0:08
This is The GPL Podcast from go4pucklive.com.
0:23
Now, here's Hammy, Vigo and your host, Jupiter.
0:38
Good evening, and welcome to The GPL Podcast, episode number 156.
0:45
Well, the season has started, and it started pretty well, I would say, for our Gophers in Colorado College.
0:52
A split on the road is just always good, at least I feel it's always good.
0:57
Vigo, how did you feel?
0:59
Quick little initial feeling of how you felt the Gophers did on the road this weekend.
1:05
I thought a split was what I was hoping for.
1:08
It was such a young team.
1:10
You get into a series against an experienced team on the road, who I think is probably gonna be a top four team in the NCHC, and to get away with a split with all the mistakes they were making is good for the season.
1:24
They got some experience on the penalty kill, they got some experience on the power play.
1:28
I thought they looked really good during the flow of the game.
1:31
When it was five on five and they were just in transition, we saw a lot out of the young defensemen.
1:36
I think this group has a lot to grow on, and all in all, pretty good weekend.
1:42
It definitely was a good weekend.
1:45
We'll get back to more of the CC weekend in a bit, but right now we have a guest joining us, and it's kind of a new thing this year.
1:55
We've got a new voice for Gopher Hockey on Fox Sports North, and his name is Charlie Beattie.
2:01
Charlie, thanks for joining us.
2:03
Happy to be here, guys.
2:04
Thanks for having me.
2:05
Well, we all know that Doug MacLeod was not renewed this year, and my number one choice was actually you.
2:15
I was actually putting it out there.
2:17
Somebody hired this guy.
2:18
Somebody hired this guy.
2:19
I had never met you before, but I was really glad that you became their first choice.
2:25
Yeah, well, even though I am, I guess, sort of semi-famously not on Twitter, I did see that stuff.
2:33
People do send me sometimes these things, especially if my name is on it, which doesn't happen very often, but I did see that and I appreciated it.
2:42
And I'm glad I was the first choice too.
2:45
It's going to be a lot of fun.
2:47
V, because we've been kind of talking about it ever since Frank Mazzacca was let go over the years, how it was Lepanta and then it was McLeod.
2:54
And I felt, and I don't know how you felt about it, but I always thought it was a good time for Fox to go in a new direction, maybe go a little younger and see how things go.
3:06
And that's exactly what they've done with our guy Charlie here.
3:10
Yeah, I was a big fan of Charlie's stepping into the state tournament.
3:13
And after looking back at some of his tapes online that he put out there, I was impressed.
3:19
I do think Gopher Hockey kind of needs a new voice, someone who's fresh to the scene and doesn't have such a history maybe with the fans and can establish his own brand.
3:30
So Charlie, good luck.
3:32
The fan base is very passionate.
3:35
It's not as big as maybe some of the pro sports teams around here, but they pay very close attention.
3:41
Yeah, and I know that.
3:43
I mean, I've been part of it since I was young enough or old enough to remember any Gopher Hockey, which is going back to the Larry Olam, Rob Stauber days.
3:54
That's when I first remember watching the team.
3:57
And so I've been right there with you from afar for several years, but happy to be back here now and obviously happy to be doing this.
4:06
Well, welcome to Gopher Hockey.
4:08
Thank you very much.
4:09
Nothing to live up to or not.
4:11
No pressure.
4:11
No, no, not at all.
4:14
And that's part of the fun of it though, and it's part of the honor of it is to get hired by somebody who knows that they've got shoes to fill.
4:23
You know, we've always had good and passionate hockey broadcasters here.
4:27
You mentioned Frank and of course Wally and they're both still doing it.
4:31
And it's an honor to have to live up to that and I'll try.
4:36
Well, we've had Frank on the podcast probably about five or six times and he usually comes on about once a year or so.
4:43
And it was funny, little stories.
4:46
When I was driving home that afternoon, when you ended up taking over for McLeod, he texted me and he says, who is the guy calling the game?
4:55
And I'm driving my car, so I don't know what's going on.
4:58
I didn't know, I got home and at first you didn't see your name and I'm like, there's some Charlie guy.
5:03
Oh, it's Charlie Beattie, do you know him?
5:04
He's like, I don't know who he is, but I like him.
5:08
And I don't say that about many people.
5:11
So that's a great compliment coming from Frank Zocco because Vigo and I can attest, he doesn't like many people.
5:20
Well, that is a huge honor, though.
5:23
Charlie, if you don't mind sharing too much, how did the process go about you interviewing and talking about getting this position and eventually taking the position?
5:33
Yeah, it's a relatively straightforward process, I guess.
5:37
It just took a decent amount of time.
5:40
I first knew that it was gonna be available in, I'd say, early August, and so I sent my stuff to Trevor Fleck and Tony Tortorice at Fox.
5:53
Then, the issue then is a week after I did that, I was actually traveling, got a chance to go overseas because my wife, who was actually an instructor at the U of M, was doing some teaching in Iceland, and I got to tag along.
6:08
And so I sent my stuff in, and then I thought, okay, I'm about to leave the country to a place where my cell phone's not gonna work for nine, 10 days.
6:17
I really hope they don't call me.
6:19
And they didn't, luckily they didn't.
6:22
But they got back to me a couple weeks later.
6:24
It was around Labor Day that I first interviewed with Tony and Trevor on the phone.
6:29
And I'll say this now because they did eventually hire me.
6:34
After that phone call, I was like, I was terrible.
6:36
I didn't say anything.
6:37
I didn't give a decent account of myself at all.
6:41
I guess they thought differently.
6:43
It just took a couple weeks after that because at FSM, they've had to hire a lot of new people with the Wolves.
6:49
They've shuffled the deck with the Wild and added some faces there.
6:52
So there's just a lot of housekeeping to do for them.
6:56
And with this being a lot fewer games than the professional sports, they kind of left it till the end.
7:01
And they had Bobby to hire as well.
7:04
And so they got back to me in late September and said, can you come into the office and interview and got a chance to go in and chat with them in the office.
7:10
Which I thought went much better.
7:12
I guess I'm better in person than on the phone.
7:14
So sorry, guys.
7:17
And then they got back to me the following Monday and said, you're gonna be our guy.
7:23
Just hang on to it until we make it public, which is four very long days.
7:28
Getting emails from people like me and not being able to answer them.
7:33
Feeling very bad about that.
7:38
I put it out on Twitter as soon as I heard something.
7:42
I think I put it out on a Tuesday and then all of a sudden it was Friday when they officially announced it.
7:48
Yeah, I was happy all week.
7:51
I got some messages from friends of mine who are in the media and they said, are you getting this?
7:55
And I said, well, are you asking me as my friend or are you asking me as a media member?
8:03
I had to make some threats to keep people quiet.
8:05
Yeah.
8:07
So it's a tough thing.
8:09
It's a tough thing because it is kind of a legendary thing.
8:14
We had Frank Mazzocco and Tom Reed calling in those days back at Midwest Sports Channel then to FSN.
8:20
And then the Wuger came on and we've had some great games all the way through the final five.
8:27
And then we had Doug McLeod take over after Anthony LePant moved over to the wild.
8:34
And he's a legend in Gopher Hockey as well.
8:37
He started all the radio broadcasts back in the late 70s and early 80s.
8:41
So like I said, no pressure.
8:45
Yeah.
8:46
I mean, Well, it's interesting to follow someone like Doug who I grew up watching and to now work nearby, somebody like Frank, who I grew up watching.
8:57
And it's a little surreal to be a couple seats down or working with Doug at the state tournament.
9:05
Obviously that was an odd day for Doug.
9:07
And I, you know, we won't get into that too much.
9:10
And, but the chance to work with him, which actually came about by accident, because the other part of that story is that I wasn't even actually supposed to be there that day.
9:20
I was only on the between the benches that day because Torrey Holt unfortunately got sick.
9:25
Torrey's a friend of mine.
9:26
And I was really happy that he was, got healthy again.
9:29
So we could come back and do the double A games later.
9:31
But I was only supposed to do the class A games.
9:34
And even those, I only knew about a week before the tournament.
9:38
Because that was actually supposed to be Chrissy Wendell.
9:41
And then you really got thrown in.
9:43
I mean, obviously they, the Doug thing and you got thrown in there and you held your own very well for not having to, you know, having the rosters thrown at you and just be able to, and that wasn't it a long overtime game too?
9:59
It was, it was the longest game in the tournament in I think five years.
10:03
There you go.
10:05
No warmup, no practice here.
10:06
Go announce the game.
10:08
Well, the other really odd story about that game is, and if it wasn't an NCAA violation, I can't do this for several years down the road because he's a Gopher commit, I owe Jack Jensen a steak because he scored the game winning goal in that game and he will be a future Gopher.
10:24
He's playing in the USHL this year.
10:26
Or actually, no, the NIHL.
10:27
He's playing with the Magicians this year, I think.
10:30
But if he had not scored that goal in the third overtime, we would not have actually finished that broadcast.
10:39
Oh, they would have cut you off.
10:41
Because it was the afternoon game and they had to get to the night session.
10:44
And so after the third overtime, they were going to move the end of that game to the following morning.
10:49
And we were not coming back for it, which is something I found out about halfway through the third overtime.
10:56
So I was impartial as to who won, but I wanted somebody to score a goal because you can't go three over times and then not get to call a game winner.
11:04
I mean, nobody had scored since early in the third, very early in the third.
11:07
So it was a very close call.
11:11
And I think a lot of fans don't actually realize how close that came to that game being just sort of this unsatisfying ending on Thursday.
11:18
You know, I remember them talking about that.
11:20
Veegs, you remember when that happened in the state tournament?
11:22
I know I do.
11:23
Yeah, it's just baffling to me that that was the decision they made.
11:27
I know the state hockey tournament has a lot of commitments and things like that, but it just seemed shocking to me that that was how they were going to do it.
11:34
I was there for the Apple Valley Duluth East game back when I was in high school and stayed there very, very late to see the end of that one.
11:42
And I feel like I went to another game with Edina in it that went really late for the late game.
11:47
So crazy.
11:48
Was that Edina Minnetonka?
11:50
Was that a semi-final several years ago?
11:54
I remember Dan Carlson for Edina basically not leaving the ice for the entire game.
11:59
And he went on to play at Notre Dame, but it was just a crazy situation as well for a long with these.
12:06
I think if it was a later game, one of the night session games, they wouldn't have had to do that.
12:10
But for some reason, because it was that one o'clock, 1.30 start, and they've got to turn things over for the night session, they have to figure out a policy.
12:19
And you don't expect to have to use that policy.
12:22
But when you do, it's gonna be a really awkward transition.
12:26
Well, the policy only happened once.
12:29
Yeah.
12:30
It was that Jefferson-Medantaka game back in the mid 80s.
12:34
And I want to say that was like the early game.
12:35
It was like a seven o'clock or six o'clock game.
12:37
And they had to get the second game in.
12:40
So then they ended up going to the next morning.
12:42
And I think Jefferson did win in overtime like a minute or two minutes in to the fourth overtime the next day.
12:49
It was really odd.
12:51
That's the only one I know of where they actually stopped the game, went to the next day.
12:54
But what would have happened to you?
12:56
I would have gone back to the sideline for the class A games at noon.
13:03
And nothing would have happened to me play by play by.
13:06
And I'm not trying to throw the high school league under the bus.
13:08
They've got a lot of things to think about in first and foremost, the high school athletes and what they have to go through.
13:13
So selfishly speaking, I wanted that game to end.
13:16
I would have lived it if it hadn't.
13:18
But it's a funny story to tell.
13:21
And hopefully, I'll get to tell it to Jack someday, because that is, like I said, I owe him huge.
13:26
So basically, it's been a hectic six months for you, hasn't it?
13:30
A little bit, yeah, a little bit.
13:32
It's been very different.
13:34
So what's it been like this week getting ready for the Gophers for a series here at home with Niagara in your first call?
13:41
Well, I actually probably did a bulk of the prep work that I was going to do last week.
13:45
I wanted to get a jump on it.
13:47
So I mean, going to practice was new.
13:50
I hadn't done it before this week, and just kind of knowing where to be and when and who to talk to and who we get to talk to and all these new things, you know, meeting Veegs and all these other folks.
14:01
And so just getting to lay the land a little bit.
14:04
But other than that, it's like preparing for any other game that I've done throughout my life.
14:11
The wonderful thing about play-by-play is that the higher up you go and the more high profile the broadcast is, the actual truth of it is the easier it is to prepare, because you have so much more information and you have people like Brian Deutsch who send you information.
14:28
I come from a world where I am very much used to doing that all myself.
14:32
So I feel very spoiled right now, and that's never going to get old.
14:36
So there's a lot to put in, but you also get a lot of help and it's really nice.
14:43
Well, it's going to be an exciting time.
14:45
I mean, we've got the home opener starting at Mariucci for the Gophers.
14:51
The team seems on the upswing veegs.
14:54
We talk about that split in CC, how coach said he saw a lot of things that he liked, and obviously some mistakes that he didn't like.
15:03
Penalties, always tricky early in the year, but like you said earlier, I was happy with the results this past weekend, especially on Saturday when they played a little more disciplined, even when they got in trouble, they played a little more disciplined and make sure they covered things.
15:18
We had that late five minute penalty against Walker, and they got through it and they came back from a 2-0 and a 3-1 deficit to win that game.
15:28
Yeah, I mean, there are some positives to take.
15:30
I think Sammy Walker and Blake McLaughlin have continued from what they were doing last season.
15:37
They're just going to be dynamic players.
15:38
They're faster, but they're also bigger.
15:42
I think they're making more plays than they made last year, and they're a little more tenacious on the puck, and they're able to shield the puck a little bit more.
15:49
I think the real next leap for this team will be special teams.
15:55
Bob Motzgau going into the weekend talked a lot about how this team needs to learn how to play in critical moments, and you see those situations on face-offs when they lose their coverage and give up chances for their opponents.
16:08
I think CC probably got two power plays off of face-offs where they got Minnesota in a bad situation and Minnesota took a penalty, and then they have to throw out young penalty killers on the ice, and CC was able to take advantage of that up until the third period of the second game when Minnesota finally started to figure it out.
16:30
And one thing that the fans learned this weekend is how good we really have it when it comes to broadcast leagues.
16:41
We had the Friday night which picked up AT&T Sportsnet that Fox picked up, and besides the visual problems and the jersey problems with CC, we had audio problems, and people just don't realize how good we have it here at Minnesota with BigTen, with Fox Sports, and every once in a while we've got some ESPN broadcasts.
17:03
We really are the top of the broadcast heap here.
17:07
Well, we just have so many people who are used to working a hockey game.
17:10
They know how to deal with arena lighting.
17:13
They know how to deal with the white balance of the ice and how the jerseys look.
17:18
It's just a, you know, even the camera work about how to follow the play and the puck.
17:21
Whenever Minnesota goes on the road and you get these crews that probably just aren't as experienced, it really shows up.
17:28
So we are very lucky.
17:29
And now, now we get a new play-by-play guy who's grown up watching the program.
17:32
So I'm expecting good things, Charlie.
17:38
I cannot let you down.
17:39
He'll be there to tell me about it.
17:41
So I can't let you in, Scott.
17:43
And maybe stay off Twitter the first weekend.
17:45
Just a little tip.
17:46
Not a problem there.
17:49
Well, and then that is one thing.
17:51
I'm sure you've experienced all types of broadcasts, Charlie, and here hockey is taken very seriously.
17:58
It's basically the same quality broadcasts that we get for The Wild that we do for the Gophers.
18:05
It's top-notch.
18:05
I mean, we have the best audio guys, and we have the best video crew, and stats guys.
18:12
We have everything.
18:14
It's almost like an NHL game.
18:15
So the production is top-notch.
18:19
Absolutely.
18:19
I mean, a lot of the crew that are going to work on these games and work on The Wild Games, these are people that I know and work with in other places, too.
18:27
And they travel.
18:30
They go all around the country to do national-level broadcasts.
18:34
And I think that Minnesota fans don't see that, because you never see the crew that are on these games, and you don't realize who they are.
18:40
But we have some really, really good people here in the Twin Cities.
18:44
And we have enough to staff a wild game and a gopher game on the same night, and you get still two technically beautiful broadcasts.
18:52
And that's something that shouldn't go unmentioned or unset, because there's some really, really good behind-the-scenes folks here.
18:58
I know our guy, Twitter audio guy on Twitter, loves his gopher hockey.
19:03
He's excited that he's going to get to do the audio board for many games this year.
19:08
I think he's out doing the Vegas game right now, and sometimes he does World Series stuff.
19:13
I mean, we have the top-notch people working at Vox, and they also work, because it's kind of a union thing, they work the Big Ten too.
19:21
So the people in this town, we've got some top-notch people, and that's from producers to directors that move on to do greater things.
19:32
I see people complain.
19:33
They were, so many people were going after gopher hockey last weekend and FSN.
19:37
I'm like, people, this is not FSN's broadcast.
19:40
They don't have broadcast rights in this town, but you know what, they actually got permission to pick up another team's broadcast.
19:48
Be happy with what you get, because we saw TV last weekend, at least for one game, and it might not have been great, but we saw it, and it makes you appreciate how good it is here.
19:59
Well, you've got guys like Brian Deutsch and Tom McGuinness who work really hard to get these games in our market.
20:05
I think people take it for granted that it's easy for this stuff to happen.
20:10
Minnesota really pulls a lot of strings to make it a real life possibility.
20:18
And I think what you saw last weekend, it actually affects the game a little bit because if they had some more angles on Sammy Walker's penalty, he might not have gotten all five of those.
20:29
I'm not totally sure he made head contact there.
20:31
I mean, I don't deny that I can't remember the player's name for CC who took the hit, and I do believe your return to the game, which obviously everyone's happy about.
20:39
And I know that his head did strike the boards, but I don't think Walker actually struck his head.
20:45
And if you have more camera angles, you can look at it from a lot of different places, and that might change that call.
20:51
Not a guarantee, but that does matter in the long run.
20:57
It does matter, boy.
20:59
So we've got Niagara coming into town this week.
21:01
Veegs, we've played Niagara a couple of times.
21:03
I believe they're about three and oh against Niagara over the years.
21:07
Not too much history there.
21:10
It's the Purple Eagles.
21:11
Where are the Purple Eagles from, Veegs?
21:13
I mean, Niagara sounds like New York to me.
21:14
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's up there in New York by Niagara Falls.
21:19
It's a small school.
21:21
Jason Lammers has taken over that program.
21:24
And I know when he took over, he basically got rid of eight players from the previous coach's roster and has really kind of turned it over to be his team.
21:34
He's got three recruiting classes now playing for him.
21:38
And they are a favorite in Atlantic Hockey.
21:41
And they're a team that's a little bit older.
21:44
They've got one local kid, Dylan Mills on their roster.
21:48
He played at Hill Murray and then went NHL and USHL.
21:51
And now he's there as a sophomore.
21:54
But they've got a lot of other good players.
21:55
They've got the Swedish player Ludwig Stenlund, who is the Atlantic Hockey Freshman of the Year last year.
22:02
So they're a team on the rise.
22:03
And someone that the Gophers can't take lightly because they're experienced and they're going to test Monsko's young freshmen and sophomore classes.
22:12
And that's been kind of the theme over the past few years.
22:15
It's the games that maybe the team has taken them lightly, Veegs.
22:20
And you get a split with somebody like a Slank Lawrence or some of the trouble they had last year.
22:26
It's those kind of losses that really hurt you at the end of the season.
22:31
Yeah, if you're going to be on the fringe of the pairwise, like I kind of think this team might end up being towards the end of the year, probably around that 12 to 14 range.
22:41
It makes a big difference if you drop a game into a team like Niagara.
22:44
And you saw what happened to Minnesota in those games last year where they lost them.
22:49
They couldn't score enough goals, and they took penalties at the wrong time.
22:54
Moscow was talking about on Friday night how if the Gophers could have got that extra goal and capitalize on the scoring chances that they were generating, they'd probably get out of there with a win.
23:03
And then he was worried about them taking penalties on Saturdays that could cost them game as well.
23:09
It's a young team, but that was a big learning experience for them to take into this weekend, that they can't make those same kinds of mistakes over and over.
23:18
So we got a question from Skyuma Law here.
23:21
He says, which barn is Charlie looking forward to heading to?
23:25
Or what's the best road trip in his opinion?
23:28
What do you think, Charlie?
23:30
Well, that's a tricky question because I actually won't go on the road at all this year.
23:34
I will only be at Mariucci.
23:36
But I think if I were traveling, I would have to say Michigan, only because my father's a Michigan alum.
23:46
He's from Minnesota, but he's a Michigan alum.
23:49
And if I didn't say Ann Arbor, he'd probably disown me.
23:55
Have you been to Yost?
23:58
I have not been to Yost yet.
24:00
Maybe one of these years as my family grows older, it will be easier to attend a game at Yost.
24:05
But I have not seen the children at Yost in person.
24:09
I haven't traveled to any of the Big Ten schools except for Wisconsin.
24:12
And when the times I did go to Wisconsin, there was a lot of, the crowd was still there at Wisconsin, let's just say that.
24:22
And I believe my last game I saw in Wisconsin was the old Phil Kessel scoring the goal, putting his ear, cupping his ear to the crowd, which was a fun game and a fun weekend.
24:33
But, and that's one thing that we've kind of missed from these Big Ten days, Charlie, is that Fox, they don't really control things like they used to in the old days.
24:45
A lot of fans are just not used to that yet, that you can't just pick up and go to a CCN broadcast because there's a lot of rules that you can't do that anymore.
24:56
Yeah, and it's a shame.
24:57
I mean, it is what it is and I'd love to go everywhere.
25:01
To truly answer that question, there's no bad barns for me because it's all hockey games and it's all college hockey and it's all fun.
25:10
So if I did have the chance to go someplace, and maybe someday they will, every trip will be one to look forward to for different reasons.
25:20
Vicks, have you done any road trips recently?
25:24
Just Minnesota, Duluth.
25:25
Yeah.
25:26
You know, keep it local.
25:27
You know, when they played at Minnesota State, I'd go down there or St.
25:31
Cloud, I've been there.
25:32
So, you know, the local games are easier to get to, obviously.
25:36
I've made the same rounds the last couple of years, Mankato, St.
25:39
Cloud, Duluth, and obviously, you and I had a good time in Duluth a couple years ago.
25:45
I love that town.
25:46
It's a fun town, you know, we've been having fun there for a long time.
25:50
I mean, I've got the old pictures of you in that jersey you wore for shooting.
25:54
What did you do?
25:55
You shot something at Grandma's, you won something.
25:58
Yeah, the little skills competition.
26:00
Grandma was shooting floor hockey pucks, and you know, if I can stand still and have plenty of time and space, I can pick a corner.
26:06
So it was easy to get that Molson Canadian jersey up there.
26:10
Well, that's right, it was Molson, that's what it was.
26:12
I've got a picture of that somewhere.
26:14
Charlie, I understand that you do play a little hockey, don't you?
26:18
I do, yeah.
26:20
I think somewhat there was a rumor flowing around that I played growing up, which I do need to dispel.
26:25
I did not, but I do play now.
26:27
I actually played last night for fun, but yeah, I play as often as I can and started playing when I moved back here from Washington, DC after school, which is about 12 years ago now, and started in goal, eventually found my way out.
26:44
And now I do a little of everything.
26:46
And so yeah, it's a great time.
26:48
Do you play in one of the adult leagues around here?
26:50
I do, I haven't for the last couple of years because I've been broadcasting enough that I wasn't sure I'd be able to make many games, but because of this opportunity and just the idea that I was gonna scale back my workload a little bit this year, no matter what happened, I am rejoining a team.
27:07
So our first game will be a week from Saturday.
27:11
V, maybe we should get the rubes back together.
27:13
Yeah, I'm getting enough ice time now with coaching mites and mini mites that the hands are coming back.
27:19
Vigo and I used to play up at the Super Rink in one of the adult leagues up there.
27:24
There you go.
27:25
We must have played a good five years, V, is that right?
27:28
Yeah, back in the younger days, I was playing the AHA League.
27:32
I was playing Sunday Night League at Augsburg.
27:35
I was living the dream during the winter.
27:38
Everybody can produce at Mariucci, but can you get it done on rink eight, the Super Rink?
27:43
That's when you know you've really made something.
27:45
On a Monday night at 10.50.
27:47
Exactly, exactly.
27:48
You should be asleep.
27:50
Yeah, considering how far I live away from the Super Rink, I put on a lot of miles in those five years.
27:57
But it was a blast.
27:58
And I see some of these people.
28:00
I see, oh gosh, I'm forgetting her last name, Jessie with the women's program.
28:06
She does her videography now.
28:08
She used to be on the Mudhands VEAGS.
28:11
Yep, yep, I remember that.
28:12
And I see her, Mary, I saw her at Ritter just the other day and she's like, hey, how are you doing?
28:16
I'm just like, yeah, she used to kick our butts.
28:20
So she was pretty good.
28:24
So it's nice to have an announcer who's actually, maybe you didn't play growing up, but you play hockey.
28:30
So you definitely have a little different perspective than, I'm guessing a lot of announcers out there, Charlie.
28:36
Yeah, I hope so.
28:38
I mean, everything's to scale.
28:40
I wouldn't dream of even trying to take the ice with players of this caliber.
28:45
Hey, Bear League counts.
28:47
But it does.
28:48
Well, it gives you an appreciation for the angles and where the puck should be and where it shouldn't in every situation.
28:53
And you can apply those things to a broadcast.
28:56
Hopefully I can take some of the things that I see and apply them back to games that I play.
29:00
And I think it'll probably be more that way than the other.
29:04
But it also gives you a supreme appreciation for just how good these players are.
29:10
And they're incredible.
29:12
I know when Gus Johnson was gonna start calling games for soccer leading up to the World Cup and Champions League and stuff like that, he actually joined like a men's soccer league so that he could kind of get a little bit more exposure to the game so he'd have a better idea how to call it.
29:29
So I know that that immersive stuff, it really comes in handy for broadcasting.
29:33
Yeah, and it's, I think they feed each other too because every time I go call a game, I wasn't supposed to play last night.
29:41
I actually didn't sign up to play in this game until about 6 p.m.
29:43
last night.
29:44
And it was because I'd been at practice on Tuesday and monkey see monkey do.
29:48
I was like, oh, I gotta go play now.
29:52
So I signed up and got myself out there and didn't hurt myself, which is that's the key thing every night.
29:59
So Charlie, what'd you pick up from practice this week and talking to the players as you prep for this weekend?
30:05
Just the fact that they're all still kind of coming together really.
30:08
And when we talked to a couple of sophomores, juniors talked to McLaughlin, we talked to McManus and the fact that this was their first road trip together with all these new faces and they're still, I mean, they're a unit and they're behind each other, but they're also getting to know each other a lot.
30:25
And we're going to see that cohesion probably on and off the ice grow all year long.
30:32
I think the thing I'm most interested to see this weekend is how the Lions kind of get put together as we get further in the season.
30:40
Matzka talked about on Tuesday how he'll probably keep juggling the Lions till Christmas or until he doesn't.
30:46
And the big key is trying to figure out who can play with who.
30:50
And I saw Purbecks on Tuesday playing with Walker and Mlawflin and that kind of makes sense to me as Purbecks is a guy who's a responsible player.
31:00
He's a good floor checker.
31:01
He's a physical guy who can win back pucks.
31:04
Matzka was talking about there are just some guys who pick up what you're writing up on the board or you're talking about during video and don't need to necessarily live it all the time to get it as they apply it on the ice.
31:15
And he's one of those guys.
31:16
So it'll be interesting to see what kind of role he plays for this team this year, as he's a guy who's probably not being expected to score very much, but if he can support two scorers, he's gonna show up in the score sheet some nights.
31:30
I was really impressed with him over the weekend series.
31:33
I thought he was just a pest, exactly what you're talking about, forechecking pest and you need those guys.
31:39
They've got some guys that can score and I'm sure he could probably pop a couple in if needed, but if you have that guy that's just making the opponent work that much harder, which he looks like he could be, every good team's got one or two of those guys, if not more.
31:53
And Monsko's style is gonna require players to play that way.
31:56
He wants to play a high pressure hockey where guys are on the forecheck hard.
32:01
You don't want guys coming in the zone looking at each other who's gonna be F1 on the forecheck.
32:06
He wants somebody to be assertive and get there and Purvix looks like a guy who can do that.
32:11
Now they just gotta find some continuity in the other lines.
32:14
I think Ben Myers is a player who's gonna be that kind of style guy who's hard on the forecheck and plays that pressure game.
32:21
But they just, as we look at the transition from Lucia to Moscow, that's the normal one thing I'm looking for is transition hockey and pressure hockey.
32:30
And that's one thing we would have been talking about for a while is that pressure, that transition.
32:37
And do you think, Veegs, that Moscow just couldn't quite get his team last year to do a lot of those things?
32:44
Maybe some of those guys were, maybe it's just the way they played, they just weren't buying in.
32:49
But maybe this is more of his team now and they're performing those type of things that he wants to do?
32:54
I think there's probably just the habits.
32:57
For older players, last year was a really older roster and their habit more was to play a trapping game and then counterattack that way.
33:06
And so I think it's just hard to get out of those habits.
33:09
And in college hockey, if you give someone that extra second, they're skilled enough to make a play.
33:15
So you really have to just commit to it right away.
33:17
And you can't have two guys commit to it.
33:19
It's got to be just the right player.
33:22
I think we saw that last year at Times Two where two people would get on the puck and that just leaves you too few guys to come back and attack that second pass.
33:31
We have frozen four champs asking us, do we expect Jackson Nelson to get in a game this weekend?
33:37
Did you see much Jackson on which line was he may have been on this during practice this week of Eags?
33:43
Well, we saw something kind of interesting this week when I was there.
33:46
We saw two guys in red jerseys calling Munson, Garrett Waite, and then we saw the other three guys in blue jerseys.
33:53
So it's hard to know which of those five guys are gonna get that fourth line spot.
33:59
I think Nelson will get a chance to play this year.
34:01
That's one thing that Bob Motzko kind of has a history of is giving guys a chance to play.
34:06
I think originally he wanted to give Maroney, Waite, Munson some looks early to show what they've got.
34:14
But as we get along here, I think Nelson will get an opportunity at some point.
34:18
And that also kind of goes with some of the philosophy that Motzko has been talking about as well.
34:22
He's gonna play some of those guys that maybe didn't play as much last year, like you said, and Maroney and Munson.
34:28
And then getting guys like Jackson Nelson in there when he can set them up right, not just throwing them out there and maybe not prepared.
34:39
Yeah, he definitely doesn't want to put guys in situations where they maybe have too much to chew on.
34:43
You know, that's a situation with Johnny Sorensen, a player that you can just tell that Motska really likes.
34:49
You know, he wants to kind of protect him in that fourth line center role.
34:53
You know, give him a little bit here at a time, because here's a player who, you know, didn't really specialize in hockey until last year.
34:59
He was a three-sport athlete all the way up.
35:02
You know, didn't do a lot of that summer camp stuff that some guys do.
35:06
So he's probably got a lot of room for growth, but you don't want to put him into a spot that he's not ready for.
35:11
Charlie, I love those multi-sport athletes.
35:14
It's usually those guys who ended up, just like Beattie saying, growing the most and kind of becoming a much better player than we thought.
35:23
Yeah, and I think you still have to develop your body every way you possibly can.
35:30
I mean, I think it's the guys that specialize also tend to be the guys that get hurt the most.
35:35
That's the experience I've seen, covering all sorts of different sports here for the last several years.
35:40
You've got guys that with one sport, you're only developing a certain muscle group for that sport.
35:45
Everything else kind of falls by the wayside, but you've got a guy like Sorensen, like Veegs just talked about, he's ready for anything.
35:52
And he's a true athlete.
35:54
And those are teachable players, those are coachable players.
35:57
They're only gonna get exponentially better in four years now when he can focus on hockey.
36:03
You know, Veegs, it's been talked about for actually quite a while that these guys should be playing multiple starts and not concentrating on one until maybe their last couple years of high school or even further.
36:14
It seems like many of the kids are still not getting that.
36:19
Is this a parent thing or what do you think is going on?
36:23
Well, I think part of it is you look at some of these bigger associations like Maple Grove, Eden Prairie, Stillwater, they have 300 mites signing up.
36:34
And you get these kids in those situations and the kids who made the A teams at squirts, those typically are the kids who've skated the most.
36:42
They've put in the most time to get better and they feel that pride or the parents want to have their kids be the A squirts.
36:50
So they push them in that direction as hard as they can.
36:53
And then they keep that up all the way through.
36:55
Minnesota Hockey, they've got the Elite League in the fall.
37:00
They've got their high school season.
37:01
And then they've got their HP program that starts up right away.
37:05
And then you have all these triple A teams like the Blades and things like that that go on through the year.
37:10
Minnesota Made, Minnesota Machine.
37:12
So you get these kids, they kind of get caught in that cycle that if they don't do all that stuff, it's hard for them to make the A team.
37:20
And that's very unfortunate because we do see the kids who end up becoming the most successful ones are the kids who did play baseball and football and other sports.
37:31
It's just kind of sad that it's moving further and further away from it, even though it's kind of proven that it helps them the most, Veegs.
37:40
Well, you don't really know who the best players are going to be until they kind of get on an equal playing field with everybody skating and their body develops.
37:48
Typically around that Bantam age is where specialization actually starts to have an impact.
37:54
And some of these associations, maybe they're skewed as they pick those Bantam teams because they've got kids who played the AAA team the year before.
38:03
But we'll see.
38:04
There's plenty of guys who move on, who've played lots of sports.
38:08
Blake Wheeler was featured in the USA Hockey Mail-Out Magazine this month as being a guy who played football, hockey, baseball, all the way through golf, baseball, tennis, all that stuff.
38:22
You've got a guy right now in the recruiting pipeline like Jake Ratzloff who still plays football and baseball and hockey and he's viewed as somebody who could be a second, third round pick in the NHL draft.
38:33
So there are kids out there who still do it, but I think it's just harder for them to not give in to the pressure of specializing because they want to, if they love hockey, they want to do everything they can to play on those double A teams and play for their high school teams right away.
38:51
It's just a different world, guys.
38:55
Very much so.
38:56
It's a lot of pressure to deal with.
38:58
It's hard, I think, for everybody to choose their own path.
39:02
I can hear Pat McAleady saying, get out, play basketball in the summer with your friends and baseball and things like that.
39:09
Get out and get away from the hockey because then you're just, for one thing, you're meeting new people.
39:14
You're learning new skills and it's a shame that a lot of places are kind of, kids are being forced into it because if they want to play, they got to play all these elite leagues and just to make your Bantam team and all, you know, what have you.
39:31
It's kind of unfortunate.
39:34
Well, we'll see what happens.
39:35
You know, I know Matzka wants to take older players and, you know, if the kids aren't playing all that junior hockey instead of their senior or high school, you know, maybe they are able to do that longer.
39:46
You know, there isn't the pressure to get there first.
39:50
Nate Wells wants to know, did the beer of the week also make the jump to the GPL Podcast?
39:55
I don't remember there being a beer of the week last week, Beegs.
39:58
I kept it simple with the two-hearted last week.
40:01
You know, it was the first game of the year.
40:02
I kept it simple.
40:03
You know, I might go, you know, a little crazier this week.
40:05
I'll post something on Twitter after we're done.
40:07
Okay.
40:08
Well, there you go.
40:10
We've got Steve asking on Twitter, it's early, but who do you think will be eventually take the number one job in goal, Veegs?
40:19
Well, I think Jack LaFontaine is obviously being given the first chance to nab it.
40:24
He looked pretty steady last week in CC.
40:28
Bob Motzgau said in his coach's show on Monday that if he had degraded the goal tending on the weekend, it would have been maybe a C minus, B minus or C plus, B minus.
40:37
And then when he got to the media, he kind of hedged himself and said B minus.
40:41
And then when he was on with PA Today, he's like, we'll be fine.
40:44
Jack's getting it out on Friday night.
40:46
So you get further away from the weekend, maybe things look better.
40:50
But I think they've got two talented goalies.
40:52
They're both big, NHL style, close obviously, look good in the exhibition as well as a third option.
40:57
But I think he is definitely the third option.
41:00
So we'll see how La Fondaine does on Friday.
41:02
I have a feeling if he plays really well, he might get back to back starts.
41:07
Well, the one thing I do know is that we're going to have back to back games on Fox Sports North this weekend.
41:13
No plus.
41:13
It's all on the on the main channel and we get to hear our new guy, Charlie Beattie, along with our boy, Ben Climber.
41:22
It's just got to be a very exciting time for you, Charlie.
41:25
Very exciting.
41:26
Yeah, it's like I said, I hasn't really sunk in yet.
41:32
It's something I've been trying to do for years and years and years and tomorrow it will happen and I'm pumped about it.
41:39
I'm glad to have more than 40 minutes notice that I'll have to go up there and do the game.
41:45
That is a good thing.
41:46
I have to thank our friend, Chris Long, for getting me in contact with you because since you weren't on Twitter, it's kind of tough to track you down.
41:56
Chris knows everybody though.
41:58
He does.
41:58
He can find anybody.
41:59
Yeah.
42:00
And Chris said that he's also definitely going to be paying for a round at Maxwell's for all of us and one of these games after one of those.
42:09
Fair enough.
42:09
Because yeah.
42:12
Okay, maybe he didn't say that, but he's the TV guy.
42:15
He's got the big...
42:16
That didn't sound like Chris.
42:18
I don't know.
42:18
Yeah, I know.
42:19
We'll try to get Chris to buy everyone a round at Maxwell's.
42:23
We'll have to see about that.
42:25
V, do you have any other thoughts on the weekend coming up?
42:29
Obviously, it's a big weekend.
42:32
Losing a game could really hurt them at the end of the year.
42:35
Yeah, I know they worked a lot on faceoffs and special teams this week.
42:38
I think that's the mental side of the game that they have to figure out.
42:41
Big key for me is don't make mistakes.
42:45
I think teams like Niagara, they can feast on that kind of stuff.
42:49
If they get some momentum and think they have a chance to steal a game, they'll sell out because this is a big game for them.
42:55
It's a big opportunity to play against a big school like Minnesota.
42:59
It's pretty funny.
42:59
You heard Stad Ocker this week talking about his recruiting process and he was expecting maybe he goes somewhere out east or maybe one of the Michigan schools would be interested.
43:10
And then once he stepped on foot at Minnesota and saw the rink, he was sold.
43:15
So these kids playing in a rink like that is a big deal and they want to make a big impression.
43:20
They're not going to be on TV every week.
43:23
So this is a team you just don't want to give a chance to.
43:25
And we've seen that in the past when Minnesota does that, the games get tight.
43:30
Sometimes the six get gripped a little bit tighter and they have a hard time scoring.
43:34
So stay out of the box.
43:36
Don't give a turnovers in the neutral zone and things will be all right.
43:39
Veegs, how's the attendance looking?
43:43
We'll see.
43:43
You know, season ticket base is probably around 5,000 or less right now.
43:48
You know, that's about what it was last year.
43:51
There's a lot of competition for dollars in this market.
43:55
So we'll see how things go.
43:57
They are selling beer in the arena.
43:59
Maybe you saw Bevy's with Bob this week, John King from Game on Minnesota sat down with Bob at Center Ice and had the first beer at Mariucci.
44:08
Hopefully more fans will take advantage of that.
44:11
They're having special food items of each weekend to release to try to get the fans to come to attend.
44:17
And you know, the tickets are cheaper than they've been.
44:19
So I know groups could get into this game for $10 a head.
44:23
And I believe even Hammy's going to the game this weekend.
44:27
That's right.
44:27
Even Hammy's coming back.
44:28
Even Hammy.
44:29
Hammy hasn't been to a game in a while.
44:30
Obviously, Hammy couldn't join us tonight.
44:32
He's just the extra night threw him off.
44:34
He's usually a Wednesday night guy.
44:36
But we moved it to Thursday because Charlie, you were busy last night.
44:40
I was.
44:41
I'm very sorry to hold you guys up to apologize to the audience as well.
44:46
They don't care.
44:46
They just want to they just want to podcast once a week.
44:49
There we go.
44:50
That's all they care about.
44:52
We can shift whenever we want to and we do it quite often, actually.
44:59
Well, we appreciate you joining us, Charlie.
45:01
You know, welcome to Gopher Hockey.
45:03
Thank you.
45:04
And I appreciate you.
45:05
You having me on.
45:06
Like I said, I appreciate you waiting an extra day.
45:10
Vigz, what you're working on for the athletic right now?
45:13
We're trying to take a look at who are the best programs in the state right now.
45:18
And a couple other stories I'm working on.
45:19
I'm not sure exactly when they're going to roll.
45:21
You know, it's a very competitive time in the athletic readership end box.
45:27
So we're going to get some stuff out here coming up probably the next couple of weeks.
45:32
Well, if the wild keep tanking like they do, I think the Gophers might get a little more pub and that might be good for you, Vigz.
45:40
Might be good.
45:40
We'll see what happens.
45:41
Yeah, we'll see what happens.
45:42
Well, that's going to do it for this episode of the GPL Podcast.
45:46
I'd like to thank Charlie Beattie for joining us.
45:49
We'll be sure to have him on again sometime in the future.
45:52
For those of you listening live, stay tuned for a little bit of overtime afterwards.
45:56
For the rest of you, we'll be back next week to recap the Niagara Series and preview Minnesota the Loop.
46:02
Until then, have a good evening.
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