately cut in.
“We just call them sports,” Richard Charlebois said.
“Being a part of Fan Fest is really exciting, especially being a part of a soccer culture,” Lisa Charlebois said. “We’re really ingrained in cycling, but haven’t had the opportunity to be a part of a sport like soccer, and so seeing this part of endurance sports is really exciting for us.”