0:03
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0:24
Now, here's Joep and Vego.
0:37
Good evening, and welcome to the GPL Podcast, episode number 173.
0:44
For those of you listening live right now, the world just got real crazy, real fast at Nidvigz.
0:51
I mean, in the last, well, for the last hour, we just had the NBA shut down, we found out Tom Hanks has the coronavirus, and that doesn't even include what happened earlier today when we just found out that most games all over the place are not going to have any fans in it.
1:08
Help us calm down here, Vegs.
1:11
Well, it's going to be hard to calm down.
1:13
There's a lot of serious stuff going on in the world, and as much as sports are a little toy box, there are some serious things going on.
1:22
Yeah, there is definitely some serious things going on.
1:24
In the NBA, it sounds like even maybe one of the players may have coronavirus, and they just suspended the season, just within the last hour.
1:36
So I mean, they'll pick it up later when they can, but they're not going to just stop the season, but they're suspending the season.
1:42
I'm guessing even during our show, the same thing could happen with the NHL.
1:49
It's a little different College Hockey and College Sports right now, Vigz, because we're at the end of seasons.
1:54
We're not kind of building the playoffs or anything like that.
1:57
Now, we're in the playoffs.
1:59
And I don't know if they could really stop the train right now, could they?
2:04
Well, they definitely could.
2:05
If they think it's in the best interests of everybody involved, they could easily stop things and shut things down.
2:13
This is something that's going to impact everybody.
2:15
I'm sure by the time this podcast is even done, or by time people are listening tomorrow, things will change even more.
2:22
Yeah, things could change.
2:23
And I mean, right before we came on the air, the NCHC just said this weekend, their games are going to be with limited fans, or limited, I didn't see the official thing.
2:31
I just saw someone put it up in the Mixer Chat.
2:34
So it's happening.
2:36
And I know I'm not the expert on this thing.
2:39
This is just trying to slow this thing down.
2:41
Exactly.
2:42
As University of Minnesota professor and public health expert Mike Osterholm says, trying to stop this will be like trying to stop the wind.
2:54
It's underway.
2:55
It's going to happen.
2:56
What we're doing right now isn't going to stop people from getting this.
3:00
It's just going to try to slow things down and hopefully allow our hospitals and health care workers some space to handle things.
3:09
And that's the most important thing right now.
3:10
We know this is going to spread.
3:12
We know many of us are going to get this.
3:15
Some of us will be just fine.
3:16
Some of us may not even have symptoms.
3:18
But the key here is, some people aren't quite understanding, people are like, this is an overreaction.
3:23
This is not an overreaction.
3:25
This is a preventative measure.
3:27
We know what's coming.
3:28
Let's slow it down.
3:29
Because if we do not slow it down, it hits much harder all at once.
3:35
And our hospital system, our medical care, our medical system just cannot handle that type of volume and would basically collapse, causing even more damage.
3:45
So what they're doing here folks, just like Vegue said and Mr.
3:48
Osterholm says, we can't stop this, but we could slow it down.
3:51
Slowing it down is critical.
3:54
Yeah, it's critical.
3:54
I mean, if you care to look at what's happening in Italy right now, they've got such a big outbreak, but they're having trouble finding enough ventilators for people who need them.
4:05
So instead of treating people as first come first serve, they're starting to have to make really hard decisions on who gets the best care.
4:13
And so this is when they do things like this, they're trying to prevent that from happening as much as they can.
4:20
So like I said, things are happening while we're on the air here.
4:24
If you guys are paying attention to the Mixer Chat, let us know.
4:27
It's a little harder for us to monitor things while we're chatting here.
4:30
So if you guys see anything happen, let us know and we'll try to talk about it.
4:34
But you know, kind of backing up all the way here, Veegs, Gophers did win two out of three this weekend against Notre Dame.
4:44
Friday night, I didn't see the game.
4:47
I was at ACME.
4:49
I understand it may have been the worst game we have ever seen for the Gophers.
4:54
Not a bad one to miss.
4:56
It was kind of hard to watch.
5:00
It was, as Bob Motzko said, going to be a rock fight.
5:04
And I didn't realize it was going to be such a boulder fight, where both teams basically were trying to put the boulder over the red line and didn't really care where it went after it got over the red line.
5:15
And that's not a lot of fun to watch in hockey, but it was a big time adjustment for the Gophers.
5:20
I think they eventually made the adjustment.
5:22
I thought they played pretty well towards the end of that game.
5:26
Once they kind of figured things out, they stopped giving pucks away.
5:29
They started to get their ground game going a little bit more.
5:32
They stopped trying to go at four and five players at the blue line and found their flow a little bit.
5:37
Yeah.
5:38
Yeah.
5:39
It's just, you know, when you're playing against that style, it's really hard when you're playing from behind.
5:44
And they almost got into it in the third period.
5:47
The power play had a chance to get them back into it.
5:49
But as we've seen this season, not quite enough.
5:54
So you know, obviously the Friday night game, ugly.
5:58
The shots, were they, what were the final shot?
6:00
Those was a seven or eight or what was the final shot?
6:03
They ended up with 12.
6:05
Now in the Gophers defense, I thought those were 12 pretty good shots.
6:10
A lot of them came off a turnovers, uncharacteristic of Notre Dame to turn the puck over like they did in that game.
6:18
Minnesota had some chances to even it up or take the lead with those 12 shots.
6:23
They probably missed it out with a bunch of others.
6:26
But Notre Dame got really good goaltending, I thought, from Cale Morris.
6:31
He really impressed me.
6:33
As much as you hate to say it, that they ran into a hot goalie, I thought Cale Morris was on top of his game and made it really tough for the Gophers.
6:40
And one thing that people forget, you know, Lafontaine only gave up one goal.
6:47
And it was really, he kept them in there as best he could.
6:52
But you still got to score.
6:54
Still got to score.
6:55
As Jeff Jackson learned later in the weekend, you need to score goals out, you know, take away mistakes that other people make.
7:04
Whether it's your own players, the referees or the bounces of the game, you know, if you can get to three, you can kind of eliminate some of those mistakes from impacting you.
7:15
And for Minnesota, on Friday, you know, just getting zero doesn't really help them too much.
7:22
No, it didn't.
7:22
But then on Saturday, they came back and got the victory, two to one.
7:29
It was a two-nothing lead, and they held on with the two to one.
7:34
What stood out for you Saturday night, Veegs?
7:37
I think the thing that stood out to me Saturday night is the patience of the Gophers.
7:42
You know, I think we talked all weekly up to it how players like Sammy Walker need to really commit to a B game.
7:51
Not trying to beat everybody off the rush, not trying to hit home runs every play, and really forcing, you know, the other team to play a hard game and be difficult to play against.
8:02
And we saw goals from Ryan Zoolsdorf and Cullen Munson, two guys you don't really look to to produce offense.
8:09
No, not at all.
8:10
But they came through at the right time.
8:12
I thought Zools did a great job filling a lane late as an option.
8:16
I thought Munson did a nice job getting in the net to get his goal.
8:19
And those were key for Minnesota.
8:21
And I think to get through a tight game like that, you can't just rely on your top guys all the time.
8:27
And it helps when these guys chip in.
8:31
So that brought us to the finale Saturday at 6 p.m.
8:35
Gophers give up the early lead, which had us concerned.
8:40
And then three straight goals in the third period, or second period I should say, to get the lead.
8:45
I mean, after, which is obviously something controversial.
8:50
A five minute major was called on Notre Dame, but the problem is it wasn't called on the ice during the play.
8:57
Bad and check from behind, I can't remember what it was.
9:01
Play went on, Notre Dame gets another penalty, that's called, they go back and look at it.
9:05
Ooh, boy, that's a bad hit.
9:06
Five minute major.
9:07
So Gophers had full two minutes of five on three.
9:12
And, you know, people talk about the inconsistency in the reffing.
9:15
And this is where I would agree with them, because if they call that five minute major on the ice, it's only a five minute major.
9:21
There's not the five on three.
9:24
So that's where I could see where people could be a bit angry about the consistency of reffing.
9:30
But it sure did give Minnesota a lift, and they took the lead on that.
9:35
Yeah, they took the lead.
9:37
But in college hockey, you can't shove somebody's head into the glass, especially when you're looking at their numbers from behind.
9:46
I think that's going to get called in video review in every college hockey game across the country.
9:52
If the referee has any guts, when you see that, you can't not let that go and excuse yourself and explain yourself.
10:01
So Jeff Jackson came into the media room after the game and said it was an embarrassment even watching the video review.
10:09
I think if it's reversed around, he'd say it's an embarrassment if they don't make the call.
10:13
Yeah.
10:14
Yeah.
10:15
And maybe that's what he was referring to because he was he was saying how inconsistent they were and he was not happy.
10:20
I'm kind of curious if the league was going to say anything because he was definitely not happy with the refereeing.
10:26
But from our perspective, karma is a bitch.
10:31
Sometimes it just comes around and bites you in the ass.
10:34
And that happened to the Gophers last season and it just happened to happen to Notre Dame this season.
10:40
Yeah, I think Minnesota played well enough to win at least two out of three this past weekend.
10:47
The power play once again didn't look spectacular.
10:51
There wasn't a lot of great puck movement, but they did get goals when they needed to.
10:55
I thought all their goals on Sunday were really classy, pretty goals, goal scorer type goals.
11:03
The ones the night before, Zolstoros one definitely was a really nice goal.
11:07
So I think you can look at that and say Minnesota did produce enough offense.
11:11
And I think the biggest key for them all weekend was they didn't feed Notre Dame's offense.
11:17
That's always something you have to be careful about when you play a game like that against Notre Dame, which is going to put so many players back, is you can't feed their offense.
11:25
And I think that's a difference with the program right now than if you look back a couple of years.
11:32
Most definitely.
11:33
So what happened then is now Minnesota will head to Happy Valley or Death Valley, as we were calling it in postgame, to play Penn State.
11:45
Ohio State took care of Wisconsin.
11:48
Michigan took care of Michigan State.
11:50
I'm not sure all of that was expected.
11:51
I thought Wisconsin would put up a little better fight.
11:54
And Friday night when I looked down at my phone and saw it's 7-0, it's 8-0.
12:00
Oh my goodness, what happened to the Badgers there?
12:04
Got to overtime the second night, but I thought the Badgers put up a little better fight against the Ohio State Vs.
12:10
Yeah, I don't think it was a great situation in Wisconsin towards the end of the year.
12:15
There was a Scott Wheeler article that came out as he kind of embedded with the Badger program for a little bit to look at all their top prospects.
12:24
And reading that in the Athletic, you just got the sense that most of those players weren't bought in to play College Hockey.
12:32
They were there to develop and buy their time until they're ready for the NHL.
12:37
I think you compare that to what's happening in Minnesota right now.
12:40
You look at guys like Ryan Johnson and Jackson LeCombe, who are blocking shots and sacrificing their body and biding their time, not getting power play opportunities as much as they would like probably.
12:56
You have a player like Scott Reedy, who's been just a great goal scorer for Minnesota on the wing, playing with Sammy Walker and Blake McLaughlin, sacrificing those scoring opportunities to make his team better by playing center and not batting an eyelash about it.
13:12
I think that speaks to what's happening in Minnesota and what's happening in Wisconsin.
13:16
And maybe that impacts recruiting a little bit as we see a player from Hill Murray turn away from Wisconsin and commit to Minnesota today.
13:26
Yeah.
13:27
That just happened within the last hour, didn't it?
13:30
Or at least hour and a half.
13:32
Yeah.
13:33
Charlie Strobel had a great season with Hill Murray, especially great tournament with them as their captain.
13:40
Big time score for them.
13:42
I think a lot of people had him tagged to play for his uncle at Wisconsin.
13:46
And he decided to pick Minnesota today.
13:50
And quite the week for him.
13:53
He grew up playing Stillwater Hockey and went to Hill Murray and was very productive there the last couple of season.
13:59
I was going to talk about him.
14:01
Tim Hapke sent me a question about that.
14:04
Sorry Tim, we got to it before we could get to your question.
14:06
But Tim came up to me and introduced himself this weekend.
14:09
So it was nice to meet you, Tim.
14:11
So it's always great to run into fans at the games.
14:17
And to continue on the Big Ten there, Veegs, Michigan kind of kept it rolling here.
14:21
Took out their arch rival, Michigan State, and now they head to Ohio State.
14:27
Yeah, pretty impressive season for Michigan.
14:29
I think Mel Pearson has done a great job with that team, much like Bob Motzko has done with Minnesota.
14:35
A lot of young talent there.
14:37
I think they were bolstered a little bit by having some upperclassmen like Will Lockwood and Looch and Martin to really balance their team.
14:47
But big win for them over in Michigan State, who surprised everybody the first half of this Big Ten season.
14:54
They put themselves in great position and then all of a sudden these younger teams started catching up as their freshmen developed.
15:01
And pretty impressive job he's been doing there at Michigan.
15:05
And it bodes well for the future if Minnesota and Michigan have these young teams bouncing back to compete with teams who have been a little bit more senior heavy lately.
15:15
Sky Yuma really hates it that Bucky lost.
15:17
He's really upset about it.
15:21
We know you love Bucky, Eric.
15:23
We know you love him.
15:25
Well they're going to need to replace their prospects.
15:28
It looks like the mass exodus has already happened as those players were pretty interested in being professionals even during the last couple of weeks here.
15:36
And now they're getting their contracts.
15:39
Yes they are.
15:41
So that moves us on to Penn State.
15:42
But before we talk about all that and a couple of questions via either Mixler or via using the hashtag GPL Podcast, let's hear from our sponsor.
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Well, thank you, Jerry, of course, for sponsoring The GPL Podcast, the second half of the season.
17:03
I'm going to write to a question here because it pertains right to this weekend.
17:06
A hockey fan asked earlier today, trying to remain calm regarding the game at PSU, do the Gophers have a legit chance?
17:15
I think we need to score first and have Jack Lafonte play the best game of his career.
17:20
It seems in years past Gopher goaltending disappears in big games.
17:24
Your thoughts?
17:26
I would just start that my feeling going into this weekend was, I want to play Penn State.
17:36
It's something they need to get over the hump.
17:39
Penn State has not played in three weeks by the time this game will happen, so although they haven't played since they played Minnesota.
17:48
Now we've got this added thing, Veegs, there are going to be no fans in the stands.
17:54
Yeah, it's going to be quite the opportunity for Minnesota to exercise some demons and I think playing in front of an empty building might allow them to focus on what they need to do.
18:04
I think one of the things that Penn State does is apply a relentless pressure on your program to perform and to win one-on-one battles.
18:14
And I think the Gophers have gotten a little experience handling that throughout this season.
18:20
And last time they were out there, they had chances to win both the games.
18:26
You know, they had gotten leads going in the third period, and then they let Penn State get behind them and get opportunities at their net, and it wasn't sound.
18:36
And it was really probably a frustrating weekend for them to get the one point on the Friday night, and then get beat and give up the lead on Saturday.
18:45
But I think this is a different Gopher team that we've seen in past trips to Hockey Valley, and I think they do have a really good chance this weekend.
18:54
I wouldn't be as worried as some of the fans I think are.
18:57
I've been, I'm actually, I was hoping for it, actually.
19:03
Penn State didn't have anyone scheduled the last week of the season.
19:09
That's kind of their downfall.
19:11
You look at somebody like an Arizona state, they're going to be in even worse shape, because they didn't have anybody and they have no playoffs to play.
19:18
If they, you know, their, their, their pairwise numbers are looking good.
19:22
It looks like they're going to be in the tournament, but they could go almost a full month without playing.
19:26
That matters, Veegs.
19:27
When you go three weeks without game play at the heart of the season, the playoffs are here.
19:33
That could be really effective.
19:34
It might take you while they get going and you could run out of gas towards the end.
19:39
I think that's definitely true.
19:40
I know Minnesota had a hard time on Friday night adjusting even to Notre Dame's style right away in the game and they were kind of on their heels a little bit and it took them a while to find the juice.
19:51
And I don't think there's any way to really simulate live action.
19:55
We've seen this in the NHL as teams come off their buy and come back into action against other teams who haven't been on the buy.
20:02
I think there's a noticeable statistical difference in how well those teams perform, so much so that a lot of GMs want to do away with the buys in the NHL or at least make it so teams coming off the buy play another team coming off the buy, so there's no advantage.
20:18
I think there's definitely a lot of things going in Minnesota's favor for this weekend and the key for them is just to take advantage of the opportunity.
20:27
Usually Bob Motzko likes to focus on just playing their game.
20:32
As I see practice this week, he's spending a lot of time focusing on the things that Penn State does well and things that his team needs to be aware of for the weekend.
20:42
Yes, yes, it's, and like you said, this is their opportunity to take advantage of the situation.
20:50
Penn State hasn't played well.
20:52
They played better at Penn State recently.
20:54
It's just a hump they need to get over, Veegs, because they've been, I don't think they've won there in what, three years?
21:02
It's been a while.
21:03
It might have been that overtime game where Cluse ties it late and Pitlick won it in overtime a few years back was the last time they had won there.
21:12
Yeah, it's not been a place they played well.
21:14
I think it's a style that really hurts them, where it puts a lot of pressure on their defense.
21:20
I think that's been one of our big talking points over the last couple seasons, is that Minnesota's defensemen have not handled pressure very well, and they turn over a lot of pucks and the Fords and the defensemen get disconnected and the gaps get too big, and that just leads to problems, where they get shift after shift hemmed in, and it creates problems.
21:41
And I think they've looked better lately, and now players like Ryan Johnson, Jackson Lecombe, Matt Stoddicker are mature enough where they should be able to handle that kind of pressure.
21:53
I think we've seen Tyler Nani, Ryan Zulsdorf start to handle that pressure a little bit better this year.
21:59
And they don't try to do too much.
22:01
They're just trying to do the right amount.
22:03
And I think it's led to a lot of productive hockey, especially in the second half.
22:07
I think the Gophers have looked really good since Christmas.
22:10
And I think going into this weekend, I think the Gophers have the better goal center in that by far.
22:16
And you know, the atmosphere is going to be like practice.
22:21
You're going to have family members there from both schools probably, some faculty, some coaches.
22:27
Otherwise, you're going to be able to hear Frank and Wally calling the game from the other side of the rink.
22:32
Yeah, we might even get to hear Mr.
22:35
Brodzinski or Mr.
22:36
Nanny.
22:38
We'll probably hear the announcers for sure, but it's going to be a different building.
22:42
Yeah, and that's going to be a big deal.
22:45
I mean, that is an intimidating place to play.
22:47
There's just no doubt about that.
22:50
Yeah, and their last win came February 18th, 2017 at Penn State.
22:55
That's a long time ago.
22:57
That is a long time ago.
22:58
One thing I wanted to kind of bring up these is a lot of times leagues are dependent on these tournaments at the end of the season to make money.
23:08
That changed when Minnesota or Big Ten kind of went to on-campus.
23:15
You've got the WCHA doing the same thing.
23:16
There's not as much revenue coming in.
23:19
But you look at someone like the NCHC, which depend a lot on their tournament coming up next weekend.
23:27
That's a big moneymaker.
23:28
That was the same thing for the old WCHA days.
23:31
This could be a big financial hit for leagues like the NCHC.
23:38
Yeah, it's going to be a hit for a lot of college athletics across the country.
23:42
I think if there's one benefit to being in the Big Ten, as much as some people seem to dislike it, it's going to be safety nets.
23:52
They get that big check from the Big Ten because of their network and all those things.
23:56
They're not as reliant on ticket revenue as some of these other leagues are.
24:00
And that's part of being a big institution like Minnesota, Penn State and Michigan and Ohio State.
24:08
They can afford to make these decisions for the better interest.
24:11
And then you look at some of the Ivy League schools.
24:13
They were the first to jump on this.
24:14
And then earlier today, I believe both Harvard and Yale have ended their seasons.
24:20
It's over.
24:23
Yeah, it's a different situation right now across the country.
24:26
And we just have to hope that it has some sort of impact.
24:32
That's pretty unprecedented.
24:33
So now the EC is going to have to juggle their tournament and do quite a few things to make up for it because their teams are just stopped playing.
24:43
It's a real goofy situation.
24:45
I haven't heard about, I think right as we were going live, the NCHC said they were going to be doing something for this weekend.
24:52
I haven't read the official announcement if it's going to be no fans, but I heard something came out.
24:58
I'm guessing maybe the WCHA may follow up.
25:01
They're down to just a couple of games themselves and not a little further in their tournaments, so probably it's just the world changed real fast in the last 24 hours of leagues.
25:13
Yeah, and I do hear that one of the things that public health officials are focusing on is crowd sizes over a thousand.
25:21
So I think for a lot of these programs, they're going to be able to hold the games and continue that way.
25:28
It's just you don't want to have these big gatherings of people because things can happen real quick and get out of hand.
25:36
And I think one other thing is these big schools, they have the opportunity to do charters.
25:41
They're going to be able to get their players there without exposing them to big airport courses, airport planes, other passengers are going to be able to limit some of their contact.
25:51
So those are some things to be taking note of.
25:55
Yeah, Victor in the mix of Chattier goes, it sucks that both Yale and Harvard just hung it up.
26:01
I mean, it's not just teams hanging up there.
26:03
It's seniors that thought they were going to continue their career.
26:06
And all of a sudden, it's over.
26:09
And it's not over on the ice where they want to finish their career.
26:15
It's just not even being played.
26:19
Something we've never dealt with in our lifetime.
26:21
That's for sure.
26:23
So, you know what, folks?
26:24
It's just going to keep getting crazier.
26:27
Things are going to get canceled.
26:28
I mean, it looks like right now, you know, the regionals are going to have no fans.
26:31
The Frozen Four could have no fans.
26:34
Right now, we can just hope that it doesn't get so bad that these things are canceled.
26:40
And it's not played at all.
26:41
I mean, that would be the real tragedy.
26:44
You can't really just push this out to later in the year like the NBA can do.
26:48
This is the end of the season.
26:49
This is, you know, we're trying to crown a champion here.
26:52
And here and, you know, I don't think the NCAA will do that.
26:56
But they just, I mean, the NCAA just killed their cash cow in the Men's NCAA, Men's NCAA basketball tournament.
27:06
My understanding is that when the NCAA made that announcement, it was for all of their championships pending.
27:14
They called out the men's basketball and the women's basketball.
27:17
But I feel like the Frozen Four is under that realm of maybe being taken away from fans.
27:27
Oh, so that they could take it away, not just the no fans then?
27:31
Well, I think they're still going to try to hold it.
27:33
Because the NCAA Hockey Twitter account did say updated ticket information for NCAA championships closed to the public.
27:42
They said they're going to start a refund process and things like that.
27:44
That was from the NCAA ice hockey account earlier today.
27:48
They just had to say, the statement was, oh, actually, here, let's click the More Info here on the link that they sent, because it was just a graphic that said...
27:57
So my understanding was they weren't going to allow fans in the Frozen Four or the regionals.
28:02
Hold on, it's Men's Division, Men's Ice Hockey Championship Division One.
28:07
This NCAA championship has been closed to the public.
28:11
That was the official release.
28:13
If you ordered your tickets from an official NCAA championship vendor online or over the phone, you'll be refunded.
28:18
No additional action is needed.
28:22
That was the tweet this afternoon.
28:24
In fact, let's see if I can go back and retweet that if I can.
28:29
I've already retweeted it.
28:30
We'll retweet it again for people.
28:33
So it sounds like, you know, it's frozen for is locked up.
28:37
It's not going to have fans.
28:39
And that means the regionals as well.
28:42
So and then we'll just see if they go further and decide to cancel the whole thing.
28:47
I don't think that's going to happen at this point.
28:50
I hope not because it is still going to finish the season.
28:52
I think some of the spring sports, you know, they're probably in jeopardy since we're so early in that season.
28:58
I know when some of these other things have popped up, that's been the case where they cancel things that are just starting and they try to reschedule it as best they can.
29:09
But unfortunately, this is probably the right thing to do because we've seen what's happened when in the past, public health officials have not been able to shut off these big gatherings.
29:23
So we'll have to wait and see, folks.
29:28
It sucks.
29:30
You said it.
29:30
No fans at the Ralph this weekend.
29:33
Unjust makes another point.
29:35
If a player tests positive, things could change real quick.
29:40
Yeah, it would change real quick.
29:42
I think they would try to quarantine players at that point, which would be an interesting thing to have happen to a team going down the stretch here.
29:51
But, you know, they're definitely going to be keeping eyes on everybody, that's for sure.
29:56
Well, let's just hope right now we can get through this weekend's games.
29:58
You know, we got Minnesota heading to Hockey Valley on Saturday and Michigan heading to Ohio State, and they'll play at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, because I believe something else is going on, but that will still be in front of no fans, it sounds like, isn't it?
30:12
Isn't Ohio State going to be following the same rules?
30:15
Yep, they're going to be following the same rules in Ohio State.
30:18
I know they've got confirmed cases at Ohio State University.
30:26
Crazy day, Veegs.
30:28
I don't know if we can really talk about much more.
30:30
There's really not much more to talk about.
30:31
Well, we can talk about the pairwise.
30:34
Well, yeah, I mean, there are scenarios of Minnesota, if they got some help and made it to the championship game, I do believe against Michigan, even if they lose, there's a small percentage they could get in, correct?
30:48
There is a small percentage, but one of those things where that small percentage applies is if everybody kind of wins as expected in the other leagues, and you just have 15 at-large teams who all would be in, that would be a chance for Minnesota to get in.
31:07
Unlikely that you want to rely on that.
31:10
So Minnesota and Bob Motzko and the rest of the team have said all week, we got to win one, and then we got to win another.
31:16
That's their entire focus.
31:18
There's no talk about backdoor getting into the tournament.
31:23
And that's probably the right attitude to take.
31:26
They're not even focusing on the scenarios.
31:29
Maybe until they get to the final game, then they could take a closer look at things.
31:34
It's hard not to at that point find all the different scenarios that could get you in.
31:39
But this team right now, they're focused on winning two.
31:41
And Motzko is coaching this team like they are in a final game elimination this weekend.
31:50
And it looks like USA Hockey is canceling quite a bit of high school youth and adult sled national championships cross nation.
31:56
Things are getting canceled all over the place here.
32:00
Just happening within the last few minutes.
32:03
So it's hard to stay live here.
32:05
Even though we're live, it's hard to stay, keep up with what's going on.
32:11
So what are you working on with the athletic?
32:18
Well one bit of athletic news that I wanted to share with people if they're so inclined as Chad Graf had a baby girl this month and found out that she had some very difficult situations that he discovered after she was born where she has a chromosomal issue that's called Zellweger's.
32:41
Zellweger's and she probably does not have very long to be with her parents.
32:47
And I know that Giles Farrell started a GoFundMe fundraiser for their family to help pay for medical expenses and probably a donation to Children's Hospital.
32:59
You can tie it to things that happen in the wild game against the Kings tonight if you so choose.
33:05
I know one basketball coach at the University of Minnesota donated $500 to that GoFundMe which I thought was a nice gesture by him.
33:15
But if people are interested, I think it's a worthy cause and I feel for that family.
33:23
Chad has shared some things on the Caring Bridge site that must have been incredibly painful to write.
33:29
Very much so.
33:31
It's hard to read sometimes I think.
33:33
I've got little kids and my first born spent some time in the NICU and I think he could use all the support that people would be willing to offer right now.
33:44
Yeah, it's just a tough time all around for him right now.
33:50
Like you said, he was very blunt and honest in the Caring Bridge article that he wrote.
33:58
Actually, I'm very surprised.
33:59
It was very composed as well.
34:02
Well, I think it's probably a little therapeutic for him to use something that he's especially talented at doing to get through this time and shows a lot of strength in his family the way they're handling it.
34:16
Most definitely.
34:17
We're all thinking of him and his wife and their child right now.
34:21
So very tough time.
34:25
Well, I hate to end on a sad note like that, Veegs, but it's just kind of what it is.
34:30
It's a small community here.
34:32
The journals and people around the community and the athletic is a great spot and a tough time there.
34:39
I think to close, I can share with that practice this week.
34:44
You know, the Gophers are upbeat.
34:47
I know Bob talked about his team on Sunday.
34:50
He just noticed a jump in his group.
34:53
They are kind of a goofy group.
34:55
Their leaders are kind of giddy and a little different.
34:58
You know, you've got guys like Sammy Walker and Blake McLaughlin.
35:02
They are pretty loose fellows.
35:04
Jack LaFontaine is very loose.
35:06
He is people who watch the post-game periscopes.
35:11
You know, they are ready to play here.
35:12
I think with all this chaos going around in the world right now, those guys are focused on what they need to do and they want to see their season continue.
35:21
And one thing that we didn't talk about in the podcast is Mr.
35:24
Perbex is done for the season.
35:27
Yeah, after his hit, it wasn't a head injury.
35:30
He got hit from behind.
35:31
It looked like as he fell, he got a player on top of him that kind of bent his knee in a little bit different direction.
35:38
You saw the reaction from him right away that something wasn't right.
35:42
It doesn't look like it's going to require surgery, according to Motzko, and he's just going to be in a brace and we'll take some time to recover from it.
35:50
So, you know, not a long-term impactful injury to him, but something that's going to take him out of the lineup, unless the Gophers go really far and he heals really quickly.
36:01
It might be good just to shut him down.
36:03
It might be the safe thing to do.
36:05
Yeah, maybe.
36:06
I will say that I think the Gophers have gotten some good contributions from Cullen Munson and Joy Maruni down the stretch.
36:13
Those guys don't play a lot of minutes, but I think they've provided some energy when they called upon.
36:19
I thought they looked really aggressive on the forecheck.
36:22
Munson picking up the goal, driving the net.
36:24
Munson's been, you know, a nice surprise.
36:28
And then Maruni, I think one of the issues with him earlier in his career is when he got chances like this, he committed penalties and he's avoided doing that this year.
36:37
He's done a really nice job chipping in when they've needed him.
36:42
Yeah.
36:43
I mean, you need those kind of spark plugs at this time of the season.
36:46
It's the guys who go out there and just bust their ass and make things happen because, you know, they might not score all the time.
36:51
You know, they do once in a while, but it's just get that turnover, get someone else in position to make the play.
36:57
That's exactly what we need.
37:00
Yeah.
37:00
And I think, yeah, I just looked, he's only got three penalties this year.
37:03
So that's pretty good for him for playing in 20 games, for Mernie.
37:07
And I think this weekend, the big key for Minnesota is to stay out of the box.
37:12
Penn State has a lot of offensive firepower.
37:15
I think they've got a unit that can be pretty deadly compared to other teams out there.
37:22
It's one of the top power plays in the Big Ten.
37:25
I think they're like at 27% or something like that.
37:28
Minnesota's power play, if they do get chances, they're going to have to find a way to contribute.
37:33
It's been really spotty this year.
37:35
They're last in the Big Ten at 16%.
37:39
I just can't figure it out as much as Bob is a power play guy.
37:43
He's really stuck to his units the whole year to just kind of put some trust in them and let them try to figure it out on their own.
37:51
One key I think for them is going to be Ben Myers in the faceoff circle when you're playing Penn State.
37:57
If you can start with the puck, that's a huge help and he's been their best faceoff guy all year.
38:04
Only time will tell.
38:05
Oh, look out.
38:08
So yeah, the only time to tell folks, we got the big games this weekend, Snack on Wood, that they still happen because with this changing environment, literally the last eight hours, we just don't know.
38:24
We're hoping the games will go on.
38:25
We anticipate the games will go on.
38:29
But it's just so fluid right now.
38:31
Everything is changing so fast.
38:32
So we're hoping that the Gophers will have a chance to defeat the Penn State Nittany Lions this weekend.
38:41
The puck drops at 6 o'clock PM local time.
38:44
It'll be on the Big Ten Network and of course, Frank and Wally will be calling it on the radio as well.
38:50
So I think one last thing that we should get to on our podcast is Ted Cerebral, yet Farmer Strong has a four part Twitter question using the GPL Podcast hashtag.
39:04
Really?
39:04
When did that happen?
39:05
Just right now?
39:06
Just in the last 10 minutes, he has put together almost a couple hundred words here.
39:15
I had turned my phone off.
39:16
I did not see anything, so go ahead.
39:18
He is basically suggesting that after the first round of the Big Ten playoffs where you play your best of three, that you do a second round with three games, similar to the old Final Five.
39:34
But I think that's going to be difficult to do because I think you're going to have issues with rotating venues for this one because the Big Ten is an airplane league and a time zone league where you have players from all over the place.
39:49
It's not quite as local as the old WCHA.
39:53
As much as I think it is probably a good solution to shorten up the schedule, I think the Big Ten is hoping that they get an eighth member soon.
40:03
As much as Butcheros thinks Illinois is going to happen, I think he's throwing darts blindly.
40:09
Like Mike Tyson?
40:11
Like Mike Tyson, hoping he gets a bullseye.
40:13
I will believe it when Illinois makes the announcement that they have a donor who has $60 to $100 million to launch a program.
40:23
I notice that I'm just reading now, he also wants us to do a live show for episode 20, number 200.
40:28
I would love to do that.
40:29
I just don't quite have the equipment to do that.
40:34
When you're broadcasting live, it's a little different.
40:37
Well, maybe Big Hat Guy will come through with a big donation.
40:40
Yeah, for you.
40:44
Yeah, he said, I would love to do a live broadcast, but obviously right now, we just love to be live streaming.
40:52
Most podcasts do not go live at all.
40:55
They just record and that's it.
40:57
That's one thing I feel that our podcast is different is that we are live, we can interact with some of the people, see their questions as we're talking.
41:05
I'm just not sure on the live broadcast thing.
41:09
I just have no way of getting the sound out to them.
41:11
I don't have gigantic speakers that could be heard all over the place and there's just a lot of things that would not be easy to do.
41:18
Maybe it will be an exploration in the off season for us to figure out.
41:22
That too, yeah, he did.
41:23
And we could always record something.
41:25
We could always.
41:26
Maybe we could even get special guests.
41:29
Man, I'm still thinking about that.
41:32
Somebody doesn't follow me, I notice, anymore on Twitter.
41:37
We'll save that for a work time.
41:40
But that's going to do it for this week's GPL Podcast.
41:43
We're trying to stay on top of things as they're changing.
41:45
If something drastic happens, we'll try to put something together and come back on live.
41:49
I think that would be fair to you guys, or at least Veegs and I will try to get something if something drastically changes in the next 24 to 48 hours with hockey.
42:00
But for those of you listening live, we'll be back for a little bit of overtime.
42:05
And for the rest of you, we'll be back next week.
42:07
We'll preview the Big Ten title game.
42:11
For Minnesota to be there, we'll have to wait and see.
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