0:03 This is The GPL Podcast sponsored by Jerry Peters and First Class Mortgage. 0:08 Our expertise, your peace of mind. 0:10 Visit us at firstclassmortgage.com. 0:37 Thank Good evening, and welcome to The GPL Podcast, episode number 167. 0:45 Well, we've got one of our favorite guests back again this evening, and we hooked up with him a couple years ago, and I've been doing it with every Wisconsin series since. 0:55 Todd Milewski, how you doing? 0:56 Thanks for joining us. 0:58 Doing great. 0:59 I'm honored that you would consider me one of your, you know, well, more frequent guests anyway. 1:04 I don't know, did you say favorite? 1:06 I don't remember, but, you know, I'll take that as a high honor. 1:10 Well, I always enjoy having you on, because, you know. 1:12 Given that I'm on this side of the border, I know how you guys feel. 1:15 I mean. 1:16 You know what? 1:17 I've always felt that if you're a college hockey fan, you're kind of a different breed. 1:23 And we all have that in common. 1:26 That's absolutely it. 1:28 And it's, you know, one of those things that, you know, so much of this has changed in the last 10 years, you know, five years, 10 years, that has not. 1:36 You know, when you're a college hockey person, you're a college hockey person. 1:39 We get each other. 1:41 And that's still cool to have. 1:43 Good-natured ribbing. 1:45 I mean, obviously, we know both fan bases. 1:47 In fact, all fan bases have their jerks that we have to deal with. 1:51 But all in all, we have a love for what we think is the best sport on earth. 1:57 You know, we love the hockey, but then this college hockey thing is just a little bit different. 2:01 So, we always love having you on. 2:04 I'm glad we got you on a few years ago, and we're going to keep having you on if you'll have us. 2:08 Well, thanks. 2:08 I'll be here whenever you need me, provided I get the kids to bed early enough and make it happen. 2:15 And usually, that's what Veegs is doing. 2:16 But Veegs, you know, you made sure you had a little beer for tonight, a little celebration for a Gopher sweep. 2:23 Maybe a little celebration, and it could be a quick night for me. 2:26 It's a busy time this part of the year with a lot of hockey practices and hockey coverage, so it's always fun when we get Todd on and we can talk some BigTen hockey. 2:37 Yes, BigTen hockey folks, not WCHA, not this or that. 2:43 BigTen hockey and, you know, we had one of those BigTen schools in here last weekend, Veegs, Ohio State. 2:49 You know, they're right at the top of the league. 2:51 And as I predicted, yep, Pat on the back here, Gophers swept them and they looked really good in doing it, Veegs. 3:00 I mean, they were tenacious on the forecheck. 3:02 They, you know, they played really responsible hockey and could that have been a very positive turnaround weekend for this team? 3:13 Yeah, I think going into the first series at Ohio State, I predicted the Gophers were going to get swept. 3:18 They nearly were. 3:19 But coming into this weekend, I thought they were going to give a much better effort. 3:24 I didn't think they were going to be able to pull off the sweep like you did. 3:28 But I was very encouraged with the way they played in the Marriottchee Classic and how they played against Michigan State. 3:34 We're seeing this team play smart hockey, making good puck possession plays when they have it on offense. 3:41 When they have to dump the puck, they're able to get it deep. 3:44 They're able to get their forecheck going. 3:46 I had a little back and forth with Bob Matzko about the forecheck, saying I thought it was the best it looked all year. 3:53 He corrected me and that it's been getting better every week. 3:57 But when he first took the job, he said one of the things he wanted to do was unleash 60 seconds of hell every time a line got on the ice. 4:07 And we have not seen that very often. 4:10 Maybe we saw it a little bit against the Buckeyes last weekend. 4:14 Indeed, we did. 4:15 A nice 6-3 win Friday night, a 4-win win Saturday night. 4:21 Obviously, we had a couple empty net goals because Ohio State did make it a little close on Friday. 4:27 But all in all, Veegs, I don't think I could have been any happier, especially with how good Ohio State is. 4:33 And now, the old WCHA people, oh, jeez, I don't want to see Ohio State. 4:39 They're not a rival. 4:40 You know what? 4:41 They're a pretty damn good club, Veegs. 4:44 Yeah, they're one of the best clubs in the Big Ten. 4:46 You know, Steve Rollock's done a great job with that program. 4:49 They're a veteran team. 4:51 He's had a lot of guys who are older players in the league stick around, develop, mature. 4:56 They're physical. 4:57 And I think they caught a little bit of the Gophers' best game where they let Minnesota get some speed. 5:03 You know, they didn't slow the Gophers down through the neutral zone like some teams do. 5:08 And Minnesota's speed really showed on the ice. 5:11 And Minnesota took advantage and forced the Buckeyes into a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes. 5:15 Usually a Rolex team is very good with the puck, very poised. 5:20 And I thought Minnesota surprised them a little bit with their effort. 5:23 And on the other side of the border here, we had Wisconsin taking on Notre Dame, and it was a split last weekend, right? 5:32 Yeah, just as it's been for the three weekends since the break for the Badgers. 5:36 They've, you know, they've made, I don't know if it was a big deal, but they made it, you know, a point of saying when they're coming back from the break that we need more than splits. 5:46 You know, if you're going to pull yourself out of a, you know, a hole of being three games under 500 after break, like Gophers were four games under 500 at the break, you need to do more than just split every weekend. 5:59 And well, that's still the way it's been for the Badgers. 6:01 Gophers is a little bit different. 6:02 It's turning out. 6:04 And it's, you know, just been a little bit the same thing for the Badgers that the consistency, you know, period to period, even shift to shift is really not great. 6:16 And I don't know if that's function of the youth or function of talent not meshing together or, you know, the young players not feeling the urgency that maybe you would need. 6:34 Here you are second half of the season. 6:36 You can kind of see the finish line down the road here. 6:39 But yeah, it's been a little bit of a challenge to get to, certainly to get two good nights back to back for the Badgers and even a challenge to get two good periods sometimes back to back. 6:55 And that's not a great recipe for success long term. 6:58 Veegs, it's kind of hard not to look at this, but you know, you look at Minnesota and they've been in the same situation. 7:06 Very young team, exactly like the Badgers. 7:07 In fact, they're the two youngest teams. 7:09 We see a lot of inconsistent play. 7:14 So Veegs, what Todd is saying is very similar to what we've been seeing for a while here. 7:20 Yeah, and I think that's what you get with young players is inconsistent play. 7:24 You know, they just don't have it every single night or have that consistency of their game when they're not on their A game. 7:31 I know Don Lucia used to talk about this a lot, that when you get to be at this level of hockey, if you're not on, if you don't have your A game, you better find your B game quick or you're going to get exposed in college hockey because there's so many good players coming off the bench from the other team that they're going to catch you. 7:49 And I think one of the things that's spurred Minnesota's streak here is their younger players have played much better. 7:56 Ben Myers, he's not a young player, he's 21, and Jackson Nelson have really stepped up in their roles right now for Minnesota playing center and having a lot of responsibility and providing Minnesota outlets on the breakout and physical players on the forecheck. 8:13 Well, it's just... 8:16 I think it is the youth thing. 8:18 Maybe Minnesota is just putting it together a little bit sooner. 8:22 But I don't think Wisconsin is far behind, Todd. 8:25 You have so much talent there right now. 8:28 I mean, really, the biggest fear right now is this talent up and leaving after one year, which would be really bad for Wisconsin trying to get older. 8:38 Sure. 8:38 In numbers, yeah, if they leave, and if there's four guys gone early after the season, I think there's going to be some gaps next year. 8:48 On the other side of that, I think would be asking a lot to keep Caulfield, Turcotte, Keandre Miller, maybe Wyatt Kalnuck coming around back for a senior year. 9:02 Dylan Holloway, I'm pretty sure, unless he gets picked by a team that really doesn't want him here, is going to be back for a sophomore year. 9:10 It's hard to see one of them at least not going. 9:16 So you're going to have something, some kind of movement after this year, pretty sure of it. 9:23 But when you talked about that they're not far away, I think we've seen that. 9:28 They've been in every game, just about every game. 9:30 There's I think one game at Penn State where they were just overmatched, and that has happened to a lot of teams against Penn State. 9:37 We know all about that. 9:39 Right. 9:41 But pretty much every other night, it's been with an goal in the third period or having a chance at the end, even if they're losing. 9:50 And so they're not far away, but then you look around the Big Ten, and the more I think of it, you know, if you can't, it's one, like the old saying, if you can't identify the weakest team, it's probably you. 10:03 Every team they play has been really strong to play against, and that's a little bit of how the Badgers end up in seventh place, is, you know, there's nobody weak to play to just pad your stats and get wins. 10:19 It's just the state of the Big Ten is that you're going to have a fight every night. 10:24 Now, we got a question on Twitter from our boy, Mote. 10:27 He wants to know, direct us right towards you, Todd. 10:31 What is the state of the Grenada regime? 10:33 You know, are people patient or are they wondering if the program needs a new direction? 10:37 Is there any grumblings or is it mostly just the fans? 10:41 Well, yeah, it's, you know, if you followed on Twitter during a game they're losing, it's, you know, everyone should be gone from, you know, coaches to players to the athletic director to, you know, me for that matter, I suppose. 10:54 It's, but when you see through that, I think there's some level of patience, but it is wearing thinner. 11:01 I don't say, I don't think it's gone, but taking a step back, this season had been the year that they had pointed to for, you know, a good two years. 11:14 As when everything is going to come together, they have, this is the fourth year of the Granado era. 11:20 You've got all the players that they want. 11:23 You bring in this giant freshman class, you know, not in numbers, but in terms of talent of Caulfield and Turcot leading the way and Holloway. 11:33 These are the guys they wanted, the ones that they thought would be the ones that put them over the top. 11:39 And, you know, maybe because of the youth, because it hasn't, you know, fallen the way that they thought it was going to, they haven't found that corner to turn. 11:51 I've heard Bob Motzko talk about this a few times, that you always, he doesn't want to say they're turning a corner because when you do that, then you get knocked back on your rear end. 12:06 I think it's a little bit of the same thing here, but they haven't really found that corner yet. 12:12 The closest they got was in October. 12:14 They're three and one after sweeping Duluth here. 12:17 And everyone thinks, well, okay, that's, you know, this is kind of the team we thought it was going to be. 12:21 Well, since then, split, split, sweep, split, that's the way it's been. 12:26 They haven't found another weekend to string together two wins. 12:31 And so that puts you in a position where you're never able to make a surge. 12:37 I would love to see this team, what it could do if it's thrown together three wins, see what kind of confidence that would get them, and see if they could build that into something. 12:47 I just think it may be getting to the point where it's too late to have it mean anything. 12:51 You know, on the playoffstatus.com, there are more than 50% chance of being in last place. 12:59 Their home ice chances are at 8%. 13:01 And it's, you know, the hole is pretty deep here. 13:05 I don't know if they're going to have a chance to find their way out of it. 13:09 And, you know, they're going to be going on the road in the playoffs. 13:12 And I don't think that's a real good situation for anyone. 13:15 And also, right in front of them are two teams in Michigan and Minnesota who have seemed to have turned it around and also have two games in hand on Wisconsin. 13:24 Yeah, it's, like I said, the hole is pretty deep. 13:29 It's tough to see, especially because they haven't been able to string together a couple of wins or even more than a split in Big Ten that hard to see where they gain the ground, enough ground to pull themselves out of it. 13:46 Well, Veegs, one player that Minnesota stole from Wisconsin, Mr. 13:51 Ranta, as Jess says in the Mixler chat, went beast mode. 13:57 And this past weekend, he was excellent. 13:59 A couple other players were off the charts as well. 14:01 But that Ranta kid, I bet you Wisconsin is kind of wishing they had him right about now. 14:10 Yeah, he's been some found gold for Bob Motzko. 14:15 He got to play with Ben Myers and Brandon McManus this last weekend due to Scott Reedy's upper body injury. 14:22 And that line just fit together like a glove. 14:25 And I think he benefited a little bit from Ben Myers being a little bit more of a puck distributor than Scott Reedy. 14:33 And that line just had a lot more movement, a lot more chemistry, and put together some really nice goals. 14:39 He's always been a player that had a dangerous shot. 14:42 I think he's had trouble figuring out how to make his impact on the game. 14:46 But he's really worked hard on his body. 14:49 So he plays a little bit faster, a little bit stronger. 14:53 And if he can play with a center who can move the puck, he's going to put up points every weekend. 14:58 And I think we're just kind of getting a taste of what we're going to see from Sam Poranta. 15:02 And then you've got McManus, who was the player of the week in the Big Ten and the NCAA. 15:07 Yeah, well, McManus is a player who needs players around him that can move the puck and get up and down the ice. 15:13 He's not the fleetest of foot, but he's got a nice touch and he's got a nice feel for the game. 15:18 I think when the power play was working last year for the Gophers, one of the reasons is because McManus was able to chip in here and there, find some space, put pucks in, just make the right play at the right time. 15:30 And I think when he's got two players who can really go like Myers and Ranta, that's the best situation for him. 15:38 Well, I want to get into a couple other topics. 15:40 You know, I know Veegs had his yearly article in attendance at Minnesota, and I'd like to get Todd's feelings on that. 15:46 And then, of course, we've got the series coming up this weekend. 15:48 But first, let's hear from our sponsor. 15:51 There has never been a better time to buy or refinance. 15:55 So call Jerry Peters of First Class Mortgage in Maple Grove for all your mortgage needs. 16:00 Interest rates are at near all time lows and property values are on the rise. 16:05 Lower your interest rate and remove monthly PMI at the same time to save thousands of dollars. 16:11 Or, you know, you could use the equity in your home for debt consolidation or home improvements. 16:16 The spring housing market is going to be hot, so make sure you're prepared by getting a pre-approved letter from Jerry Peters before you start shopping. 16:24 Mention you heard about him on the GPL Podcast and receive a $300 closing credit. 16:29 Some restrictions do apply. 16:32 Call Jerry at 612-940-3291 or visit firstclassmortgage.com to fill out a free application. 16:41 Jerry's NMLS number is 480-200. 16:44 First Class Mortgage's NMLS number is 322-842. 16:49 This is not an offer at all. 16:50 It can be an interest rate agreement under Minnesota law. 16:52 First Class Mortgage is an equal housing lender. 16:56 All right. 16:57 Well, Veegs, we had our little GPL donation-a-thon. 17:01 And you said if we got to a certain level, you would write your kind of yearly ticket scan story. 17:07 And you did it this past week or Friday, you put that out. 17:10 And you kind of made some waves, Veegs. 17:14 You know, I even heard him talking about it on KFAN literally a couple hours later. 17:20 Still not looking good. 17:22 And, you know, we'll bring Todd in on this as well, because, you know, Todd, I've seen, you know, some of the pictures you've been posting at puck drop at Kohl Center have been great. 17:32 And so there's this thing going on in hockey, Veegs, and it's not great. 17:40 Yeah, last year was a rough year for Gopher Hockey attendance. 17:44 We saw a lot of unused tickets. 17:47 They were still selling around 8,000 a night. 17:50 But that first half of the year, there was a slow start. 17:53 They had the bad series with Minnesota State. 17:56 They dropped some games, you know, like to St. 17:58 Lawrence and Ferris State that they probably shouldn't have. 18:01 And that just kind of set them behind for the whole year. 18:03 And they never really caught the momentum. 18:05 It was actually a pretty good team, I thought, the last half of the year. 18:10 They really caught fire after Christmas. 18:13 They had a great crowd for the Wisconsin game last year when they did the throwback pricing. 18:18 But then we saw the empty seats against Michigan when they really had a hard time getting anybody to the building for that series, which was just a black eye for the program. 18:28 But it's a team that has lost its luster and it's going to take a lot of work to get it back. 18:35 And you didn't even include that Big Ten first round series with Michigan in your numbers either. 18:44 Yeah, because it skews the comparison to the previous years. 18:49 One, it's not part of the season ticket package. 18:51 Two, the revenue actually goes back to the entire Big Ten. 18:55 So Minnesota doesn't have complete control over what they can do for pricing for that kind of game. 19:00 The Big Ten has some say in that because it's the revenue for the conference. 19:04 So their hands are tied a little bit with some of that stuff and it would make it hard to compare. 19:09 But if you threw that into it as well, it'd be really down. 19:13 But the biggest thing is to me, 24% decline in tickets scanned. 19:20 That's just really hurting the atmosphere for people. 19:24 It becomes a talking point for everybody every time they're on. 19:27 And then I did a little math and I was finding of the tickets they sold, 37% were not showing up each night, which equaled an average of 3,100 unused tickets each night. 19:42 People talk about the prices and blah, blah, blah and all of this, Fieggs. 19:46 But they're still selling tickets. 19:49 They're still selling quite a few tickets. 19:51 They're just not showing up to the rink. 19:54 Yeah, I know that the Duluth game was a Sunday game and not, you know, the best timing, but almost 4,000 people didn't show up for Bob Motzko's first game against Minnesota Duluth. 20:07 That just baffles me. 20:08 Yes. 20:12 And then on the flip side, Todd, I know you've been looking at this on the Badger side, and you've done some stories about this as well. 20:18 But you take a picture at the puck drop every game recently, and I bet you get a lot of response from that. 20:30 Yeah, and it's probably, well, it's not probably. 20:33 It is an unfair time to take a picture of a game and have it be portrayed as the attendance for the game, right? 20:42 That's the way for it. 20:43 What percentage of people would we say are probably in their seats at game time, especially now that they've instituted metal detectors and everything like that? 20:55 Is it 60% of what it's going to be? 20:59 Is it 70% maybe? 21:00 I don't know. 21:01 So, you have to take that into account. 21:02 But still, that being said, yeah, it's not a great look. 21:08 I think the thing that, from my perspective in the prospects at the Kohl Center, it's a really great view. 21:15 You see the whole thing. 21:16 But the one side over to the left is the student section. 21:26 Between when they won the National Championship in 2006 and when they went back to the Frozen Four in 2010, those years and maybe a couple years before even, you would get students up into the third deck, and if not completely full, now they're lucky to fill the first deck and maybe spill over into the second deck. 21:48 And so that's one of the most striking things to me, is that you've got students who, a lot of them, who live within a couple of blocks, because there's dorms right across the street, well, in two different directions. 22:04 Tickets are relatively cheap. 22:06 I still think they could probably do a little bit better, and if not just completely open the doors free to one, they could make it a little bit easier. 22:17 But they haven't been able to engage with that part of the fan base. 22:21 And I think that could be a big, if they got more students in, that could be a big, people maybe wouldn't talk about the atmosphere suffering as much as they have been. 22:34 I was seeing some discussion today about, you know, the fact that they don't let the band play as much, and so they're playing more recorded music, and people think that takes away from the atmosphere. 22:47 And that's a fair assessment of where things are. 22:52 But, like I wrote to someone, if that's what's keeping you away from attending a game, I don't know if I'd buy that. 23:01 I feel like that's a pretty weak excuse, if that's what's turned you off to the Badger Hockey or College Hockey in general. 23:14 So, this is an issue that has... 23:18 You can go through a hundred different doors and find different issues to come across, but it gives us a lot to talk about, I know that much for sure. 23:31 We'll keep talking about it. 23:33 Do you happen to know how your scan tickets thing are compared to your tickets sold? 23:38 You looked at those a few years ago, I believe, didn't you? 23:41 Yeah, I get them after every year. 23:43 I was just actually looking up to see if I could find last year's numbers quickly, and I don't have it anywhere I can find it quickly on my computer. 24:00 It's been about 25 or 30 percent no shows, and that's been fairly steady the last few years, if I remember it right. 24:12 Again, I could be wrong. 24:14 I could be thinking of a different sport, because I do these for all of the major badger sports that have season tickets. 24:24 And so it's scary in some sports, like women's basketball. 24:29 Their announced attendance and their scanned attendance are, the scanned attendance is sometimes only 40 percent of the announced. 24:37 So yeah, there's a lot of tickets being eaten for a lot of those games. 24:45 It just boggles my mind, Veegs. 24:49 I just don't get it. 24:51 Well, I think part of the thing is the fan experience. 24:54 And why are these people spending the money and not coming to the games? 24:58 And that's something that Gopher Sports is really trying to go after and figure out with their surveys and take care of the squeaky wheels, like selling beer at the games. 25:10 That's something that people said they wanted. 25:12 So they did that. 25:13 You know, people want the seven, seven thirty games on Friday and Saturday. 25:17 Minnesota has given up some TV in the past to maintain that for their home games. 25:22 Some people wanted some family games. 25:24 They moved a couple of Saturdays up to five o'clock to give that opportunity. 25:29 People want the students in cheaper. 25:31 Well, now for ninety nine dollars, a student can go to every game. 25:34 So that's like five bucks a game for a student. 25:38 I don't think it's price as much as everyone wants to go to that sometimes. 25:42 For some people, it is price. 25:44 But there are games that they can go to for ten or fifteen bucks and they're still not coming. 25:48 So it's a bigger problem than just that. 25:51 And I think winning would help. 25:53 It obviously did for Gopher Football when they sold out TCF for the last two games this year. 25:58 And that place was rocking. 26:00 But it's got to take something to get that going again and then for them to keep it. 26:06 There's just so many things going on here and I don't think there is an answer. 26:12 One thing you and I have talked about a lot, Veegs, over the past five plus years is that WCHA is not coming back. 26:21 Those fans that left because of it, they're likely gone. 26:26 And for Minnesota, they need to start going after new people. 26:31 Yep. 26:32 And I think that's what they're doing with their Escape the Cities events that they've done the last couple years. 26:36 They've gone to Blaine, St. 26:38 Louis Park, Edina, a couple other schools as well as they try to connect with youth hockey programs and make that connection between a community and the players at the school and the history there. 26:51 And once you get those people going, maybe those fans won't think about the Big Ten versus WCHA, although even my seven-year-old has picked up on it now that people want the old WCHA back and has been asking me about it. 27:04 He actually came up with a pretty funny proposal this week. 27:06 He thought that we should have a Big Ten division and an NCHC division and you play everybody in your division home and away and you play the other league two series at home and two series on the road. 27:19 And then in the playoffs, you know, the eighth team from the NCHC plays the one team from the Big Ten and you have like the sweet 16 bracket. 27:28 And I was like, you know, that would be kind of fun, but kind of a pipe dream, I think, because you'd have an auto bid and you'd have these egos going at it. 27:37 But it would be one heck of a league to put the West all together like that. 27:43 I just find it fascinating the seven year old's gone this far and thinking about it. 27:47 Well, he likes to go through the game notes and point out typos, the Gophers, SID, Brian Deutsch. 27:55 He found about five of them this year and he thinks it's pretty funny. 28:00 Mr. 28:00 Hollywood Brian Deutsch, huh? 28:02 Well, even he makes typos. 28:07 Actually, I just saw Skyy Malone. 28:11 I actually saw this on Twitter earlier. 28:12 Let's throw this at you, Todd. 28:13 You know, CHN is reporting early this evening that the hockey schools kind of want to expand just beyond hockey as a conference. 28:22 And from what I was getting is that, you know, they may want to kind of reconference up over there and align all sports. 28:34 This could be quite the change in the East if that were to happen. 28:38 Yeah. 28:39 I want to make sure we're talking about the right story. 28:42 I was having a conversation with Jimmy Connelly earlier today about what he's writing for USCHO. 28:48 Is that the same thing you're talking about or is that something else? 28:51 I believe it is. 28:52 He left a tweet on it today. 28:54 He tweeted something about it. 28:55 Yeah. 28:56 Yeah. 28:57 It's something that seems a little far-fetched. 29:04 I mean, from one perspective it does. 29:07 From the other, I will never rule anything out because of the way things happened seven years ago and how everyone turned their back. 29:14 Some people turned their back on others. 29:16 Yeah. 29:18 And really, what might be happening in the next couple of seasons, too, because we've kind of proven that we're past the point of, in a lot of ways, looking out for little guys and looking out for each other. 29:33 So once you get past that and once you accept that, then it doesn't maybe seem so far-fetched that you're talking about shifting things as dramatically as they might be talking about out east. 29:50 If I understand it right, talking about trying to align with a completely separate all-sport conference. 29:58 Like a big east, I would assume. 30:00 Well, yeah, I don't think it would be big east. 30:02 But it was, yeah, someone like that where the advantage being once you have something like that, then you have a bigger seat at the table, or a seat at the table, I guess, in a lot of NCAA things. 30:17 Where right now, the Big Ten is the only one that really does. 30:19 You know, the NCHC tries to, in a lot of ways, have a presence in drafting legislation and things like that. 30:28 But they have a harder time doing it because they're not a full or an all-sport conference. 30:33 So that, I think, would be attractive to those schools. 30:41 But there's got to be other reasons too behind it. 30:44 We'll wait to see when that all comes out. 30:47 But yeah, we knew that hockey is in for a change anyway. 30:52 Joe Bertagno got on his way out after the season. 30:56 And so now you add a little bit more drama into it. 30:59 So I'll be interested in reading that story when it comes out tomorrow. 31:02 Do you have any thoughts on it so far, Veegs? 31:05 I think Todd's right on about having a bigger seat at the NCAA table. 31:10 I think that's one of the things in college hockey that's kind of an issue. 31:14 And it's frankly one of the reasons why the NCHC formed out of the WCHA is the bigger schools in that league wanted to have a bigger voice. 31:22 They didn't want to give up their power to these smaller schools. 31:26 And I think that's kind of what we're seeing a little bit in college hockey is some of these bigger schools want to throw their weight behind it and use that power of being in a big conference. 31:35 So we'll see what happens. 31:37 I don't think we're done with the college hockey shakeups that are coming around the country. 31:43 There's always teams looking to move a little bit like Minnesota State, Arizona State, probably St. 31:48 Thomas here coming up soon. 31:50 So there's more changes ahead. 31:52 Maybe Northwestern. 31:55 I heard Northwestern from someone. 31:58 We'll have to wait and see. 32:01 Well, it's going to take a school with money to be that next Big Ten school. 32:05 And once they do, they'll get the support just like Penn State if they build their facility right and get the backing. 32:12 Because Penn State, for whatever people have to say about the Big Ten and the damage it did out west, it's been great for Penn State. 32:19 And really, the only schools affected by things are Wisconsin and Minnesota, I think. 32:24 And when you look at the top five schools for attendance nationally, Minnesota and Wisconsin are still there. 32:31 True. 32:32 True. 32:34 And then, like you said, who knows what's going to happen with the WCHA, that whole debacle. 32:43 I mean, it's crazy. 32:45 You know, it's crazy. 32:46 You know, you go back 10 years and everything was just moving smoothly along. 32:50 And now, you know, one team gets added and it's just throwing a monkey wrench into the whole thing. 32:58 And we thought it would settle down here after a few years. 33:02 But now with the WCHA changes and all those schools jumping out, it's just chaos again. 33:10 Isn't there a line in The Godfather about how they have to have a war every 10 years to clean out the bad, get rid of the bad blood or something like that? 33:18 Maybe that's the way it works in college hockey. 33:21 We have to have a realignment every five or 10 years to get everyone feeling good about themselves or something like that. 33:31 Who knows? 33:33 We'll just have to wait and see. 33:34 Well, I know we're going to have plenty to talk about in coming years here and where these things change. 33:39 I have a feeling, Vig, we might have a couple of summer podcasts with all changes that could happen in the middle of the off season. 33:49 Well, I know one of the reasons the Big Ten schools don't have their schedules locked down in future years is because of this pending eighth Big Ten team. 33:58 You know, they've been told to cool their jets on planning too far ahead so they can leave an extra weekend open. 34:04 So when you start making decisions like that, it means it might be close. 34:12 Let's say that that directive has been selectively applied at some schools. 34:20 Hey, some schools selectively apply recruiting rules, you know. 34:24 That's very true. 34:27 Some schools like to have 35 players committed to them. 34:30 It's true. 34:30 If nobody's looking at you, you're not going to get caught, right? 34:35 Oh, boy. 34:36 Here we go. 34:40 Well, let's get about, let's talk about this weekend, guys. 34:43 Minnesota's heading down to the Kohl Center for a matchup with those stinking Badgers. 34:53 And I'm looking forward to this, Veegs. 34:56 I mean, you know, Minnesota seems to have turned it around, but Wisconsin's looking to do the exact same thing. 35:02 So I'm thinking we're going to have a fun weekend. 35:06 Yeah, I think it's going to be a good matchup. 35:07 I'm really interested to see how Wisconsin's centers play down the middle. 35:12 When I look at their lineup, I don't see a lot of talented depth there. 35:17 You've got a couple players who are older, but they're veteran juniors who aren't big point players. 35:23 And Minnesota's centers have started to play pretty well as of late. 35:26 So I think that'll be an interesting matchup to watch. 35:29 I think you look at Minnesota's penalty kill, which has been outstanding since basically the end of November. 35:37 I think they're at like 95 or 96 percent since then, and they've gotten great goaltending. 35:43 You look at Wisconsin, their power play is one of the most dangerous in the country with some of the talent they put out there on the wings. 35:49 So I think it'll be some fun hockey, and we might see a few goals this weekend. 35:53 Oh, I love seeing goals because for quite a few years there, Todd, but there weren't a lot of goals in these games against Wisconsin. 36:04 No, there were not. 36:06 Yeah, those are some, I mean, not to say they weren't good games, but yeah, they were, you had to wait for your goal scoring in a lot of those. 36:19 A lot of two one and three ones as I'm looking back through the list of results, and especially here at the Kohl Center. 36:27 Yeah, those have been some, you know, if they weren't rivalry games, you might call them boring. 36:35 Oh, they were boring. 36:38 They were boring for everyone. 36:40 Okay. 36:41 You know, you know, Granado has brought back a different, the old school style that we used to see years ago from more, maybe for Mr. 36:48 Mr. 36:49 Jeff Sauer. 36:51 But he might not have turned the team around, but he sure has made the games a lot more fun. 37:00 Win or lose. 37:03 That's, I think that's a fair way of describing Badger Hockey in his tenure. 37:10 The results haven't really been there, but are you enjoying watching them play a little bit more? 37:15 I would say, yeah. 37:17 Even unless you're so frustrated by the fact that the D-zone play has become a liability where it used to be the strength, right? 37:31 You got used to seeing that, maybe, and that's turned around quite significantly, I would say, the past four or five years. 37:41 Yeah, they certainly haven't been winning. 37:43 We got Thompson in the Mixler chat earlier saying, Granado's got a.474 win percentage since he got back to Madison. 37:52 That's something definitely needs to turn around, but I'll tell you flat out, we love it that he's coached. 37:57 Like I said, win or lose, the hockey is much more entertaining, much more fun to watch. 38:02 Even if our Gophers are losing to the Badgers, it's just more fun. 38:07 Well, I think we've heard a couple of coaches at Minnesota over the years say, if you're going to sit back and play defense and use your $300 stick as a club and focus on your systems and wait for other teams to make mistakes, that's just not entertaining hockey. 38:25 And why would you have all this talent if you weren't going to let them loose a little bit? 38:29 And I think that's something you're seeing out of the Gophers and the Badgers right now, is you're going to have your talented players have a chance to make plays. 38:38 Now, whether they can do that responsibly, we'll see. 38:41 I think Minnesota is turning the corner on that. 38:44 You don't have so many guys who are riverboat gambling on a 30-70 chance as they cross the blue line to make a play. 38:51 They've learned a little bit from their mistakes. 38:54 I don't know if Wisconsin has the same learning curve that Minnesota has right now, but when those badgers do gain the blue line with speed, they have plenty of talent to make plays, and they will make you pay if you make mistakes, and that's fun to watch. 39:08 And the one thing that hasn't come together at all is a Minnesota power play. 39:13 So I think Wisconsin's got some wiggle room here, Veegs. 39:18 They can be in the box and maybe not pay for it like they would have in the past. 39:24 Minnesota hasn't had problems gaining the offensive zone on the power play, which sometimes can just kill a team. 39:31 But once they get there, they can be very stagnant. 39:34 And it's been an issue all year. 39:36 Bob Mosco's been experimenting, putting Robbie Stucker at the point to kind of get a little more pace going in their offensive zone presence. 39:45 Because the other guys, when they put there, they get a little paralysis, and the puck just doesn't move quick enough, and it's hard to generate scoring chances. 39:53 Now, Todd, how's the goaltending been looking over there at Wisconsin? 39:59 Well, how much time do you have left in the show for me to... 40:04 You know, I got to say that traditional Wisconsin, boy, they've always had great goaltending, and things have just kind of changed the past, I would say even past 10 years. 40:17 Yeah. 40:18 It's slowly going down, and I believe didn't you lose a long time goalie coach? 40:23 Not too long ago. 40:25 Bill Howard was the goalie coach for 30-some years. 40:28 Yeah, there you go. 40:29 But when you could have three assistant coaches, he was a paid assistant coach, and then he became a volunteer when that changed. 40:38 I don't remember what year that was, but yeah, he was done... 40:43 I want to say sometime late 2000, before 2010, I'm pretty sure. 40:53 But yeah, it has been an adventure. 40:59 I think it's a good way of saying it in that they went into the season thinking that Daniel Lebedev was going to be their goalie. 41:09 They had gone through the late last season giving him all the starts, kind of to prepare him and say, look, you're going to be our guy. 41:16 Don't worry about having to fight to keep your job. 41:21 You're going to be getting the starts. 41:24 And he has some good games. 41:27 He has some bad games. 41:28 He has a lot of games in the middle. 41:31 And it's just been something that when it got to the second half of the year, they thought that they, the coaches, I'm saying, thought maybe it would be time to see what Jack Berry, the senior, could do. 41:49 Given that it's the second half of his last season, maybe he feels like there's a little bit more, maybe he's got a little bit more juice thinking that there's, you know, his time is short to be playing here. 42:02 And that too has been an up and down battle. 42:07 So there are pros and cons with both sides there, I think. 42:14 But when you don't have a guy that you know you can count on, you know what you're going to get out of them, I think you're in a tough spot. 42:23 And that's a little bit of where they are. 42:25 And that's where they've been for the last maybe five or six years. 42:32 There was a point that they had a goalie coming in. 42:38 And this was before I was covering the team. 42:41 And so I didn't know him. 42:44 I didn't really know the background of what happened. 42:47 But in the summer, he left to go play in the OHL. 42:53 And since that point, it's been a little bit of a rollercoaster and a revolving door for that matter. 42:58 Because when that happened, they brought in Matt Jerusak from the NHL who's playing in Janesville. 43:06 He probably wasn't ready to be an every night goalie. 43:09 But they had to go that direction. 43:14 Then they saw Kyle Hayton out there as a graduate transfer from St. 43:19 Lawrence. 43:19 And they went and got him for his final season. 43:23 That had Jerusak go out and transfer and now he's at Michigan Tech. 43:28 And so that year with Hayton didn't go well. 43:31 And then you've got last year with Lebedev coming in and having Barry back for his junior season. 43:40 Neither one of them really established himself. 43:46 They didn't really get a percentage over 900, which is kind of just that baseline of you have to be there, at least to give your team a chance. 43:54 You've got to be there through the season. 43:59 And so now you're in that same position of, well, who's going to be the goalie this Friday? 44:03 I don't really know. 44:06 They gave Jack Barry both starts last weekend for the first time in, I think since his, oh boy, I think it's happened one time in each of the last three years where he's started both games of a series and he was okay. 44:26 I mean, and I think that's kind of where they're at. 44:29 They get okay goal tending and they have to figure out ways of working with that. 44:37 You know, on the flip side, Veegs, we pretty much thought last week we'd probably see most starting Friday night against Ohio State and we didn't see him the entire weekend. 44:50 Yeah, Bob is hard to read on what he wants out of his goal tending. 44:54 He's been really hard on Mo when Mo's had bad games, but he's kind of let LaFontaine off the hook when he's had bad games. 45:02 And it's kind of an interesting perspective on how the coach handles goal tending and their egos and their personalities and just the reasoning Bob's given about how he picks his goalies has been interesting this year. 45:16 And he talked about how LaFontaine played well in Ohio. 45:20 And so that's why he went with him against Ohio State and Mo's played well in Michigan. 45:25 So he'd probably go with Mo in Michigan. 45:28 It's very hard to read what's going on. 45:31 If I'm trying to get the tea leaves out, I think we see LaFontaine this Friday and see how he handles it. 45:38 He played very well against Wisconsin in his last series out and did well against the Badgers. 45:45 And he's probably the more veteran guy who had a good weekend last weekend. 45:50 So I think he gets the nod. 45:52 But again, you're only as good as your goaltending in college hockey. 45:56 And Minnesota's got two talents, but it's hard to know who's going to be on and who's going to play well because both Minnesota goalies are big technique goalies. 46:06 They rely a lot on their positioning and their reeds and their butterfly. 46:12 So it's not one of those athletic goalies who can kind of fight off a bad feel for the game. 46:17 These guys have to be on to play well. 46:21 Well, then what do you see happening this weekend, Todd? 46:24 I mean, I'm guessing a lot of people are thinking split here because that's just kind of how things go. 46:32 It is, except I think every time I've been on with you guys, I've called split. 46:39 And then I look back and I see the Badgers' record against the Gophers here at the Kohl Center since Granado took over, it's two and six. 46:50 Go back a little bit longer, it's two, seven and one, I think the last ten. 46:58 And I should say that number for Granado being two and six, he wasn't actually here for one of them because he was coaching the Olympics, one of those. 47:05 So it's hard to put that on him, but it's still part of his record, regardless. 47:10 It's his program. 47:12 Right, exactly. 47:13 I think I'm going to say the Gophers win Friday and it's going to be a tie on Saturday with I'll say Badger shootout or three on three win. 47:23 All right, Veegs? 47:27 Well, you don't want to say a team's turned the corner too soon. 47:33 Are you going to say it? 47:35 But I think they've turned the corner. 47:36 I think the coach is really trying to hold back from going with that. 47:41 But I think this team is playing pretty well right now. 47:43 And I really think that Ranta Meyers McManus line is something magical for them right now. 47:51 And if this team can ever figure out a way to get Sammy Walker back on track, you know, this is going to be a really hard team to hold the back because they're playing smart hockey and I think the defensemen are playing better if they can get Ben Brinkman going back to what he looked like last year. 48:08 That would really help. 48:09 But right now, this team is being led by some young players who I don't think you can call them freshmen anymore. 48:15 They played a lot of junior games. 48:17 They're starting just to college hockey. 48:19 And I think they're going up against a team that's going to be making mistakes. 48:23 And I think this team is experienced enough now at this point where they can capitalize on that. 48:28 So I think anything less than four points would be a disappointment for Minnesota and I think they get six. 48:36 Ooh, Veegs, I don't remember the last time you predicted a sweep. 48:41 Doesn't happen very often. 48:42 It doesn't. 48:44 I mean, except for maybe Niagara or something like that. 48:46 But in a Big Ten series, especially on the road, I don't think I'm going to go that way. 48:52 Yeah. 48:53 And they actually did it. 48:54 That was their last Big Ten regular season sweep was at Ohio State last season until this past weekend. 49:04 Yeah, that was pretty amazing. 49:05 The Gophers hadn't had a conference home sweep since November 3rd and 4th, 2017. 49:12 Oh, jeez. 49:14 That's a long time. 49:16 Obviously, it's a regular season and they did sweep Michigan last year, but... 49:21 That doesn't count. 49:22 That was the playoffs. 49:23 In front of 1,500 people. 49:24 No one probably saw it. 49:26 In front of all the parents. 49:30 Parents and scouts, a lot of draft picks in that game. 49:35 Well I guess I'm going to have to jump on board too. 49:36 I can't change after last week, I predicted the sweep, they pulled it off, Gophers sweep. 49:43 Take that, you stinkin badgers. 49:48 Yeah, there we go. 49:50 Todd, I think you're going to see a pretty good team this weekend. 49:52 I think the Gophers are playing well right now. 49:55 Johnson is playing with some confidence. 49:58 Lacombe is starting to figure things out. 50:01 Nanny has kind of been playing more reserved. 50:03 I think sometimes his defensive partner gets him in trouble and then he forces things a little bit. 50:09 But I think we're seeing a little bit more Robbie Stucker as well. 50:14 Could be an interesting matchup. 50:16 Todd, what are you working on this weekend for actually the reporting side on the newspaper side? 50:22 Yeah, I'm working on something actually about the teams going maybe a little bit different directions even though they're kind of at the break at the same place. 50:34 Young teams hadn't really figured it out, needed a push in the second half. 50:38 The Badgers haven't really got it, Minnesota is maybe starting to show it. 50:41 So that's a little bit of what I'm writing about. 50:43 Just kind of going into what's the landscape, what the landscape looks like ahead of this series here and where the teams might be going. 50:56 Todd, do you look at this weekend as kind of a measuring stick for Granado and where he's at in his program? 51:01 Because they're both young programs right now. 51:03 Yeah, I think a lot of people are going to take it that way, especially if it doesn't go well for the Badgers. 51:11 This was the kind of weekend that could, you know, if it goes really not well, like a few years ago when it was nine to two or one of those games, whatever, the last year of Eves, I think that was, right? 51:26 When it was 4-0-9-2, I think the two games here, Gopher wins. 51:35 I think if it is lopsided, there's going to be a lot of people who, you know, maybe only check in on the Badgers when they play the Gophers. 51:44 That will be surprised to see that this is where they're at. 51:49 I actually asked about that a little bit earlier this week about how, you know, for people who, you know, maybe only see your team a couple times of the year and it's against Minnesota, what are you hoping to show them? 52:03 And it was, you know, the answer was more about, you know, where they're at right now with the fact that they're, they've, Granado is happier with where they're at with the way they've been playing, even in the game they lost last Saturday. 52:21 He thought they played well, but they had a penalty disparity that they, you know, kind of shot themselves in the foot on and gave up three power play goals. 52:32 So, all in all, I think they're not like terribly worried about where they're at playing wise. 52:40 They obviously don't like where they're at with the record, but they feel like there's, there are things happening in a positive direction. 52:50 Now, if you don't go out and show that, what does it really mean though? 52:54 That's I think, you know, where it's time to, it's a show me kind of weekend. 53:01 So, you can say all you want about where you're at and where you think you're going, but if you go out and lose a couple of the Gophers, people aren't going to be buying, I don't think very much. 53:10 Well, one thing that would be interesting to look at is, you know, you mentioned how well the Gophers have done in Kohl Center, you know, since Gridado took over. 53:20 But, you know, even going back since the Kohl Center opened, this is, I think Minnesota, they may be above 500 in Kohl Center. 53:31 All right, hold on, give me a minute, I've got a spreadsheet open. 53:35 It can't be too far off. 53:37 I mean, you go back to the Dane, and I'm guessing the Dane is more of a place of horrors for the Gophers. 53:42 But Kohl Center, I mean, there's some years when they got swept there, but they've done fairly well there. 53:48 So, yeah, you check your spreadsheet. 53:50 What do you think, Veegs? 53:52 I will buy you a little time by talking about what I evaluate Minnesota on, is the things that Bob Motzko talks about, not taking bad penalties in the offensive zone, not taking needless, selfish penalties, getting in on the forecheck, getting clean breakouts. 54:09 Now, these are the things that he talks about when he took the job and throughout the season, and you see that they've cut down turnovers. 54:17 They've cut down the bad penalties. 54:19 Their penalty kill has gotten better. 54:21 They're forechecking now. 54:22 The things that he talks about, you can actually see on the ice and they're implementing. 54:28 So when I hear other coaches talk about, I'm encouraged by the play, if it's hard for other people to see it, it's hard to believe it. 54:36 Here's what I got. 54:39 Gophers at the Kohl Center, 22, 14 and 5. 54:43 Gophers at the Coliseum, 30, 35 and 5. 54:48 Well, there you go. 54:49 Well, it's closer to 500 and obviously more games, but- 54:52 No, that's including playoffs, I think. 54:56 Well, if I was putting this in the paper, I would do a little bit more double-check. 55:04 Not this little podcast. 55:06 Right. 55:06 Exactly. 55:08 Well, yeah, I didn't think it was that much. 55:11 That's interesting, actually. 55:14 Kohl Center has been a pretty good place for the Gophers. 55:17 Yep. 55:19 That's not so bad. 55:19 Veegs, one more thing for you. 55:22 Where is Reedy going to get plugged in? 55:26 You know, I'm not sure yet because in practice, they had him working in with the fourth line. 55:31 So maybe they just kind of ease him back into it. 55:33 Might be putting him with Purbecks and either Munson or Maruni and just kind of slowly seeing how he is. 55:39 It sounds like it could be a shoulder. 55:41 He's had lots of shoulder injuries in the past. 55:43 So when that's come up, you know, he doesn't like to take faceoffs, I think, to stress the shoulder. 55:49 So we'll see what happens. 55:50 But I wouldn't expect him to slot, you know, in the top six. 55:54 We got a question from our boy, Drew Cove in the Mixler Chat. 55:58 He'll actually be on the show with our boy, Nate, at the end of February, right before that last series. 56:05 So we're gonna have them both on at the same time. 56:06 But Drew's asking Todd, best restaurant that is sneakily good in Madison? 56:17 Oh, I always tend to go to the ones that everyone knows are good. 56:22 I'm a big fan of the Great Dane. 56:27 I mean, I think people have probably, that's probably well known enough. 56:30 But the Great Dane, well, Mote is saying Gumbies. 56:39 Gumbies closed a few years ago. 56:40 Oh, there you go, Mote. 56:41 Already shut down. 56:44 What about the Greenbush Bar? 56:47 Greenbush Bar? 56:48 Italian, pizza, bourbon. 56:51 It closed too. 56:53 I think there was a fire there a few years ago. 56:55 Vicks, you sort of fire somewhere? 56:57 It's been a while. 57:01 When you say Greenbush, though, there's also Greenbush Donuts, which is a place that's open till well past bar time. 57:06 And so that's a very popular donut stop. 57:10 Good place. 57:11 And Vicks, we may have to plan a trip there next year. 57:16 One of these days? 57:18 Like I said, I haven't been down there since, well, the Kessley year and the year after. 57:23 So that's mid-2000s. 57:26 Well, I'm getting closer. 57:28 The kids are getting older. 57:33 All right, Todd. 57:33 Well, glad to have you on again. 57:36 You're always a great guest for us and we appreciate you coming on with us. 57:39 No, thanks, guys. 57:40 I love doing it. 57:42 We always love having you on and you're always a great support about some of the ribbing we give you. 57:47 So it's all fun. 57:50 Hey, just doing my job. 57:54 That's going to do it for this episode of The GPL Podcast. 57:57 We'll be back next week to recap the Badger Series and preview Michigan State coming to town. 58:04 So that'll be fun. 58:06 For those of you listening live, stay tuned for a little bit over time. 58:09 You know, Vegoe's got to get to bed here soon. 58:12 For the rest of you, we'll be back next week. 58:14 Thanks for listening.