0:08 This is The GPL Podcast, sponsored by Vintage Minnesota Hockey, your exclusive source for throwback Minnesota jerseys. 0:17 Visit vintagemnhockey.com. 0:32 Now, here's Hammy, Vegoe, and your host, Jupiter. 0:45 Good evening, and welcome to the GPL Podcast, episode number 135. 0:54 Excuse me. 0:56 Well, boys, I don't know if any questions were answered this past weekend, but Veegs, we do know one thing was answered. 1:06 Minnesota finally defeated the Duluth Bulldogs. 1:11 Yeah, it's been a long time coming for this group of guys. 1:17 They finally were able to get it and hold on, which was nice to see. 1:21 A lot of goal scoring on Sunday, which is always going to make the coach happy. 1:27 Yeah, it would make the coach happy, because we know he's not as much of a defensive coach, but boy, I guess there's just a lot of things we could talk about. 1:37 Hammeh, what were your initial thoughts about this weekend? 1:40 A tie and a victory against the defending champs? 1:44 Well, I mean, I certainly, I mean, I never predicted a sweep or anything like that, but I thought that we would probably play, at least one night I thought we would play pretty well. 1:56 I can't say I really can complain with how the weekend went. 2:00 I thought that they did pretty well on the road, I think, especially first game of the season, new coaching staff, new system. 2:08 You kind of get a little worried that things aren't going to go quite as smoothly as you like, especially in a rivalry kind of a game, where the other team has got a lot of returning players and coming off a successful year and staff is largely the same. 2:23 And you kind of worry that the upper hand is automatically going to be in their side. 2:28 But it was nice to come out of there with a tie. 2:31 And yeah, certainly would have liked to have seen the shots on goal be a little bit lower on Sunday. 2:36 That was way too much, even if they weren't all high percentage. 2:38 Nonetheless, you kind of want to see that to be a little lower, but can't complain about seven goals on 22 shots either. 2:47 Well, let's kind of talk about the entire weekend here. 2:49 Veegs, what did you like and what didn't you like this past weekend? 2:54 I think I really liked that the team got off to a good start both nights. 2:58 I thought the first period in Duluth, Minnesota played really strong. 3:03 There's a lot of good puck support low in the zone for breakouts. 3:07 I thought they did a really nice job of making nice short crisp passes that they're connecting on to get out of the zone and get towards Duluth. 3:17 And then defensively, I thought they did a great job of shutting down pretty much every Duluth rush pretty quickly that first night. 3:24 I thought that put them in good shape for the weekend. 3:27 They never really got caught out there for too many long shifts where Duluth put a lot of pressure. 3:32 I think there was maybe one or two times during the night that that happened. 3:36 But otherwise, that was something that they really carried throughout the whole weekend, was good breakouts and then shutting down Duluth pretty quickly. 3:44 The biggest negative was the penalties. 3:46 It was a big reason I think the shots got out of hand on Sunday. 3:49 It's just they spent that whole second period basically killing, and that was a little frustrating to see. 3:55 Some of the players talked about it, you know, transitioning from summer hockey to live action as being an issue for them. 4:01 It's something they can't continue to get away with as teams get better coached. 4:07 Any other negatives for you, Hammeh? 4:12 Besides the shots? 4:14 Well, yeah, I mean, look, I think that we're probably going to have to live with some of those kinds of nights, as you mentioned. 4:21 I mean, Matzko, he's kind of an offensive-minded coach, always has been. 4:27 You know, his teams in St. 4:28 Cloud, you know, even their best defensive teams, you know, largely weren't great defensive teams. 4:35 Maybe some of that was talent-related and they kind of did what they had to do. 4:39 He'll have a little wider net, of course, here as far as recruiting defensive players. 4:44 But nonetheless, you know, you kind of have to expect that. 4:47 I think we're going to have to expect that with a new coach and his style, players getting used to everything. 4:53 I know that somebody had commented on GPL today that the way that they're playing defensively this year already is different. 5:01 It's more of a zone kind of a system versus the one-on-one that the prior regime kind of emphasized. 5:07 So I'm sure there's, you know, some of that going on, players getting accustomed to some of those kinds of things. 5:13 Now, Veegs, when it comes to, you know, they gave up a lot of shots and some of that was obviously, you know, quite a bit of the power play, especially in the second period on Sunday evening. 5:22 But did they give up a ton of quality chances? 5:26 Because, you know, I noticed that, you know, there wasn't a, I mean, there wasn't a lot of huge, real good opportunities for them. 5:33 But it seems like, you know, Minnesota with their shots much lower had much more quality opportunities, but they didn't have the huge quantity. 5:42 Yeah, I don't think the shots were completely benign. 5:46 You know, there were some really good chances for UMD. 5:49 I think the one issue for UMD is a lot of those shots were coming where Rob Stone was pretty square and he was able to make saves on rebounds. 5:59 I thought that was really important for Minnesota, is that he saw most of the shots coming and was able to make plays and stay strong. 6:07 Minnesota, on the other hand, they were getting shots on the rush and they were getting shots moving Shepard side to side. 6:14 And I can't remember where I saw it in the athletic, but there was somebody who was looking at your shot percentage when you stay on the same side of the ice versus when you change sides of the ice and make the goalie move and your shooting percentage goes up like 20%. 6:28 And so when you're able to get the goalie to move, more holes open up and it makes a big difference to a goaltender who can just stay square to a shot and take it on. 6:38 Well, I guess the biggest thing I noticed this week, and he was a player of the week in the Big Ten, is Mr. 6:44 Phillips, maybe that season off is exactly what he needed. 6:49 He was just thrown to the wolves last year, but he seemed pretty poised and he was contributing on the offensive side this weekend, Biggs. 6:57 Yeah, he put on about 20 pounds since he joined the team last year, and he just looks so much more confident out there. 7:03 I spoke to him a little bit today during availability, and he just says everything was moving pretty quick for him last year. 7:11 He was having a hard time staying on top of the puck when he was getting checked and going into the corners and things like that, and it was a bigger transition. 7:20 And now this weekend, he gets off to a great start, and that's just going to fuel his confidence going forward, and he looked really good out there. 7:28 He made some really amazing plays that would cut across the seam and create scoring chances, and he did a decent job on the power play, rushing the puck up the ice and getting them set up. 7:39 I think that group will continue to improve, but definitely promising signs for Phillips. 7:43 That was the player we were hoping to see when he came in midseason. 7:48 But you think about this coming into midseason last year, Hammy, and it's not just hockey. 7:54 He's changing his life. 7:55 He's on campus. 7:56 He's doing school, and this is all coming at once. 8:00 A lot of times in the past, they like to bring him in the summer, just get him accustomed to it in the fall, participating. 8:06 But he was literally just thrown in last year. 8:09 Yeah, it's definitely a tough set of circumstances that you have to face. 8:16 I think a lot of people were scratching their heads a little bit. 8:18 I know that with some of the changes going on at midseason, you probably felt forced to do that. 8:26 But it certainly wasn't the most positive set of circumstances. 8:29 And I think the results kind of spoke for themselves at the time. 8:34 But to his credit, it looks like he's taken some of those learning experiences, as we can say, and has turned it into at least a positive start this year. 8:45 And he definitely looks like he could be a really nice contributor, which is a huge thing because, like I said last week, to me, the defensive group is kind of the real key to the season because I think we'll have good scoring up front, and I think we've at least seen with one of our goalies that we'll have some good goaltending. 9:03 But it's really going to be about how that defensive unit plays on both ends of the rink. 9:08 I just think also Phillips is a really interesting case because he's a player who has been pushing his timeline to get to Minnesota ever since he went to USHL for his junior year. 9:19 And he's always been a kid who's thinking, you know, I want to get to the U as fast as I can. 9:23 And I think it just, you know, came too much too soon for him both as a junior playing in the USHL and then coming last year. 9:31 You know, it's one of those things where, you know, you can leave a little too early, but you can almost never stay too late. 9:37 And he probably would have benefited from some extra seasoning. 9:41 And I think that this is just another example of how some of these guys, even guys who, you know, have draft stock, they need to think more long-term, listen to the coaches a little bit more. 9:51 I mean, I don't know what the sales pitch was or wasn't, but, you know, as I mentioned with Ben Gordon, you know, after the show last week, you know, I thought he should have played more than juniors than he did, and now he's going to be on the flip side of it trying to convince players to play a little extra juniors. 10:09 And, you know, hopefully situations like this and his own experiences, you know, will help him make those cases with certain players. 10:18 We'll just make sure to send Raboyne to those uncomfortable conversations because he played three years a junior. 10:24 I guess so, yeah. 10:25 I guess he can say how it worked for him. 10:29 Well, going back to Saturday evening, Veegs, you and I were both up there. 10:35 I think, you know, sorry, I just lost my train of thought there. 10:43 I was just thinking that... 10:44 What a fantastic place, Duluthos. 10:47 Well, it didn't look so fantastic today. 10:49 It looks like the whole place was flooded with water. 10:52 No, I was just going to say that Moscow had them out on the ice early, you know, before the game started. 10:57 I had them watch the unveiling and all this championship stuff. 11:01 And the Gophers really reacted well. 11:03 I mean, they didn't give up a goal until the third period. 11:07 The crowd was really not in the game, the entire game. 11:10 We had a freshman come out and score in the first period. 11:13 That's a really, I mean, they did give up the lead in the end and they tied. 11:19 But I thought that was a really good result, considering, you know, what they walked into and, you know, just the history of just struggling against Duluth these last five years, basically. 11:31 Yeah, you know, the more I think about it, I think it was just a brilliant move by Monsko, because going into it, you think, you know, you don't want your team on the bench that long. 11:39 It probably throws off your pregame routine and maybe gets you out of sync. 11:43 And, you know, you start daydreaming or something like that. 11:46 But I think while all that stuff was going on, you could probably just tell the Gophers were getting more and more fired up. 11:52 You know, here's the team that got in ahead of them, knocked them out of the tournament, basically, and then went on a run and did what they wanted to do. 12:00 And even though some of the guys had butterflies right away, you know, I thought they played great in that first period. 12:07 They did. 12:08 And, you know, Duluth sort of took over sort of the rest of the game. 12:12 But the impressive part, I thought, was is that they responded. 12:18 I mean, they didn't get any more goals, but they withheld the rush from Duluth. 12:23 And, you know, the only goal they gave up was a rebound goal on a power play. 12:29 So all in all, I think that Saturday evening, to kick off the season, Hammeh, was a complete success. 12:36 Well, I don't know if I would call it complete, especially when you had a lead, but I definitely think, like I said earlier, considering it's a new coaching staff and new system and everybody's trying to get used to each other, and then you're on the road against a quality opponent and a rival, and they've got a lot of things going for them right now, and to have that kind of result certainly is a big positive to start off the season. 12:59 Ranta can really shoot, Veegs. 13:01 He's got a couple goals already. 13:03 Yeah, when they brought him in, you looked at the highlight tape, and you saw a guy could shoot the puck, and he did not disappoint in his first two games. 13:11 The goals he scored on, it was kind of a deceptive release on the first one, and the second one he just wired. 13:19 The guys in practice see that he's a shooter. 13:21 He's probably already one of the top shooters on the team just with his release, and it's coming from the toe of the blade and coming hard and heavy, so it will be something to watch going forward. 13:33 I think with him playing on a line with Novak and Sheehy, that speaks to a huge opportunity for him. 13:40 You know Sheehy is going to draw some attention, and Novak's got the vision to put him in some pretty good positions to score. 13:46 It should be fun to watch this season, especially when they play Wisconsin. 13:51 Hamid, do you have any insight on kind of what happened to Duluth? 13:55 I mean, yes, it's the first weekend of the year, but their Vaughn Tadee gave up seven goals Sunday night. 14:05 They didn't give up that many for the entire NCAA tournament. 14:10 Obviously it's early, but that is not promising for the Bulldogs. 14:17 Well, like you said, you don't want to jump to any major conclusions. 14:21 They didn't have one of their better defensive players on the second night, so that's certainly something that's going to play a role in it. 14:30 But you don't want to take away what happened with their season last year. 14:36 Obviously you have to give them credit for winning the championship, but we have to remember that they did squeak in by the slimmest of margins. 14:45 It wasn't like they were the top team all season long playing fantastic great hockey. 14:52 It's kind of one of those things where, I don't know which Michigan player said it, but the best team doesn't always win at the end of the year, and it's not meant to be a slight necessarily because that team is still the national champion. 15:04 But you do have to look at the big picture of the season, and it wasn't like that was a team that was rolling over opponents. 15:12 But you give them credit, and I think every season is a new year, and you never know if there's going to be a championship hangover. 15:19 Look at the Philadelphia Eagles as the prime example, and the NFL. 15:23 They're not playing very well this year, and they have some good players, and they still have a good team, but not performing. 15:30 You just never know what's going to happen from one year to the next. 15:32 The pieces don't always fall into place. 15:36 Any thought on their defense, Veegs? 15:38 Well, I think one of the things that made them so effective in the tournament last year was that their entire team did such a great job of clogging the neutral zone. 15:47 It was so hard for any of the teams playing them in the tournament to generate any speed on the rush, any opportunities in the rush, even gain possession as they crossed the offensive blue line. 15:57 And I didn't see that on Sunday at all, whether it's just attention that detail was missing. 16:03 I think they really missed Carson Kuhlman, Jared Thomas, Blake Young. 16:07 I think those guys are really glue guys who got everybody playing the right way. 16:11 Because I saw a team that played really poorly in the NCHC where they took bad penalties and didn't stop anybody coming through the neutral zone. 16:19 I thought this team is done. 16:20 But they totally flipped it around during their tournament run. 16:24 And I think that piece was missing from them this weekend. 16:28 And it's something they need to do to be successful. 16:30 Because I don't think you're going to see UMD go out and score five, six goals many times this season. 16:35 I just don't think they have that kind of firepower up front. 16:38 I agree. 16:39 You know, the Cates brothers look pretty good. 16:41 I didn't think much of Tufties play on the weekend. 16:47 So they're missing something up front. 16:49 So they're going to have to play low scoring games to win. 16:54 If you're listening live in the Mixler chat, you can always just send us questions via that chat or even just via Twitter by using the hashtag GPL Podcast. 17:03 And we'll try to answer those questions. 17:05 I see FakeBobMotsko already wants to know if my neighbor's smoke detector ever stopped chirping. 17:10 And no, it has not stopped chirping. 17:13 So there is that. 17:16 Eventually they need to close their windows, don't they? 17:18 It's going to get cold. 17:19 So who knows? 17:21 It's been chirping since like March or just months. 17:26 I don't know how anyone can sleep with a damn smoke detector chirping every 30, 40 seconds. 17:31 Some people can't hear those high pitch noises. 17:33 Maybe they just don't know. 17:34 Oh my gosh, Gams. 17:36 Well, God forbid there's actual fire. 17:38 I hope they hear that. 17:41 Anyway, that's just a little rant. 17:43 I went outside with my dog earlier. 17:44 It's all chirp, chirp. 17:45 I'm like, are you kidding me? 17:48 It's just weird. 17:50 Veegs, Robson played the entire weekend. 17:54 I was a little surprised that Shearhorn wasn't the first one out Sunday evening, but it looks like Motsko was impressed enough with Robson's one goal performance and that was a power play goal that he threw him in for a second night. 18:11 Yeah, Motsko said that it wasn't preordained that Robson was going to play both nights of the series, but that after his play on Saturday, he felt he deserved another chance in the Nets on Sunday and he proved his coach right. 18:26 Even though they gave up four goals, I thought he played pretty solid. 18:30 There are some rebounds there with him. 18:33 I think that's a little bit part of his style. 18:35 He's a more technical goalie. 18:37 He was just trying to stop the first shot. 18:39 And I think the Gopher defense is going to have to learn a little bit, clear pucks, and get those out of there so there aren't those second chances. 18:48 But I thought he played very solid. 18:50 I do think we are going to see more of Robson this season than Shearhorn, don't you think, Hamme? 18:56 Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, despite the fact that he's a veteran, played a lot of games, won a lot of games in his college career, I think that Robson is definitely the more, the goalie that you feel a lot more comfortable with. 19:10 And I think that we kind of saw that this weekend, but certainly I think it's nice to be able to have a guy that's, you know, as a number two that has won that many games and that you feel comfortable enough to play against teams, and you don't feel like you're necessarily going to have a huge regression from one guy to the next. 19:30 I definitely agree with your assessment on who's the number one guy, but it is nice to have somebody that you can rely on. 19:36 Oh, it definitely is. 19:39 And it kind of feels like, to me, that Robson will get the first start for most series here, and if he plays well, he'll get another one. 19:48 If he doesn't have a great night, Sheeran needs to be ready. 19:52 Yeah, yeah. 19:54 Makes sense to me. 19:56 I'm guessing probably Sheeran might even get both of the exhibition games coming up or there's a good chance that will happen just to keep him fresh. 20:05 We've got a question from Steve2094 on Twitter. 20:10 He wants to know, do you guys think this freshman class will stay more than one or two years? 20:16 This has been a fear for a long time. 20:18 Is this like the same person that was earlier in the week was like, yeah, how long is this person going to be there? 20:26 How long is that person going to be there? 20:27 It's like, whatever, this is like the first weekend of the year and we're already worrying about guys leaving. 20:31 It's like, come on, man, enjoy the season. 20:35 I don't know. 20:36 I mean, to me, any guy who's not like a sure fire, you know, NHL kind of a guy or somebody who's going to get, you know, who's like a first round guy that you know the team is going to want right out of the gates, you know, it's not really worth worrying about. 20:54 I just don't think it's, we're not going to know. 20:58 I mean, even last year, I know that the coaches last year didn't feel like Meadowstead should have left. 21:03 I mean, I know that for a fact that they did not think that was a good move. 21:08 Now, it might turn out to be a good move. 21:10 But the point is, is that, you know, even the head coaches and the assistants don't always see that, you know, the same way as the players. 21:19 So they don't know. 21:20 So how are we supposed to know? 21:22 I mean, it's just a big guess. 21:23 Well, if you even kind of go a little further with that, Hammey, a lot of times these freshmen weren't big fans of LaChia. 21:34 Well, to be fair, though, I mean, if you think about in recent years, maybe not, maybe a little, you know, Casey left, obviously, but he left anyways, even though we were going to have a new coach. 21:45 But the fact is, is that they did keep players, I think, a little bit more than they had like maybe, say, 10 years ago or so. 21:53 In the last, say, five, six seasons, they did seem to get guys to stick that one extra year a little bit more often, as opposed to only having them for a year or two. 22:03 So I do think that they did a better job the last coaching staff, as the years kind of progressed. 22:09 But you're never going to keep all the guys to the level that you would like to. 22:14 It's, you know, with all the hands that are involved with advisors and front offices and, you know, the needs of a particular team and whatever it might be, you know, you just can't, you just don't know what's going to happen. 22:28 There's just too many opinions and things that could be going on over the course of a year. 22:32 Any thoughts on that, Veegs? 22:36 Yeah, I think it's so player dependent. 22:38 You know, the players who leave early, you know, Middelstadt wanted to be a pro, Lindgren wanted to be a pro. 22:45 You know, those guys liked being Gophers, but I think their future, they wanted to try pro hockey. 22:52 You know, the same thing with, you know, the Eric Johnson and Phil Kessels and Kylo Posos. 22:56 You know, I think those couple guys, you know, that's the majority of players who left early. 23:02 You know, you get the rare Stu Bickel, who left early to sign a contract because he had an opportunity he couldn't pass up. 23:09 But, you know, I think you just take it as it comes. 23:13 You know, I think the flight risks on this team, they are there, but it all kind of depends on, you know, how hard their organizations go to sign them and how much the guys want to leave. 23:24 And, you know, some of that will probably have, you know, some impact on how well this team does this year. 23:31 So we'll see what happens. 23:33 Enjoy it while it's here, though. 23:34 Yeah, one thing, though, is I always view Phil Kessel as completely different. 23:39 Does he have anything to do with the University of Minnesota? 23:43 Not really. 23:44 No, he doesn't. 23:44 I mean, you think of someone like Oposso, who left in the middle of the season. 23:47 He still comes back and works out here. 23:50 He was welcome here. 23:52 I don't think Phil Kessel comes to Minnesota unless he's visiting his sister at the time, or he's here, you know, playing for the Penguins. 24:01 Well, to be fair, most of the players that have come through the program have lived around the area. 24:06 Not that Kessel, you know, lives, you know, hundreds and hundreds of miles away, from, you know, being that he's from Wisconsin. 24:13 But, you know, it is a little different when you're a St. 24:17 Paul kid, like Ocapulco is, you know, versus somebody who grew up, you know what I mean? 24:22 So I do try to look at it from that perspective, you know. 24:26 I even think of someone like him. 24:27 Doesn't, Vanik even comes back in the summer, and he's here with his family and whatnot, and obviously he's from Austria, but who knows? 24:35 Isn't his lady from here though? 24:39 So I'm sure she has family. 24:40 So I mean, just saying. 24:41 Yeah, I know. 24:42 I just never get that feeling that Phil Kessel is really a Gopher. 24:46 Well, certainly guys, yeah. 24:48 I mean, certainly there are some players that clearly connect themselves with the program more than others. 24:54 You know, there's no doubt about that. 24:57 All right. 24:58 Well, let's get to a few more questions in a little bit here. 25:01 But first, we need to hear from our sponsor. 25:05 vintagemnhockey.com is a proud sponsor of the GPL Podcast. 25:10 Well, what is Vintage MN Hockey? 25:13 Well, it's kind of the place to get all of your history of Minnesota hockey, from the pros to the minors, the collegiate teams, to even the high school teams. 25:23 All information about any of those teams can be found on vintagemnhockey.com. 25:28 They also have great interviews with some historical Minnesota hockey figures like John Mayessich and Lou Nani, Glenn Sanmore, some of the greats of Minnesota hockey. 25:37 So make sure you check out those interviews. 25:39 It's a really great thing. 25:41 But as I always say, I think my favorite part is the store. 25:45 The store, you can buy a custom historical jersey from the Gophers or the Bulldogs or some of your favorite high school teams. 25:52 And if you do make a purchase, just use the code GPL Podcast, all one word, and you'll get 10% off your order. 25:59 So make sure you visit vintagemnhockey.com and follow them on Twitter at VintageMNHockey. 26:07 Okay, thanks to Vintage for that. 26:09 Let's get into some questions. 26:11 Tim Hapke, he's always sending us questions for the last few years, and he wanted to know, I know Vego posted something about the new NCAA recruiting rules. 26:21 I think he mentioned that recently. 26:22 Can you explain how the new NCAA recruiting rules affect hockey? 26:27 Are the coaches for it? 26:28 Is this a step in the right direction? 26:31 I think if it's going to go for a vote here in April, it's something the coaches are in favor of. 26:37 I think earlier recruiting was trying to stem by... 26:41 What's the biggest change that we're seeing here? 26:44 The last set of rules that were passed said that there were no recruiting contact things happening until their junior year. 26:55 No official visits, no unofficial visits. 26:58 If they were on campus for a development camp or something like that, they couldn't have any recruiting contact. 27:06 This now pushes it back so that during their sophomore year, I think it's January 1, they'll be able to start doing official visits and off-campus contact is permitted. 27:15 It's kind of rolling back a little bit because I think the coaches felt like maybe it had been pushed too far. 27:22 Is that a good thing? 27:23 Aren't we trying to get these people when they're a little older? 27:26 And what do we do? 27:27 We moved them younger again. 27:28 Well, I think the thing that was happening is that players could contact coaches and get an offer from that coach, and they would commit before other coaches could recruit them, before they knew what other options were out there, and maybe were committing to a school that they weren't really sure about. 27:47 And that just fuels decommitments and more recruiting committed players down the line. 27:54 I think we saw something with Wisconsin. 27:56 They had a player committed and they rushed his visit so it could happen just before the rules went into effect. 28:21 I don't know. 28:22 I'm always a little skeptical that anything is going to make any change is really going to do a tremendous amount. 28:28 I've always the problem I've always had with certain coaches is when they put deadlines on offers and they kind of pressure guys to make decisions within a week or two. 28:38 I understand that they can't wait around forever on kids, but I've always felt it was a little bit distasteful to have a kid say, all right, well, you got a week to think about it. 28:49 I mean, if you really want the kid, why would you just cut them off after a week? 28:54 I don't know. 28:54 I just some of that kind of stuff really rank. 28:56 That's one of the things I always hated about Mike Eaves. 28:58 I know he did that a decent amount, and I know that goes on elsewhere. 29:02 So just that kind of stuff. 29:06 I don't know. 29:07 I just wanted to get rid of the gentleman's agreement as much as anything, because I think that that that kind of eliminates some of the need to get those super early commitments. 29:17 It's not going to completely eliminate, of course. 29:19 But I do believe that that's going to have some curtail on it because it won't be quite the race. 29:26 It seemed like it was in the past. 29:29 What else is out there that people might want to be aware of on some of the changes? 29:33 You know, I think it's just, you know, they want to have some official contact happen and they want to try to have it start that sophomore year. 29:43 I think that's almost like a line where coaches are pretty uncomfortable doing anything before that point. 29:50 But it feels like, you know, players and their parents are pushing coaches to be on them at that age, you know, because we've already seen so many young kids commit. 29:58 So, you know, I think the one thing I was hoping to see come out of this was that you couldn't make any kind of offer until January one of that sophomore year. 30:08 So just, you know, you eliminate the possibility of even players committing until that point. 30:14 But I don't think that's coming yet. 30:15 And that's something I would like to see just to draw the line in the sand at that age. 30:21 Boy, good luck with that. 30:25 You know, some coaches want to do it, but then some coaches don't want to do it. 30:31 Well, I think when you're in the middle of your sophomore year, do you even know what school you want to be at other than you like that school for hockey? 30:40 You know, I think it just totally puts the focus there. 30:43 So it's a tough place to be. 30:45 Like when you see these kids committing to Harvard and stuff like that, it's like, are they going to be able to get in? 30:51 You know, you don't really know that when they're a sophomore. 30:54 Yeah, well, they were just curious. 30:58 So I don't really follow a lot of that recruiting stuff closely. 31:02 I just know that when you hear some five-year-old recruit commit whatever it is, it just gets a little ridiculous. 31:10 Thirteen. 31:12 I know, but it's just a joke. 31:14 But the kids are so young these days. 31:18 Geez, it just makes me feel old. 31:21 Well, on Monday, I caused a little trouble on the interweb or Twitter when I decided to kind of tweet out an opinion someone had posted on GPL. 31:32 Um, Smoke and Gopher on GPL, he stated the following about what happened to him Sunday night. 31:38 He says, It's been a long time since I've posted here. 31:41 My love for Gopher hockey has never decreased over the years, despite the move to the Big Ten. 31:46 I'm not a season ticket holder, but I've gone to hundreds of Gopher games, home and away for almost 20 years. 31:52 And tonight, you finally did something that I did not think would ever happen, and that's lose my business. 31:58 Especially the last few seasons with rising seat costs, I've purchased standing room tickets, mostly except for a couple games I've bought for my now five-year-old son. 32:09 I walked into Mariucci lobby tonight, referring to Sunday night, excited for another year only to turn right around and go back home and watch the game on TV. 32:18 $50 for a standing room ticket was the reason for my quick exit. 32:24 No regular season game is worth that, especially when Stevie Wonder can see on TV all those empty seats. 32:32 And so I retweeted this, and I personally think that $50 standing room ticket is ridiculous. 32:40 But, you know, Vegoe, we had some back and forth with this that, for one thing, they probably shouldn't even be selling standing room tickets until the other tickets are gone, which I think makes perfect sense because that's kind of what you want to get people in the seats. 32:54 But I was just kind of angry that, you know, $50 for a standing room ticket, that is just, you know, that's more than I paid for my seat in Duluth Saturday night. 33:06 What the heck is going on here? 33:09 Well, there were seats available for $50 and they all sold out. 33:13 Exactly. 33:14 You know, there were seats available for $60 and $65, and about 2,000 of them that didn't sell. 33:22 And, you know, you can argue if that's too much money or not, but, you know, you look at good seats at other events and entertainment in the Twin Cities, and that's not completely out of line for the premier game on the Gopher hockey schedule. 33:38 I'd argue that the game against Duluth, you know, there's only one of them. 33:41 You know, that's probably the best home game on the schedule this year. 33:45 I don't think it's out of line for the ticket prices to be around that. 33:50 You know, you want to protect your season ticket holders. 33:53 I have Gopher football season tickets, and I decided to go to Duluth to attend the opening game of the season. 34:02 And, you know, I'm not just trying to give those tickets away to someone. 34:06 You know, that's the ticket that has the most value. 34:08 You know, it's hard to give away tickets to see the Gophers play Fresno State or Miami, Ohio, just like it's going to be hard for people here to give away tickets to St. 34:17 Lawrence and Ferris State. 34:19 So you want to protect your season ticket holders that have put money into your program, and giving away tickets to the top game of the year is not the way to do it. 34:28 But you're protecting the season ticket holders, yes. 34:33 But your season ticket holders are spending a buttload of money on these tickets. 34:39 Um, a lot of them, you know, it's, you know, you get $700, $800 up front just for the tickets, then you've got your seat donation, which is pretty close to the same. 34:48 I'm not, I don't know all the numbers. 34:49 You know all that, but they're protecting these season ticket holders because they know they're charging these season ticket holders in a ridiculous amount, comparative to other top schools in NCAA hockey, like North Dakota, or whatever it may be. 35:05 So it's kind of, they're almost stuck now because, you know, because of what Norwood Teague did, you know, with the reseeding and, you know, requiring these donations, that these season tickets became much more expensive. 35:18 And now it's hard to sell the cheaper seats because they don't want to make the season ticket holders feel bad. 35:25 I mean, they're kind of screwed here, aren't they? 35:32 Are you there, Veegs? 35:36 Did we lose you, Vegoe? 35:39 Hammy, are you there? 35:45 Maybe he's got the mute on. 35:47 Child hung up on him. 35:50 I don't know. 35:51 Do you understand though, Hammy? 35:53 You know, I've never really gotten heavily caught up in... 35:55 Yeah, I know, but they're trying to protect the season ticket holders when these season ticket holders are spending a buttload of money way more than any other school. 36:04 Yeah, I mean, I think they have kind of painted themselves into a corner on some of these decisions. 36:08 I think... 36:10 You know, it kind of goes back to if you've overpriced your tickets, a lot of times they have a really hard time reducing prices. 36:17 I mean, that's just... 36:20 seemingly, it always just goes up. 36:21 It rarely goes, you know, backwards. 36:23 And so I think once you've kind of opened Pandora's box, so to speak, it's hard to kind of do anything differently. 36:31 So maybe there's a way. 36:33 I don't pay... 36:34 You know, I'll be the first to admit that I don't pay a lot of attention to, you know, all that ticketing and, you know, some of that kind of stuff, because for me, it's just if I'm going, I'm going. 36:45 If I'm not, I'm not. 36:45 I understand that other people have their own reasons for why they do or they don't do things. 36:50 And so I'm not there to dispute any of that. 36:52 And I understand in this particular instance, I could see why it would be distasteful for a fan and that, you know, for standing room especially. 36:59 So it's got a lot of hard decisions that they're going to have to make, I think. 37:04 In the coming year or two and how they want, what kind of a fan experience they want. 37:08 And hopefully a new coach will help solve some of those ticketing issues and people want to just buy the normal tickets and not have to go through the standing room route if they don't want. 37:19 Are you back with us, Veegs? 37:22 Trying to be back with you. 37:23 Is that still working? 37:24 Yeah, it was weird. 37:25 All of a sudden you were just gone. 37:26 I'm like, oh, where'd he go? 37:29 I was pulling on my ticket stuff here. 37:32 So I could talk from a little bit more certainty on things. 37:36 But they did cut ticket pricing in their Zone 4, which is behind the end opposite the Zamboni. 37:43 And that was only, I think, $600 for the season. 37:47 It works out to be about $30-some a game. 37:49 And that doesn't have a gift attached to it. 37:52 That's the end seed. 37:53 Compare that to any other season ticket price in the country. 37:59 Your lowest price is anything in the metro, though, in Minnesota. 38:02 But that's not it, though. 38:04 You have to compare it against other schools, can't you? 38:06 Why are we comparing a college hockey team to other pro sports? 38:12 Because it's Minnesota. 38:14 Why? 38:14 It just is. 38:17 But then they wonder why there are empty seats? 38:21 They wonder why they have 2,000 no-shows a game? 38:25 Do they even know that their people are angry and not buying seats? 38:29 Do they wonder why they're under 5,000 in season tickets now? 38:34 I think it's more than just money. 38:35 It's more than just money causing people to go away. 38:39 That's a lot of money. 38:41 It's only been a problem the last two years, and now they've changed their coach, they've dropped some ticket prices, and it's not like that section is sold out. 38:50 They dropped the price and the seat donation that was tied with it, and that section didn't sell out. 38:55 It's more than just the money. 38:58 Oh, it's more than just the selling of tickets, too, because the problem on top of that is that, you did the numbers last year, they were averaging 2,400 no-shows last year. 39:11 Now, these are tickets that are sold or distributed, you should say, but pretty much sold, and people aren't showing up. 39:16 So this is a completely different problem, because if they would have had the 8,100 like they sold on Sunday, it would have looked a lot more full in Mariucci, but I don't know if there is a solution to the no-shows. 39:31 I mean, these are people paying for tickets, at least I would say 90% of them are, and they're just not showing up, and I have a hard time believing those are all corporate seats that are not showing up. 39:41 Well, it's more than just corporate seats. 39:45 They have to look at what they're doing with their parking and other things going on. 39:49 I know one of our podcast questions was, what are they doing about the no-shows at games? 39:55 And the university is contracting with a mobile ticketing vendor to try to do a better job of doing rush seating and keep track of who are the people who aren't showing up and things like that, and make it easier to transfer tickets. 40:09 These are things that they're looking to do. 40:11 I know even The Wild, when they have a couple hundred tickets the night of the game that they want to try to get filled, they reach out to local organizations and give them the tickets. 40:23 They do things to fill the building, and I think Minnesota is a little behind on that because they haven't had to do that for hockey, but it's something they're getting to. 40:33 Well, I just like to get people going mostly because no matter what, I think a $50 standing room ticket is ridiculous, but like you kind of suggested, they probably shouldn't even be selling standing room until it's at least a lot closer to a sellout, don't you think? 40:49 Probably shouldn't have the standing room seat open when you don't have a sellout, and I think they're trying to reach out to more groups at lower price points. 40:57 Youth hockey organizations get people in at $15 a ticket. 41:01 That's stuff that they're trying to do, so some of these fans who are upset about ticket prices organize a group in your community or something and try to get group sales or something if you want to see games cheap. 41:14 Yeah. 41:16 That's what you got to do, folks. 41:17 I mean, you know, I don't know. 41:21 I just saw that. 41:22 I had to share that this week, and I believe there's another. 41:28 The Wisconsin game, the standing room tickets are $50 as well. 41:34 I tell you, one thing that would help, though, Hammy, is if this team really does start to win. 41:38 And, you know, a 7-4 victory against the defending national champions, I think is a really great start. 41:45 But now we have this three games in three weeks. 41:51 Two of them are exhibitions, and then we play, you know, our biggest rival in Vegas. 42:00 It's like we got started, and now it just kind of slows down for the rest of the month, Hammy. 42:06 Yeah, I mean, I guess I don't mind it. 42:08 I know the coach talked about it, too, that, you know, he'd like more practice time. 42:14 He wanted to have more opportunity to work on things before this, you know, series with Duluth. 42:20 And now we, you know, we got through that, had a pretty good result in both games. 42:25 And certainly they'll have plenty of opportunity now to work on some of these things that he talked about before the series. 42:31 And so I don't really look at it as necessarily a negative. 42:34 I think it just gives them an opportunity to kind of button things down a little bit more and get a little bit more of a comfort zone, have the players feel a little more comfortable with what the expectations are. 42:44 And so I don't look at it as a negative. 42:47 I think some seasons, yeah, when you have a returning team and they start off hot for the first couple of weeks and then they have some time off, you worry about that. 42:55 But I think this team in particular, given that everything is so new with the staff and everything that it's not really going to be a big impact. 43:04 Well, I hope it's not an impact. 43:06 I think, though, for the fans, it is a little kind of strange, though, because usually we get thrown into the season here, and in leagues we get thrown into against a huge rival, and now we've got nothing until the end of the month. 43:18 I think so, obviously, Matzko is going to love this because he can get the practice time. 43:21 But for the fans, it's kind of a let's get going, and then we're not going. 43:28 Yeah, it's kind of an awkward start. 43:30 It was the schedule that the staff was left with coming into the year, and they're kind of lucky, actually, to get these two exhibitions scheduled because these weekends were open completely as they were trying to get the year started. 43:43 So they did a nice little deal with the US National Development Team where they play there once, and then they'll come here four times for free. 43:50 So that's a nice little deal for them. 43:52 I always like seeing that team play against Minnesota because you get to see some of the young prospects coming up. 43:59 And then, of course, the Canadian Exhibition. 44:01 So it's an opportunity for them to get their systems organized, hopefully get Blake McLaughlin healthy for the season, and keep working on their systems because as the coaches admitted, they were just trying to get the players some confidence and get their offense going, and they didn't focus too much on systems because they didn't want them thinking too much in the Duluth Series. 44:24 Obviously, that was the right way to go apparently. 44:26 Well, I would agree with you. 44:29 I do love the games with the US. 44:30 National Team. 44:32 We know it's going to be a high-flying game, and we're not going to get to see it, we're not going to get to hear it. 44:38 I guess there could be a stream. 44:39 There will be a hockey TV stream, and it's being broadcast in Michigan on one of their cable channels. 44:47 So there will be some video to watch if people pursue it, but you'll have to pay for it. 44:54 Well, there you go. 44:55 They won't be sending Frank and Wally out, and they won't be calling either of these games. 44:58 So that's just kind of how it is. 45:02 You just kind of have to, maybe just follow the Gopher Hockey Twitter to follow the game on Sunday afternoon, it is. 45:11 Steve has a question for you. 45:12 He's going to the game in Vegas. 45:14 Do you guys know how many tickets were made available to Gopher fans? 45:17 And if I recall veegs, not many were. 45:21 I think it's zero, actually. 45:23 It's a go in his game and they took their ball and kept it. 45:28 And it's basically, it's probably their standard allotment that they give to like friends and family that they usually would give if they were at the Ralph, correct? 45:35 Yeah, I think it would probably just went to the athletic department and parents and boosters and people like that. 45:42 So, sorry Steve, you don't have tickets. 45:45 Good luck. 45:47 Just kind of the way it is. 45:50 What other thoughts you guys got? 45:52 We kind of covered some of the questions via Twitter because a lot of people were talking about the... 45:57 Well, Christian Theroldsen, he was talking, who's to blame about the empty seats of the Don or the Big Ten? 46:04 Norwood Teague. 46:06 It is a lot more Norwood Teague than anything with Don or the Big Ten. 46:10 It's just kind of how things turned out. 46:14 Jess wants to know, is there a real story why the Finnish sensation left his Wisconsin commitment? 46:21 He doesn't buy that it was academic reasons. 46:25 I've heard that the academic requirements for a Finnish-speaking student are difficult, and I think that's part of the reason why he did not attend Madison. 46:37 So they're lost. 46:39 Minnesota's gained. 46:40 He'll be a fun player to watch while he's here. 46:42 I don't really know what the conspiracy would be in that regard because, I mean, let's be honest, if you're going to, as a player, want to go somewhere else, you're not going to do it at the last minute. 46:55 You know what I mean? 46:55 You'd be doing it months ahead of time because you wouldn't have to scramble then. 47:00 So I'm not sure what the conspiracy is on that. 47:05 I do know that Scott Bell spent a week in Finland with Sampo, trying to speak kindly about the University of Minnesota as another option. 47:15 And so I think that went a long way towards swaying him when that issue did arise. 47:20 OK, one of the changes in this regime, though, that you probably found, you did find out Saturday evening was you can talk to freshman players after the game now. 47:30 You don't have to wait that full month. 47:32 Wasn't that refreshing for you, Veegs? 47:35 Yeah, it was nice because Ronta did have a nice game. 47:38 So we were able to talk to him a little bit and get his impressions. 47:41 He didn't really want to share too much about how everything happened. 47:44 Just that he's happy to be at Minnesota. 47:46 You know, he's looking to score goals. 47:50 That's his game. 47:50 Well, I just think it was it's just nice and refreshing that a few little things have changed. 47:56 And you can actually talk to those freshmen now because we've had it so many times in the last, you know, it's all since, well, actually since the, I guess, the Vanik incident that freshmen don't talk or can't be spoken to by the media that first month, unless you have a special case, which unless you're doing a big type of story, but those after games, you could never talk to them for the first month. 48:23 So that was always kind of goofy. 48:25 But new coach, new rules. 48:27 And that's awesome. 48:31 It's very refreshing, some of these things going on. 48:35 Frozen4champs wants to know, is there more alums at the game now that Moscow is in charge? 48:41 I wouldn't know what. 48:42 I don't know if I saw anybody. 48:43 We did see the Don at the game last Sunday. 48:47 The Don was in there. 48:49 You mentioned that. 48:51 I saw Ben Hankinson and Chris McAlpine there. 48:54 They were downstairs after the game. 48:56 Yeah, I did see them. 48:59 Coyle is there a lot, unlike his predecessor, Teague, who never showed up. 49:04 But Coyle is there quite often. 49:07 And of course, even our previous athletic director is there, too. 49:11 He's always there, Maturi. 49:16 But it was kind of weird to see the Don standing in the club, in the Gold Club, or the club upstairs. 49:23 I was about to go downstairs. 49:24 I'm like, oh my gosh, the Don is standing right there. 49:26 And he's just standing there. 49:28 I look, somebody's mentioned that he might have had a beer in his hand, but it looks like he was just enjoying the game. 49:33 And I know you still see him around there sometimes, don't you, Veegs? 49:37 Yeah, he's very content with his decision and where he's at right now. 49:41 And it was a good run. 49:43 Well, he's also still getting paid pretty well, too. 49:46 Yeah, he's been paid well over the 19 years he was coaching. 49:50 So it's good for him. 49:52 He can be a grand granddad for a little bit and relax. 49:55 That is true. 49:56 Mote wants to know, what about the Wuger? 49:57 Well, we don't see the Wuger too much anymore. 50:00 He was at the Matzko's introduction. 50:04 But we'll see the Wuger once or twice a year. 50:08 You know, we'll just have to see. 50:11 Who doesn't love the Wuger? 50:13 All right, guys, you guys got anything else for us here? 50:17 Nick C asked in our questions about fundraising, and I know that it's still ongoing and they don't have enough money to completely redo the strength and conditioning area. 50:28 But I know they bought some new equipment for this season. 50:31 So kind of partial step there, but I think they need a little bit more momentum with their ground game for fundraising. 50:39 Well, hopefully winning and a new coach, new regime, a little more friendly to the previous, than the previous administration was will be a good thing. 50:50 So we'll have to wait and see. 50:53 Hammy, any last thoughts? 50:57 No, I got nothing to say. 50:59 It was a nice start to the season. 51:01 I hope that they take the coming weeks to get really familiar with the system and the coaches and expectations and have that same kind of attitude in their next meaningful game. 51:14 Because certainly, as was pointed out, when you have another rivalry situation coming up, you want to play your best. 51:22 So hopefully they'll have that attitude when they play in North Dakota. 51:26 You can follow Hammy at Hammy Hockey on Twitter, so make sure you go sign up for that. 51:30 You can follow Vegs at E Vego on Twitter. 51:33 And of course, he's writing for GPL. 51:35 And of course, the Athletic, you're working on anything big right now for the Athletic? 51:39 Your next big thing, you obviously did the mailbox late last week. 51:42 And obviously, your preseason stuff last week, what are you working on the next couple of weeks? 51:47 Yeah, we'll have something coming here pretty soon on all that offense that the Gophers flashed on Sunday and where it came from and how they're going to try to keep it going. 51:57 Well, sounds great. 51:58 You know, we'll be back in a couple of weeks. 52:00 We're going to take next week off, but we'll be back next week. 52:03 Well, not next week, sorry, two weeks from now. 52:05 I'm thinking I might try to get Mr. 52:07 Schlossman on again for North Dakota because he was a good guest last time. 52:12 For those of you listening live, we'll have a little bit of overtime now, so stay tuned for that. 52:18 But we'll be back in a few weeks, and we'll preview the Las Vegas Series with North Dakota.