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. 0:44 Good evening, and welcome to the GPL Podcast, episode number 138. 0:52 We are back this week. 0:53 Vegoe will join us in a little bit. 0:56 Kid Terror, as usual. 0:57 Hopefully, he'll join us in the next 10 minutes or so. 0:59 But Hammeh, you're here. 1:02 Doing good this week, Hammeh? 1:04 Are you glad to be back in a normal Wednesday? 1:06 Yeah, I don't have to juggle things as much and stress about whether I'm letting people down. 1:14 Joining us again, you've been here quite a few times, is Nate Wells from The Athletic. 1:19 Nate, how you doing? 1:21 I'm good. 1:22 Thanks for having me back. 1:23 I think it's been a bit since I've been on last. 1:26 Well, we try to get you on at least once a season. 1:28 Yeah, no, I think I just was on the very beginning of last year or something like that. 1:32 Yeah, I think you were. 1:33 But I think the big question is, is this the last time you'll be on? 1:38 I hope not. 1:40 Because obviously you kind of let the cat out of the bag today, you know, more publicly, that you're not going to be in Minnesota anymore, are you? 1:49 No, I'm moving to New York City area later this month. 1:54 And what calls you to New York City? 1:56 Is it a lady? 2:00 It is, it is indeed. 2:01 Well, that's good. 2:02 We won't get into personal here, but we'll miss you on these parts. 2:06 You know, you've become kind of part of the whole gang the last few years and it's been nice having you on. 2:11 So, well, you know, you know, maybe when we do the Penn State recap, we'll have you on because I'm sure you're going to go to Penn State, aren't you? 2:18 Yeah, that would be one I plan on doing. 2:21 It's not, it's like, it's like a three and a half, four hour drive. 2:23 So it's kind of similar this weekend from there where it's be from going from here to Madison. 2:30 And you can drive to the Frozen Four too. 2:33 I could drive the Four, yeah, and Midwest Regional. 2:36 It's like in Allentown because that's somehow 90 minutes away. 2:40 Okay, the Midwest Regional is in Allentown? 2:41 Yeah, the Midwest Regional in Allentown, Pennsylvania. 2:45 Yeah, I've given up on some of the logic of the NCAA. 2:49 I mean, I, but what can I do? 2:53 Well anyway, guys, not a great weekend for the Gophers swept by the Mavericks of Mankato, Hammy, I wasn't there Friday night, but I hear it was ugly. 3:05 What was it? 3:05 It was a 5-1 loss for the Gophers. 3:09 Mavericks just dominated. 3:12 Yeah, I mean, it doesn't take much other than you see some of the plays and these definitely, even if you weren't watching the game, you could see the box score to see some of those guys really had a rough night. 3:23 And it's tough. 3:25 I think that you see a veteran team. 3:29 And we talked about at the beginning of the year that, you know, we thought that this team was going to be successful or not. 3:36 And based on the defensive unit, I think you saw quite a few lapses, especially in that Friday night game. 3:44 And it was just not pretty and they capitalized and you just got to tip your hat to them. 3:49 What happened, Nate? 3:50 I mean, Mankato is good. 3:51 There is no doubt about that. 3:53 But Minnesota is shouldn't be that bad. 3:57 No, yeah, the Friday night, I think really mostly the most disappointing part of at least about Friday night was just the way that Minnesota let Mankato respond in terms of they scored a goal, all the goals, except for the last one, we're all right in front of the net. 4:14 There's kind of low one timers. 4:15 They're able to be physical. 4:17 They're able to outplay the go for defense. 4:19 But then the goals, besides the first one comes on Mankato's second shot of the game. 4:26 The second comes the shift after Minnesota ties it up. 4:30 The third one comes in the opening minute of the second period. 4:34 The fourth one comes the opening minute of the third period. 4:37 So you're kind of just seeing these bits of mental lapse and just leading a little frustration on Friday night. 4:43 And yeah, it was kind of disappointing because you want to see how Minnesota respond to adversity after the North Dakota series and after going down early. 4:52 And that wasn't the response that if you're a Gopher fan, you want to see. 4:57 And you know, I love bringing this up. 4:59 Actually, I don't get sick, but I wish they would do something about it. 5:02 But it looked like Nate, the crowd was very empty. 5:05 The student section was good because it was kind of a free for all for students. 5:09 But I'm hearing the crowd was really bad. 5:12 The student section was good. 5:14 The section behind the other net, which was the Zone 4, which were like the $35 seats, those were pretty good. 5:24 And then kind of the next level up had some Mankato fans. 5:30 But yeah, that and the corporate seats. 5:31 Corporate seats were kind of just what you've kind of expected the last couple of years, unfortunately. 5:37 I'm sure they were sold, but whoever has the tickets and show up. 5:43 And Hammy, we've been talking for about it for a while. 5:47 You know, I thought, you know, some people would get on the the Motzko bandwagon, Lucia is gone, they, you know, they start showing up again. 5:54 But it looks like a lot of these people want to kind of see how good the team is going to be first. 6:01 Well, I mean, obviously it wasn't going to be an overnight thing. 6:04 I mean, I think everybody kind of thought that maybe there'd be a little bit of a boost with the coaching change and all that. 6:09 But I think that, you know, certainly, you know, I think the fans are intelligent enough to know that it's not going to be an immediate turnaround. 6:17 We want things to be done quickly. 6:19 But you are talking about, you know, it's not like the NHL or whatever. 6:23 You can make a bunch of trades and bring guys up for the minors and whatever. 6:26 You're kind of talking about a limited amount of moves you can do, especially when you're coming in and what, you know, April or May for a coach. 6:34 So it's kind of tough, you know, but and I think that they will turn it around. 6:38 But, you know, the immediate, the immediacy, you know, it's just not going to be there. 6:42 You got to work with what they inherited. 6:45 And some of these, you know, we've talked about it, you know, defensively, especially, they just don't have some of the horses that you would need to have that kind of a turnaround. 6:53 And I'm sure that that's partially what's contributing to some of the attendance. 6:58 So, you know, we have the really bad game Friday night against Mankato. 7:03 Saturday night, Nate, you were down there with me. 7:06 You know, I noticed early when they first opened up the place that the Gopher players are playing there, you know, playing some soccer out in the hallway. 7:15 They seem pretty, pretty great spirits. 7:18 And it showed they played much better. 7:20 It was essentially a 1-1 game that, you know, the game winning goal was kind of a fluke. 7:27 You know, Pitlicks trying to kick it and it just kind of kicks it in. 7:29 It was a weird goal. 7:31 But, you know, it's still lost, Nate, but they had to feel a little better about it, didn't they? 7:36 Yeah, it seemed like they felt a little better about their bounce back on Saturday, especially being on the road and Mankato. 7:45 I think there are some positives to kind of take away. 7:50 Moxco completely mixed up the lines. 7:53 He kind of sent a little bit of a message, especially to some of the older forwards and kind of tried to get stuff going. 8:00 I still, from like an even strength perspective, and both games this weekend were kind of tough to kind of get a flow and even strength just because there are 12 penalties called both nights. 8:12 There's a lot of special teams time, but third game in a row where Minnesota scores only on the power play, but the least defensively... 8:22 And only one goal, too. 8:29 But they look better defensively. 8:30 They're able to kind of limit those chances in front of the net and Minnesota State's opportunities. 8:38 Actually, in a way, it kind of felt like a game that the Gophers played during the second half kind of down the stretch of last year where they're almost playing for that 2-1 win. 8:50 I don't know, Hammey. 8:52 This season we thought scoring would be pretty good and they started off pretty well. 8:56 They got one against Duluth and then they opened up for seven, but since then they've had one goal each game. 9:02 Just like Nate said, we haven't had an even strength goal in quite a while here since that Duluth game at Mariucci. 9:10 Are you concerned about the offense? 9:13 Well, I think the analogy that I use is I think the skill up front is there, but it's kind of like you have to be able to get the car out of the garage. 9:22 And I feel like transition game and getting from defense to offense is definitely something that is not really a strength right now. 9:32 And I think that that's kind of what you're seeing is the other teams are for checking hard, making it difficult to really get out of the zone and kind of get things moving in the right direction. 9:43 And once again, it kind of plays back to some of the defensive guys and having the horses that can really get that, gather it and get things moving the other direction. 9:52 And I think we have some guys that have that ability that are maybe a little bit young yet. 9:57 And then we have the older guys that really, frankly, haven't really panned out in that area in particular. 10:02 So that's kind of just a tough, you know, it's the perfect storm, I guess, of negativity for that. 10:10 Well, Nate, one thing that Matsuko talked about in his opening media, you know, press conference this year was 30 seconds of hell. 10:18 Get out there, be aggressive. 10:20 And, you know, we could see that the defense is kind of struggling to get the puck up the ice. 10:24 But I'm also noticing that the offense isn't really getting down there and creating anything either. 10:31 Yeah, they're not. 10:33 And Vegoe gets on and he asked Matsuko about that today. 10:39 Just creating those opportunities. 10:40 But, I mean, just even go back to that Saturday game, you can almost count the number of attempts that the Gophers had just in front of the net or on man rushes or just kind of creating offense that way. 10:56 You can almost count them on one hand. 10:57 Just there were very few, majority of their opportunities and even strength were just moving the puck around, shots from the point. 11:04 It got better towards the end during the third period and kind of just when they're playing a little bit of desperation. 11:11 But yeah, it's still kind of the same as you said, it's still a work in progress. 11:17 Well, we'll just have to see because effort is such a huge thing. 11:23 And we know guys on the defense need to get the puck up too. 11:26 But jeez, if we could get it forward in there causing some pressure just once in a while here, it leads to so many scoring chances. 11:34 You just look at some of the Mankato goals. 11:36 A lot of their goals come that way. 11:38 They come from hard work. 11:39 You know, they could dig down and get the puck, throw it out front. 11:42 There's somebody there. 11:44 And it's just a little disappointing that our forwards aren't getting in there too since this defense is struggling. 11:51 I don't know. 11:52 Just a couple of observations I had. 11:55 And even in that Minnesota Duluth game where they got the seven goals, the only one this year where a regular game that they have more than one, you kind of saw some of those opportunities where Gophers would score from down low or Ren Pellic created an opportunity out of nowhere for a shorthanded goal. 12:14 And just they're able to do things like that. 12:16 They haven't been able to replicate against some of the more older physical teams. 12:22 Sorry, I was muted there. 12:23 I was having a little coughing fit. 12:26 Sorry about that. 12:28 Well, let's go to some questions because I don't really know what else to say about this past weekend because it's just, you know, I missed the game Friday night. 12:39 I was out on a date with a girlfriend for my birthday and she took me to Josh Groban, guys. 12:48 Yeah, it was me and a lot of women and their mothers and their grandmothers. 12:55 And my mom and my sister. 12:56 So there you go. 12:58 They enjoyed the show. 13:02 Yeah, you know, it's not my kind of music. 13:06 It's just not. 13:06 You know, I knew maybe one of his songs. 13:10 But I will give credit to where credit is due, the guy can sure sing live. 13:15 He's a very good singer. 13:18 If someone can sing just as good live as they do recorded, I'm impressed. 13:22 And he did. 13:23 I mean, he's in this great big arena. 13:25 Must have been 10,000 people there and he sounded really good. 13:28 You know, it's just not my cup of tea. 13:30 But I'll give the guy 100% credit. 13:33 He was good. 13:35 Yeah, I said that. 13:36 He's good. 13:36 But it's just... 13:39 I like people who can sing and he can sing. 13:41 So there is that. 13:43 So who knows? 13:45 Vegoe is still having some kid problems. 13:46 He says it's getting closer though. 13:47 So good luck with that, Veegs. 13:53 So we do have a question. 13:54 Well, we got a bunch of Twitter questions. 13:55 Let's hit up a couple of them. 13:56 I know I said Voner sent one earlier today. 13:59 And Hammeh, let's listen to you. 14:03 Did the Gophers choose the wrong Minnesota coach? 14:05 Matsko over Hastings. 14:07 Did they choose the wrong guy? 14:09 Well, I think we're a little bit premature for that kind of... 14:13 Well, you know how people are. 14:14 They jump to conclusions. 14:16 Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't have mattered. 14:19 I don't think it would have mattered right now who is the coach. 14:22 I mean, they have to work with what they were largely inherited. 14:25 So I don't think that that's... 14:27 You know, I think that certainly Matzko is a better... 14:30 Or actually, I don't know if he's better or not, but he's certainly more of an offensive-minded coach, whereas Hastings has been known over the years as being more of a defensive-minded guy. 14:40 So there is that kind of philosophy that would... 14:43 You know, you say, well, maybe being a little more conservative this year would be more effective. 14:49 I mean, we talked about it earlier about, you know, how they're trying to play maybe the more lower-scoring games. 14:55 Now, is that really what we would want to have for the long-term, you know, at this program? 15:00 I don't think so. 15:01 I think most fans would rather have the race horse hockey up and down the rink and maybe not, you know, seven to four games or, you know, those super high-scoring ones and you're not playing defense necessarily very good. 15:13 But I think that we don't want the Mike Eves kind of style either, you know, where it's low-scoring and rather dull. 15:20 So I'm not saying Hastings is that way, but I think that he certainly has that more of a conservative style as a coach. 15:28 So I think Matsuko is the right guy. 15:30 And I think that, you know, you just got to give him time to build his team up to the way he envisions it. 15:36 And, you know, I think some people always forget too is that, you know, people did rip on St. 15:41 Cloud and their NCAA appearances, but they did win at least a few games. 15:46 Whereas on the other hand, Nate, Mankato has had come into the tournament many times as a very high seed and not done well these last few years. 15:55 Yeah, they're kind of the new St. 15:57 Cloud of the 2000s. 16:00 That way. 16:01 Because I was St. 16:02 Cloud's rep for a while where it was, they would make the NCAAs a lot of times would be like maybe it's like a three seed or something, and then they lose the first round. 16:12 Yeah, Mankato is 0 for 6 right now. 16:16 Lost as the number one overall seed a few years ago. 16:21 They lost to Duluth as the two seed this year. 16:26 I watched all the loose games and I'll give credit to Hastings and Mankato. 16:30 I thought that they played them, they probably had the best chance of winning because they were able to get up ahead 2-0. 16:37 And I mean, the way Duluth played last year was once they're able to get a lead, they just could clamp down and rely on goaltending and defense to kind of get away. 16:46 And that's what they're able to do both frozen four games. 16:51 So they almost pulled it off there. 16:54 But yeah, I think the thing with the way that Hastings coaches and it's kind of built Mankato up and the way that Moscow built up St. 17:04 Cloud are two completely different ways. 17:07 Mankato is very much more, they both do a good job of finding kind of some diamonds in the rough, but Mankato is certainly built more upon bringing in 20-year-old freshmen, having some good players come out of the USHL that maybe developed late or even someone like Jake Jeremko who quote-unquote scored the winning goal on Saturday. 17:29 I guess he was credited for it, but he was Mr. 17:33 Hockey a few years ago, but he ended up playing in the USHL for a couple extra years after that. 17:39 They have Ryan Sandlin in the pipeline kind of doing something similar there where he really goes to high school and ends up playing. 17:46 I think if he goes to another school, he'd probably be in college right now. 17:50 I don't know if you can kind of replicate that if you're Hastings in Minnesota. 17:55 That's not to say that he wouldn't do a great job as the coach of the Gophers, but I think it's kind of hard to say. 18:06 I think the Moscow style is a little similar, more closer to what you'd expect out of a Minnesota coach. 18:14 And honestly, the fact that we're talking about this like a month in the season is kind of awesome. 18:19 You're still a lot when there's a lot of hockey to be played too. 18:22 There's a lot of time for Moscow to kind of put his own stamp on the program too. 18:26 OK, so you guys brought up St. 18:29 Cloud's failures in the playoffs. 18:32 So I have to tell this because I always laugh at this one. 18:35 I didn't personally witness this one, but I think it was PJL on GPL. 18:41 That's the poster. 18:43 He always would tell me about one time he went to some autograph session. 18:47 This was back when Ptole, Grant Ptole was still a player. 18:51 And I think he was signing autographs and some guy went up there and wanted Ptole to sign an autograph for his friend that was a St. 18:59 Cloud fan. 19:01 And without missing a beat, Ptole said, well, who does he vote for in the playoffs? 19:08 I love that one. 19:09 I always love that one. 19:10 I'm sure it was even better in person. 19:12 You know, they've had a little more success recently, but yeah, you're right. 19:19 You know, Mankato is kind of following that St. 19:21 Cloud thing from 15 years ago, where they just couldn't win a game. 19:26 It's just the way it happens. 19:29 It's kind of weird. 19:29 Let's get to some more questions here. 19:32 John Candels, he's always sending us questions and he wants to know. 19:36 He sends me questions on my podcast. 19:39 Yeah, he follows everyone, it sounds like. 19:42 He says, Is the toughest part of the season behind the Gophers? 19:46 And is it too early to make this weekend a must sweep? 19:49 Has the Big Ten not lived up to its high expectations or is it too early to tell? 19:53 That's kind of a mouthful or a lot of it there, Hammeh. 19:56 But is the toughest part of the season behind already? 19:59 Well, maybe for the non-conference it is, but. 20:03 Yeah, I mean, I don't know. 20:04 It's kind of early to tell because we're still basically in the first month of the season. 20:09 And we all know that teams that look like Superman in the first month or two look like Lois Lane by the end of the season. 20:17 So, I mean, it's a little too early to really tell who's going to do what. 20:22 I know that some teams are more likely than others to be strong by the end of the season because of past history and whatever. 20:28 But I really think it's just too early to tell. 20:32 I think that, yeah, obviously you expect us saying, or excuse me, at Duluth or Minnesota State because of recent history, those teams have been pretty good NCAA contenders. 20:43 But, you know, let's just see how some of this pans out with the conference. 20:48 I know some teams maybe haven't done quite as well as maybe we thought they would. 20:52 But I think this upcoming weekend will be a good start. 20:56 You know, I think Wisconsin's got some talent, even if they haven't been rolling per se right out of the gates. 21:02 I think that it'll be a good test. 21:06 Sounds like we've got Vegoe on the line. 21:07 Are the kids to bed now, Veegs? 21:10 They're close. 21:12 Close enough for me to leave. 21:14 Yeah, we'll see how that goes later. 21:16 Yeah, we'll see how it goes. 21:19 Thanks for having me on, guys. 21:22 Anytime. 21:25 Well, Veegs, we've kind of covered the games already this weekend. 21:27 We're getting into some questions. 21:29 Let's hear your thoughts on it. 21:31 Do you think the toughest part of the season is over for the Gophers? 21:35 I think the toughest part of the schedule was just the jumpiness of it. 21:40 Having the break and not be able to get in their flow and then playing these big rugged teams like North Dakota and Minnesota State. 21:48 I don't think you can really prepare well for those kind of contests unless you're playing games. 21:54 And it showed. 21:55 And at the same time, Monska was trying to make his mark with how he wants his team to play. 22:00 So you combine those things and it's just been stop and start kind of season. 22:06 I think now that they're playing some games, we'll see what kind of impact Monska's coaching will have and we'll see what kind of team they have. 22:13 Since you're just joining us now, do you want to give us your thoughts on the Friday night that you witnessed? 22:19 Yeah, I think I was just disappointed because the team in the flow of play didn't play that poorly, but they just made a couple mistakes where people were checked out on their checks and they gave up some pretty easy goals to Minnesota State. 22:38 When you're playing top teams like Minnesota plays, when you make mistakes, the other team has enough talent to make you pay for it. 22:45 Once the game got out of touch maybe a little bit, the most disappointing thing I think was seeing the bad body language by a lot of guys on the team. 22:55 You saw guys not really giving any effort. 22:58 There's just kind of discombobulation from line shift to line shift. 23:04 One guy would be working hard, the other four would be checked out. 23:07 So that was a little frustrating to see, I think. 23:09 And I saw in the lineup that Monska went with the next night. 23:13 He made some changes based on that effort that he saw in the game on Friday. 23:19 And they responded a little bit more on Saturday to it. 23:22 And we'll see if it carries over to this weekend. 23:26 Well, let's just get a little bit back to John Candle's question here. 23:29 Let's send this to you, Nate. 23:30 Has the Big Ten not lived up to its highest expectations or is it just too early to tell? 23:36 I think for the most part it has. 23:38 We're kind of at the point where you are in terms of non-conference where you're kind of understanding how the non-conference part is going to shape out in terms of which conferences are going to be the best. 23:54 And for that effort, right now it's the NCHC, Big Ten, WCHA. 24:01 The Western College Hockey this year is kind of a dominant, which kind of brings over a little bit from last season too. 24:07 So I still think maybe not for the expectations that come with having three teams in the Frozen Four, that you're going to be so dominant in that end. 24:18 And there are some disappointments. 24:21 Minnesota being 1-3-1 right now. 24:24 Michigan's kind of had a few stumbles. 24:28 Ohio State's had a couple more stumbles than maybe you would have expected. 24:32 But I still think the Big Ten has kind of had the success that you would expect from a conference that is looking to send 3, 4, 5, 6 teams to the NCAA tournament. 24:47 Alright, well we've got a bunch of questions. 24:49 And obviously we've got to get to the BADgers this weekend. 24:51 But before we do that, let's hear from our sponsor. 24:55 vintagemnhockey.com is a proud sponsor of the GPL Podcast. 25:00 Well, what is Vintage MN Hockey? 25:03 Well, it's kind of the place to get all of your history of Minnesota hockey from the pros to the minors to the collegiate teams to even the high school teams. 25:13 All information about any of those teams can be found on vintagemnhockey.com. 25:18 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. 25:27 So make sure you check out those interviews. 25:29 It's a really great thing. 25:30 But as I always say, I think my favorite part is the store. 25:34 The store, you can buy a custom historical jersey from the Gophers or the Bulldogs or some of your favorite high school teams. 25:41 And if you do make a purchase, just use the code GPL Podcast, all one word, and you'll get 10% off your order. 25:48 So make sure you visit vintagemnhockey.com and follow them on Twitter at VintageMNHockey. 25:56 Well, I just got to say that in the Mixler Chat, Mote is back and he wants to know, did he miss a segment where Joop's gal had to hold his hair on his birthday? 26:09 What would we do without you, Mote? 26:10 You're here to entertain us. 26:13 In case you missed it, yes, I did have to go to the Josh Groban concert, and I had a better time than anyone did at Mariucci because it was diseased at Mariucci. 26:22 So there is that. 26:26 Hammeh, we need to get into some recruiting here. 26:27 I see a bunch of recruiting questions, and let's just start off with some basics here. 26:31 Cameron just wants to know, do you have any updates? 26:33 Is there any kind of new things happening right now? 26:38 It's kind of funny because Veegs and I were kind of texting back and forth about this today. 26:43 I think, you know, it's a little bit kind of quiet because I believe that there's probably some work in the background being done as far as maybe trying to get some guys to do the switcheroo kind of late in the game because I think that we've seen that some of the guys that they had in the pipeline that they inherited really aren't showing enough to, I'm sure, to convince them that they're worthwhile investments in the long run. 27:12 And I think that in the short run, we know we're going to be losing players next year and you don't want to have to rush guys in ahead of time. 27:22 So I have the feeling that, you know, that they're trying to work on maybe getting some guys to, a few guys to switch late in the game. 27:30 And, you know, the signing period is coming up. 27:32 And then so I think it might be one of those things where some of that kind of background work is going on. 27:37 Now, I'm not saying that that's going to happen, but I would, I have a pretty good idea that that's, you know, in the works. 27:44 But it's just whether or not they're going to be able to make those changes. 27:48 It's just, it's hard to know. 27:50 Things are kind of quiet in that sense. 27:52 You know, Sky Yee Ra kind of went on the recruiting thing there. 27:55 He's like, he says, Bob flip commitments, but I'm not sure I've heard any existing verbal commits to Minnesota have decommitted. 28:03 Have we had any for sure decommits recently? 28:07 Well, we saw Kaden Bolson open up his commitment from Des Moines on the line sheet. 28:13 You know, he hasn't said anything on social media about where he's going or if he's officially decommitted. 28:19 But when you remove who you're committed to on your social media and on the line chart for Des Moines, that's a pretty good sign. 28:28 I haven't gotten that officially from the U of M yet. 28:31 Bob doesn't really like to talk recruiting with anybody in any way. 28:36 So some of the previous staff would kind of let you know if they were onto somebody or not. 28:42 Bob's pretty quiet about it. 28:43 And I know right now they're just trying to feel out what kind of players are going to come in, who's going to sign, because the NCAA rules want you to sign your commitments with the expectation that they're going to enroll next year. 28:57 And I don't think Bob quite knows who he wants to come in for next year yet. 29:01 And I think that that's kind of what we're talking about, playing in with regard to trying to get some late changes. 29:11 Because, yeah, I think that he doesn't want to commit to certain guys yet. 29:15 I think certain guys, he would look at me. 29:17 He made a living out of getting some guys to delay. 29:20 And I think we've seen that with some other programs in recent years that have been pretty successful at getting guys to delay. 29:26 And it's not that the Gophers haven't done that as well. 29:29 But I think that we need to do a better job in that area and kind of give guys a little bit extra time to find their way in juniors after high school. 29:39 And one of the things is with the current people who are verbal committed, they committed to Don for the most part. 29:45 So you have a lot of guys here who may be committed under a different understanding and Bob is trying to figure out how to massage the situation. 29:54 Any chance on Brink? 29:56 That's kind of one of the big names out there, isn't it? 30:02 Well, people like to speculate on it, of course, and we've all speculated on it. 30:09 I know that people were bringing up the fact that he recently started following the Gopher Hockey Twitter and if that meant anything. 30:16 Everybody's trying to read the tea leaves and some of that stuff. 30:19 Obviously, he's been very successful early on in the USHL and you'd love to have that kind of a kid. 30:25 Given the fact that he's got family ties, you've got to expect that they're going to at least make a push on that, but whether or not they would be successful and that's an entirely different guessing game. 30:39 Skyyura also asked, does Bob need to be successful this year? 30:43 We'll throw that one at you, Nate. 30:45 He says yes, but he also thinks it's a little bit unfair. 30:51 I think the expectations are always at Minnesota is to compete and make the NCAA tournament. 30:58 That said, I do think this year is a little bit of a wall again. 31:01 I think the expectations are a little bit more long term in getting the program going in a way that is competing consistently for a national championship. 31:13 I've kind of always had the idea that this year might be a bit more of a reloading year, maybe possibly more of a rebuilding year, but I think it's Minnesota. 31:25 The expectations are going to be there. 31:30 People get mad when Minnesota doesn't win. 31:33 People are mad when Minnesota is a top five team, a number one seed, and loses in the first round of the NCAA tournament after winning the Big Ten. 31:43 It's tough to keep everybody happy. 31:47 Veegs, do you think Motzko gets kind of a mulligan this year? 31:52 I don't think at Minnesota you get mulligans. 31:55 We've seen that with other coaches in the past. 31:58 The expectations are there. 32:00 There is a lot of talent up at Ford right now. 32:04 He's just got to figure out a way to make it work. 32:06 He's got good goaltending. 32:08 The special teams has been really good so far. 32:10 He's got good power play units, good penalty killers. 32:14 There's something there to work with this season. 32:16 I think the expectation is for them to make the NCAA tournament. 32:21 How much of a run they can make? 32:23 It's hard to say. 32:23 The defensemen still need to show a little bit more growth for that to be a possibility. 32:29 To be fair, we are talking about a team that was just a little over 500 last year. 32:37 Lucia, when he took over for Woog, his first year was just a little over 500. 32:47 The current situation is a lot healthier than it was back when Lucia took over for the Woog, but nonetheless, you do have to give a guy a little bit of an opportunity to build up his vision of the team. 33:00 When you're talking about the fact that he was what coach he just got hired seven months ago, that's not a lot of time to build up your team and your vision. 33:15 When he took over St. 33:16 Cloud, they were probably a game or two away from making the NCAA tournament in his first year. 33:21 I think he's got more to work with this year as well. 33:23 Do you have anything else to say, Nate? 33:27 I thought I heard you chime in. 33:29 I was going to say he has one player this year that he recruited everyone else as Lucia. 33:35 I think this is going to be, at least for this year, and I kind of hate saying it because I think Duluth is going to make it in vogue for the next five years, but it's not how you start, it's how you finish. 33:47 This is going to be a long year. 33:49 You're building towards being a much different and better team in February and March than right now. 33:56 If they're going to take those early growing pains, it's better that it happens now than towards the end of the season. 34:05 Well, I can hope so. 34:06 Scott Urod's got another question here. 34:08 I'm not sure any of us can really answer it. 34:09 He says, we all can track attendance, but is anyone tracking television audiences to see if it's dwindling too? 34:17 And is television trending going down across all leagues? 34:21 Vegoe, do we have any idea what's going on with television? 34:24 I mean, years ago, we used to hear numbers from FSN, but we don't really get those things anymore. 34:31 Yeah, FSN used to publicize how well they were doing in the ratings. 34:35 They'd kind of highlight some of their biggest viewed games and things like that and give an average kind of publicly for advertisers. 34:44 They've kind of pulled back on doing that. 34:46 I know the only ratings we can really see are the ESPN ratings, and I know Nate is pretty on top of that as well. 34:57 Any thoughts, Nate? 34:59 Yeah, I wish I could remember what they were off the top of my head, but they looked pretty good. 35:03 I'd say College Hockey, I mean, in terms of TV, there's never been more College Hockey on TV. 35:08 Agreed, yes. 35:10 I mean, even going back like 10 years ago, you'd almost be the only games that you would find on TV were the Gopher game, maybe Wisconsin, maybe Maine. 35:23 If CBS Sports had something on occasionally, like there weren't too many games on, and now pretty much every team has some sort of local or conference-wide deal to kind of either get on TV or streaming, which just makes so, I mean, it makes non-conference a little bit more hard to get on TV. 35:46 But I know that the Minnesota Notre Dame game last year, that was on ESPN2, I believe it did pretty well. 35:55 And you've seen that in the past, though, too, even in the NCAA tournaments. 35:59 I recall you reciting numbers for the NCAA tournament that Minnesota still was the big dog in driving TV viewers. 36:09 It's pretty much, it's your brand name schools, North Dakota and North Dakota are the teams that draw. 36:16 And yeah, Minnesota is still a huge draw in terms of national college hockey. 36:21 But yeah, so it's pretty much, those are your draws in college hockey are your brand name football schools in North Dakota because North Dakota, just credit to their fan base for tuning in whenever and wherever. 36:36 Well, we appreciate all the Twitter questions this week. 36:38 You know, if you're listening live on Mixler, actually a lot of people Mixler, just send it to us through that chat. 36:45 One thing they were saying this weekend is I didn't even realize that the Friday games taped delayed, Veegs. 36:54 Yeah, not too often you see people late anymore. 36:58 Hey, people wanted it how it used to be, right? 37:03 GopherPuck tape delay. 37:06 I used to put that sticker up on the side. 37:08 You're right, Veegs. 37:11 The funny thing is I think if we have satellite, a lot of times if they're showing it in Wisconsin, we'll kind of pick up that FSN Wisconsin feed on satellite, one of those extra channels. 37:20 So I'd have to check my schedule, see if it's going to be live for me. 37:23 I guess I don't know yet. 37:24 We'll have to see. 37:26 But we do know that this past week in the radio certainly had problems in Mankato. 37:32 Nate, you and I witnessed that when Frank and Wally, it basically melted down. 37:38 They went off the air and they were down and it was just not good. 37:44 Veegs, were you witness to that? 37:45 Were you listening on the radio? 37:47 Yeah, a little bit. 37:48 It's always fun to see Frank and Wally get fired up on stuff like that because it's a little bit out of their control. 37:55 I know what happened to them at some other buildings too where the Wi-Fi can be a little unreliable. 38:00 It happened in Duluth as well. 38:02 Yeah, and while he was on the phone trying to get a hold of them, eventually Wally called on the phone and was calling the game through his iPhone. 38:11 He's handing it over to Frank while he's trying to solve some of the problems. 38:16 Mr. 38:17 Mazako had to call a game for a couple minutes, which he hasn't done in a while. 38:22 It was pretty comical to watch from the other side of the arena because we could clearly see him struggling over there. 38:29 But they got it together and they got back on the air and it looks like things did work out in the end. 38:34 But it was entertaining, I'll tell you that. 38:36 Excuse me, I'm still trying to get over a cold here. 38:40 Well, let's get to this weekend, guys. 38:42 Bucky Badger heading down to the Coles Center. 38:47 Recently, Hammy, the Gophers have done pretty well in the Coles Center. 38:51 At least I know these seniors have maybe only lost a few games down there. 38:55 So, you know, right off the bat, at least it looks like there could be some encouraging news, at least in the Coles Center. 39:05 Well, I mean, I think we all know that when you get those rivalry series, you can kind of throw everything out the window because, you know, you got that just the heat of the rivalry. 39:16 And, you know, if one team is down, the other team is up, sometimes that doesn't even matter. 39:22 I would suspect that, you know, it's going to be an entertaining series. 39:26 I just hope that we see a little bit better of a performance and some aspects of our team, because I don't want us to see us laying eggs on the road, and hopefully they learn some lessons this past weekend, and we'll see a little bit crisper performance and certainly moving the puck more effectively. 39:44 And Wisconsin is definitely not the team that we got used to for several years under Mike Eaves. 39:50 I mean, they're definitely more talented and more of an offensive-minded team, and so hopefully that will play into an entertaining series. 39:59 Veegs, what do you think? 40:03 Well, I think one of the fun things about the new coaching staff at Wisconsin is they don't play that boring style. 40:08 They try to get up and down a little bit. 40:11 Granado is trying to temper that a little bit this week saying that they're going to kind of slow the Gopher game down and try to keep it from becoming a running gun. 40:19 But some of the players he's been bringing in, they're having a hard time doing that. 40:23 And I think the cycle of the roster right now at Wisconsin is a little bit in flux. 40:30 There's a lot of young players that are getting ice time for them right now. 40:33 And this is a series that Minnesota has done well. 40:35 I think they're like 10-4 and 1 in their last couple years playing the BADgers. 40:40 So it's a team they've had success against. 40:43 And I'm looking for them to get some goals off the rush this week. 40:46 And hopefully they'll be able to figure out their ground game a little bit. 40:49 Now, Nate, you usually head down to Madison, but I believe you're not going this year, are you? 40:54 No, I'm not going this year. 40:55 I've been the last three or four. 40:59 So you're right about them playing. 41:02 Well, I think they only lost one of the last six. 41:06 And we are hearing from Twitter and from the Mixler chat that the game is taped to late on Fox Sports North. 41:11 But if you have satellite, it will be live on Fox Sports Wisconsin. 41:16 So, Figgs, you're on DirecTV, aren't you? 41:20 Yep, I'm on DirecTV. 41:21 So I'll be able to get it live. 41:23 Most of us will be able to get it live. 41:25 I'm not sure with all the cable people. 41:29 So it's half-taped late. 41:30 It's not completely old school, but we'll have to see. 41:34 Nate, do you remember those days, tape delayed? 41:36 I do, yeah. 41:38 I always love to when people bring up how every game was on TV back in the good old days, and no one ever brings up how a third of the games were on tape delay. 41:52 Well, I don't know if it was a third of the games. 41:55 I mean, it got to by the end of the tape delay era, it got to a decent amount because the Timberlost and the Wild both got rid of their over-the-air provider. 42:06 Yeah. 42:07 And that was kind of the key thing was the Timberlost and the Wild all of a sudden coming over to FSM. 42:11 Otherwise, in the 90s, everything on FSM was pretty much live. 42:15 And Vegoe kind of did remember back in the day, I used to put a little sticker up by the GPL logo on the site that said, GPL tape delay, just poking fun at it. 42:27 Because, you know, Hammy, we've heard it all over these years. 42:31 Oh, they're not on TV enough, they're not on TV enough. 42:33 But people forget, you know, they were not always on TV, and they were on tape delayed. 42:37 And we really kind of got spoiled for a long time there. 42:42 Yes, you know, I think everybody did. 42:45 And we're spoiled now. 42:47 Yeah, well, I mean, I'm probably the last person to ask that, because it's like, you know how I go off on people being spoiled about it in comparison to other programs and their fan bases. 43:01 They would love to have our quote unquote problem, you know, our first world problems, right? 43:07 Where's the game? 43:08 I can't find the game. 43:09 Oh, shut up. 43:10 Yeah, so I mean, I understand it's always difficult when you kind of have to, you're so used to a certain way of things happening and it does change. 43:20 But all things considered, we have a pretty good deal here. 43:25 Veegs, how important is this weekend? 43:29 I mean, we've talked about Minnesota trying to get that weird October schedule, and then they played two games this past weekend and now they're in conference play. 43:38 It really starts to count now. 43:41 Yeah, I think the stretch here until the winter break is huge for the program because it can either get them into a steady style of play and figure out what they've got, or they could get into a funk and it could be a really ugly season. 43:55 So I think it's important for them to play well in the games coming up. 44:00 If you can't get excited for playing Wisconsin, there's big issues to solve. 44:07 Jess in the Mixer Chat saying, Coles Center get a thousand fans? 44:10 Yes, they'll have more than a thousand fans. 44:14 We've obviously seen these last few years that Coles Center has had some attendance issues as well. 44:21 Not like Minnesota when it's under 5,000 a few times, but Coles Center has been quite empty recently. 44:28 Last couple of years, they've gotten some decent crowds, especially in that Saturday Night Game for Minnesota. 44:33 But they have the same issue that a lot of teams in the upper Midwest have had in terms of filling the building. 44:42 So, I mean, there's not a huge difference with Wisconsin and Minnesota and going up to St. 44:48 Cloud, Duluth. 44:49 I mean, when Minnesota comes to town, it usually ends up being the high mark in terms of attendance for all these schools. 44:57 Yeah, and I think the attendance weekend will be saved a little bit by the football team being on the road at Penn State. 45:04 So I think we'll see good crowds this weekend. 45:06 Tom Molesky does a good job on showing the tickets sold and the tickets scanned. 45:10 And for the Gopher game the last couple of years since they did the coaching change, you know, it's been better. 45:16 They still have that big building to fill. 45:18 So you never know for those other games. 45:20 But for the Minnesota game, it will be packed. 45:22 Have you seen any numbers yet this year for Mariucci? 45:28 It's about 70 percent of announced is about what it is right now. 45:32 So if they announce it at 10,000, it's probably 7,000. 45:36 If it's 9,000, it's between 6 and 7. 45:40 So it's kind of the same issues for Minnesota. 45:43 It was about 8,300 for Fridays when they announced. 45:48 And the past few years, they've been averaging over 2,000 no-shows. 45:54 Yeah, it's about 70 percent scan. 45:56 So they're probably around 6,000 for the Minnesota State game. 46:00 And they're trying. 46:01 They're trying to let all their student ticket holders in. 46:04 You know, if all those students showed up, that'd be about five sections worth of people. 46:11 Yeah, you know. 46:12 Obviously, there weren't five sections of students there. 46:16 No, there were. 46:16 Well, I didn't see it. 46:17 So I can't tell you. 46:19 But I'm just going off of what you guys said. 46:20 You guys did say the students on Friday night was pretty good. 46:25 Not packed, but was much better than usual. 46:27 So we'll have to see. 46:33 But Nate, what does Minnesota need to do to get going this weekend? 46:35 Obviously, I think five on five goals is pretty huge. 46:39 Yeah, I guess get something going, even strength, which has been missing the last two weekends. 46:46 I'm really just curious to see. 46:48 I want to see that Minnesota working on being a bit of a more disciplined team, kind of stop taking inopportune penalties, little kind of small things like icing during power plays. 47:05 Just kind of maybe see if these are things that they're able to work through while playing games on two games a weekend, as they will be for the rest of the first half. 47:16 I think Wisconsin is a good team, though, to kind of go against for this, because they've kind of been playing a bit of a similar team, a younger team, but they've been playing similar, where they're either struggling to score, maybe get a goal or two, or they're putting up six or seven. 47:34 So they are a bit of a dangerous team. 47:35 They're a bit of a young team, but I do think they're a good test. 47:39 I kind of think the next few weekends are going to be really good ones from Minnesota, where it's Wisconsin and St. 47:43 Lawrence, a team that's kind of been struggling, and a Michigan State team that picked a finish towards the bottom but has beaten a couple of good teams this year already. 47:52 Hammy, these penalties are really starting to concern me. 47:56 They've got to lock some of these dumb penalties down. 47:58 They've got to cut it in half, at least, because their specialty teams are doing fairly good, Hammy, but boy, you just can't keep doing this. 48:07 No, I agree. 48:07 I mean, certainly, we obviously don't have a huge margin for error, at least not what we've seen thus far this season, so you don't want to give the other team that many opportunities. 48:18 So you definitely need to be a little bit smarter in how they're playing the game and avoid the penalty box. 48:25 Of course, you could say that with any team in any circumstances, but when your offense isn't clicking on all cylinders, you really have to be careful about limiting those opportunities for the opponent. 48:37 And V, like we talked about, they are doing pretty good on killing penalties, but that's the problem. 48:41 When you're killing penalties, you're getting more tired. 48:44 You don't have as much energy because you're expending so much energy killing these penalties. 48:49 Yeah, Bob Monsko said that Tyler Sheehy is killing way too many penalties. 48:54 He's expending all his energy in the gas tank with a man down. 48:59 It was kind of interesting. 49:00 I was talking to Tyler today and he said, you know, it's funny. 49:03 He probably had about three shifts this weekend with Tommy Novak five on five because they spent so much time either killing penalties or on the power play. 49:14 So it's kind of a sticky situation for them to work through. 49:19 Bob says it's not being undisciplined. 49:22 I don't know if that means it's laziness, but it's something they got to address and they got to stop taking penalties. 49:30 They definitely do because it's like Nate, you and I heard the same thing Saturday night after the game. 49:36 He's like, you know, we can't, we're just expending too much energy and then it leaves us so tired five on five. 49:42 Yeah, I mean, a lot of those penalties that they took were just kind of like holding or just tripping or just kind of just being kind of caught out of position. 49:51 And yeah, it was once one. 49:56 I don't know if it's just this time of year where the rules are being emphasized and rest are going to call out. 50:01 But I mean, the second period of Saturday's game, there's a stretch where it's about seven and a half minutes straight. 50:09 Give or take a couple of seconds maybe where just somebody was in the penalty box killing a penalty, whether it was Minnesota or Minnesota State. 50:17 It just is really hard just to get any flow going. 50:20 But I mean, the Gophers ended up taking five, maybe five penalties in a row on Saturday between the second and third period. 50:28 It just after they were down and just they were just in a they were in a position where they had ended up having to kill a lot of penalties. 50:38 And just were doing that rather than looking for in that opportunity to kind of tie the game and just maintain possession and kind of put their own stamp on things. 50:47 I mean, this team has 32 minor penalties in five games. 50:53 You can't win doing that. 50:54 And a lot of these penalties are not only the holding the stick penalties, they're also behind the play. 51:01 You know, they're not impacting scoring chances very often. 51:04 You know, there's maybe one or two in the Minnesota State Series where you're thinking, OK, that's a good penalty. 51:10 It took away a scoring chance. 51:12 The majority of these minor penalties, though, are just lazy behind the play, you know, just extending contact with your opponent and costing your team. 51:21 Now, Veegs, what do we look for from Wisconsin this weekend? 51:27 I mean, who should be watching out for? 51:29 Who's going to be their goaltender? 51:30 You got any thoughts on that? 51:32 I don't have any thoughts there. 51:33 I'm going to definitely be watching Kandre Miller. 51:36 He's a player who got away from Minnesota and made a splash for them right away. 51:41 Tarek Baker, he is one that sort of got away from Minnesota. 51:46 You know, they kind of cooled on him and he's at Wisconsin. 51:49 So, you know, they've had a lot of roster turnover the last couple of years, so they've got some new players to watch. 51:56 Hammeh, I'm just going to throw this one on at you. 51:59 I'm thinking just flat out effort is going to be a big deal this weekend against the BADgers. 52:06 Well, I mean, certainly, I think it's that and you want to see the passion, right? 52:10 I mean, it's a rivalry series, so definitely you want to see that effort and passion in the team. 52:16 And, you know, I think as fans, we always want to win, but I think ultimately we can live with certain losses if we feel like the effort was truly there and it was a hard fought game. 52:28 And, you know, it was very competitive. 52:30 And, you know, we don't get, you know, Gopher fans don't care so much for moral victories. 52:36 And I'm certainly not in that moral victory crowd either. 52:38 But at a minimum, you want to see that kind of passion and effort in these kind of series. 52:44 So you're not saying you're watching football this weekend for a moral victory? 52:49 What are we talking about? 52:50 Gopher football? 52:51 What football are we talking about? 52:53 Youngest team in America. 52:56 Yeah, well, yeah, I don't get too much into this moral victory stuff. 53:01 Gophers are going for record defense given up. 53:04 They should just go for records now because that's pathetic. 53:07 I don't know. 53:09 Nate, your prediction on the weekend. 53:13 But two things before I get to that. 53:16 I found the TV ratings for those Notre Dame games last year. 53:21 Sixty thousand on NBCSN and one hundred twenty four thousand on ESPN2. 53:25 So a little bit of a difference in terms of the channel visibility and everything. 53:30 But just kind of give a ballpark of how those are. 53:36 And then also because Vegoe mentioned just not sure about who to look at. 53:42 Our good friend Todd Molesky of the Wisconsin State Journal said, good chance Jack Berry doesn't start Friday. 53:50 It's Daniel Lebedev. 53:51 And then no Linus Weisbach either. 53:54 So who probably would be honestly my him. 53:59 He'd probably be my guy. 54:00 I'd want to watch anyway. 54:01 So it's a little disappointing. 54:02 But I think Minnesota splits this weekend. 54:09 I hope that they end up coming out a little better Friday night. 54:14 It kind of seemed at least so far through the first three series. 54:18 If you want to include North Dakota, that first game has kind of been a bit of a struggle to figure out pace and just kind of find a flow. 54:30 But it sounds like, and just kind of watching practice today, it seems like they're very competitive. 54:36 They're trying to work through things. 54:39 But I still think it ends up being a split. 54:44 They're kind of two similar teams on that end. 54:46 I'm with you, Nate. 54:47 I think it's going to be a split or I'd be happy with a split right now. 54:50 I'm just looking for positive, moving in the right direction. 54:54 We'll have to see how that goes. 54:56 That's what I'm thinking, Nate, or not Nate Ivey. 55:01 Yeah, I'm looking at a split too. 55:04 The play hasn't been very consistent so far this season. 55:09 The team is kind of feeling their way out. 55:10 I just see that inconsistent effort from player to player. 55:14 And it might take a while for this team to start to gel. 55:19 I think it'll be interesting to see if Sammy Walker plays center again. 55:22 Scott Reedy will be out again for the Gophers. 55:26 I thought Walker looked pretty good at center. 55:27 He used his speed. 55:30 I think he looks a little bit like Justin Cluse out there. 55:33 So if he can bring that kind of speed to Tyler Sheehy's line, maybe we'll see something start to click there. 55:39 Sammy? 55:44 Yeah, split. 55:45 Road split. 55:47 That's the standard expectation, especially in a rivalry series. 55:51 I don't expect a road sweep. 55:52 So it'd be nice, but I don't think we've seen enough from this team to really put that much stock into any kind of predictions of a sweep. 56:03 Mote says he should have said sweep. 56:05 Ote, Mote. 56:10 Well, it's Rivalry Week, better dead than red. 56:14 Hopefully this team brings some spirit to the weekend. 56:17 We just have to hope so. 56:19 Nate, you're going to be leaving us soon. 56:22 But before then, you got anything for the athletic coming out that's going to be more local here before you head out east? 56:29 I should have a feature on the Minnesota Whitecaps coming out in the not too distant future. 56:38 Go for women's hockey. 56:40 I got some other stuff. 56:41 Go for women's hockey. 56:42 I got some stuff from them that I have in the. 56:52 Pipeline. 56:52 I got some longer features that have been working on this year which has been really fun to do. 56:58 I'm looking forward to having a couple of those today. 57:01 When are you leaving us? 57:02 Or about what time? 57:05 End of the month? 57:06 After Thanksgiving? 57:09 No, I think I'll be gone next week. 57:12 Hopefully I'll be back in a little bit. 57:16 Veegs, what do you got going for with the Athletica recently? 57:20 Yeah, I'm writing about the next step on Bob Mascow's agenda, installing a ground game. 57:26 That's something he talks about just about every night in the postgame, is they've got to figure out a way to be a tougher team to play against. 57:32 I think he said something the effect of being a cute hockey team is not something that belongs in the sport. 57:38 Oh boy, do I agree with that. 57:41 So, I'll talk about some of the challenges that he faces. 57:45 I'm hearing a lot of the same commentary that I got from Don LaChia last year when we were talking about what the team needed to improve on. 57:52 You know, it's up to Bob to try to figure out how to get the players to play that way though. 57:58 Alright, well, I think that's all we got for this week guys. 58:01 Nate, good luck man. 58:04 We're going to have you on again, but you're still leaving us and that sucks. 58:07 Yeah, thanks. 58:08 Wait, what's going to happen to the podcast? 58:12 Yeah, what? 58:13 What's going to happen to your podcast? 58:15 We're hoping to still continue doing it. 58:17 Going to do a little Skype action like we did? 58:19 Yeah, just do a little Skype action. 58:22 I've done that a few times over the last couple of years. 58:27 Sounds great. 58:28 No, seriously, thank you guys for having me on and just kind of being our really good supporters. 58:37 I've read GPL for years and years and years. 58:41 Back when the days that are now being heralded as the glory days were being shed on. 58:48 Yeah. 58:49 And the student section and all that. 58:52 Just because I think that's just the way that we, the college hockey world and sports fandom in general works. 58:58 No, I'm happy. 58:59 So you guys, Jupe and Veegs have been just really great for me in the press box. 59:05 Two of the first people to do so. 59:07 So it means a lot for me to have you guys have me on. 59:11 Well, we've enjoyed having you around, Nate. 59:14 So we'll try to keep you on the podcast at least once a year, as long as you're still covering hockey. 59:18 Because if you go to New York and become some cynical guy, I don't know if we can do that. 59:22 So remember, you can follow Nate at The Athletic or on Twitter at Gopher State. 59:29 Hopefully you keep that handle, even though you're leaving The Gopher State. 59:32 I think I have to. 59:34 Yeah, you have to keep it. 59:35 And on Veegs, you can follow him on The Athletic and on GPL and at evego. 59:40 And Twitter. 59:41 Hammy at Hammy Hockey, of course, on Twitter. 59:44 And he's always got the recruiting stuff. 59:46 So make sure you pay attention to all that stuff. 59:48 That's all we got for this week. 59:49 We'll be back next week to recap the Badger Series and preview the series with St. 59:53 Lawrence. 59:53 If you're listening live, we're going to have a little bit of overtime coming up. 59:57 But until next week, thanks for listening.