0:03 This is The Gopher Puck Live Podcast, episode number 19, recorded Tuesday, March 6th, 2012. 0:20 Welcome to this week's GPL Podcast, along with Hammeh and Cardinal. 0:24 I am your host, Jupiter. 0:26 Hammeh, Cardinal, how are you guys doing today? 0:29 Very well. 0:30 That's good. 0:31 I'm good. 0:31 That's good, that's good, that's good. 0:33 Well, we have a special guest joining us today. 0:36 You may not know his name, but you definitely know his website. 0:40 And of course, that website I'm talking about is uscho.com. 0:44 And tonight, we have the co-founder and president of the USCHO website, Tim Brule. 0:50 Tim, thanks for joining us. 0:53 Glad to be with you. 0:55 You started to do USCHO a little over 15 years ago, and look at it now, it's just this crappy little site, isn't it? 1:03 Something like that. 1:06 It's ironic, actually. 1:08 The first website that we did was, I did a website in 1995. 1:13 I donated to the University of Minnesota, and we put up another links page. 1:18 And the other links page pointed to this little black website, some people remember it, called the College Hockey Homepage. 1:26 And it was linked to from the University of Minnesota. 1:29 And the next year, US College Hockey was born, online was born. 1:34 I still have that as my URL, by the way. 1:37 The uscollegehockey.com? 1:38 Yes, I do. 1:40 I paid for like 10 years, so it still works. 1:42 You must be still paying for it, because I haven't updated my bookmark in 10 years. 1:46 So it's still working great. 1:49 Well, there's a lot of things going on in the college world. 1:53 Obviously, the big talk at this time of the year is the PairWise. 1:58 And from what I understand, you're kind of the first guy who brought the PairWise to the web. 2:03 What's the deal with the PairWise and you? 2:05 What's your involvement with it or was your involvement with it? 2:10 Well, in 95, back at the College Hockey homepage, I was a member of Bacch, ELL Mailing List, and a lot of people will remember those lists. 2:20 They're still around today, but they're not quite as popular as they were back then. 2:25 Great websites and there was a note passed out in probably early February by Mike MacMack, who used to be a part of Uscho and is now also part of CHN. 2:37 He said, if people wanted to understand the changes that the NCAA selection went on in the selection process, they just had to reference Keith Instone's post on the new criteria. 2:49 So, and he gave a rough date of it, so I pulled up in the archives the information about the post. 2:58 I had missed it. 2:58 It was on InfoHockeyL, I believe, and I pulled up the listing and it referenced five criteria, four of which exist in some form today. 3:09 They dropped the last 20 at that time. 3:13 I thought it was the last 16 or something like that, wasn't it? 3:15 Well, last 20, last 16, they tweaked the rules every year, practically, it seems. 3:23 So, and Mike suggested if anybody wanted to see how well the teams are doing, you would just have to rank them by this criteria. 3:36 And a week later, I published what I called the PairWise rankings. 3:40 So, I did contact Mike and Keith and Stone to see if this is what their thoughts were. 3:46 Keith and Stone actually created the NCAA selection process. 3:49 If you look very closely, PairWise never claims to be that. 3:53 You just kind of, you just figured out what they were doing so you could mimic it. 3:58 Best guess, I took a best mathematician. 4:02 I took a best guess of how to take disparate criteria like this and rank them in pairs. 4:10 So, the natural name to call it from a mathematician is PairWise, a PairWise ranking or PairWise comparison criteria. 4:21 So, you find it- 4:22 A geek term. 4:23 Very geeky. 4:24 I was at school at the University of Minnesota. 4:28 So, very few people know that they think like an Eastern biased publication. 4:34 And sure enough, we were formed as a spinoff of the University of Minnesota. 4:39 No Eastern bias? 4:40 You kidding me? 4:42 We have plenty of Eastern bias. 4:43 We have plenty of Eastern bias. 4:46 Sometimes, they are very biased. 4:48 I guess we cover the team that is winning. 4:51 So, I guess we are biased towards winners. 4:53 Okay. 4:55 So, it's been quite the 15 plus years then. 4:57 I mean, you guys have your own poll now that is used nationally. 5:00 Obviously, a lot of people have mimicked the PairWise all over the place. 5:05 And they call it the PairWise probably because that's what you call it at first. 5:08 Maybe you should have called it Tim's Idiot List or something. 5:13 It would probably be still called that. 5:18 Ken's of college hockey, The Cratch, his name is still attached to it. 5:24 And all these is, I mean, he's like doing a linear regression model or something like that. 5:31 Very common in statistical analysis to rank these unordered sets with something like that. 5:38 You do some sort of least regression. 5:42 And that's what they've done. 5:45 So for that, well, the PairWise rankings, we just named it something that was very generic. 5:51 I've tried to trademark it and we're on the secondary registry right now, but unfortunately I named it a very generic math term. 6:05 And because the process is well out there, people have basically, there's like four or five locations that have done it. 6:18 So it's widely available right now. 6:20 But Uscho is the first place to have it. 6:23 I'm the first person to publicly produce it. 6:26 I think I'm actually the first person. 6:27 And Keith at the time, Instone at the time suggested that he hadn't even done the algorithm, but that's more or less what he was saying. 6:35 Are you still there, Tim? 6:37 We may have lost Tim there now. 6:39 Great. 6:42 Things are going smooth tonight on the podcast, aren't they? 6:46 Well, hopefully you guys got some of that geek talk there, didn't you? 6:50 Well, yeah. 6:50 I mean, you know. 6:51 It was kind of interesting to hear some of that backend stuff. 6:54 Yeah, you understand the basics, but yeah, don't ask me to replicate it in my own. 6:58 I know Cardinal can in his head, can't you? 7:02 We can hear you now. 7:02 You're back, Tim. 7:03 Yeah, I don't know what happened there. 7:05 The hotel room, the highest place down in Jacksonville, Florida, is probably not. 7:12 Now you sound just great too. 7:17 It's fine. 7:18 Well, we're just going to move along here. 7:20 We're going to go into some Gopher talk. 7:22 Obviously, this weekend, the Gopher split with Wisconsin, and I know you were there on the Saturday game, Tim. 7:28 From your kind of more national perspective, what did you think of the weekend and the Gopher's finally back on top in the WCHA after many years? 7:38 You know, I've been there at Merit Chief for many years, and it's been a pretty down place, but it was definitely different this weekend. 7:45 The crowd was great. 7:47 The comeback in the third period was amazing. 7:51 It's an electric place when they're winning. 7:56 It was, you know, I'm by nature, and it got two degrees at the University of Minnesota, a diehard Gopher fan, even though you have evidence to the contrary. 8:11 It was great for Gopher Nation. 8:12 It's good for the WCHA. 8:14 And we need, from a national perspective, I like when historically large fan bases do well. 8:23 You know, it's very good for the sport. 8:27 It's also good for your website as well, because obviously when Minnesota does well, USCHO does well as well. 8:34 Absolutely. 8:35 We definitely are gaining traffic again. 8:38 The last three or four years, we've slipped a little bit compared to our growth. 8:45 Minnesota is a very critical part of the college hockey scene from a national fan base. 8:50 And, you know, anytime at night, on a Friday or Saturday night, we go on to Google Analytics, they get this beta version. 8:56 I see you using it, Craig, all the time. 8:59 And the number one audience after about 10 o'clock has always been the Air Force. 9:04 Yes. 9:05 And it wasn't that way last year. 9:07 So it was an important audience, but your Bostons and your, and your surprisingly enough, Chicago and New York, some of the displaced fans are very important. 9:17 It's great to see the Gophers doing well from both, from a personal point of view and from a website point of view. 9:25 And I think for Carl and Jackie, it's great. 9:27 Definitely. 9:28 Definitely. 9:28 Hammeh, what are your thoughts on the weekend? 9:30 Obviously not a good game Friday. 9:33 Well, I mean, it kind of, for me, it was basically what I thought it would be last week. 9:37 I had mentioned in the podcast that, you know, Wisconsin is the kind of team, if they get a lead early, they have a very good record. 9:43 I think they're like 8-1 and 1 now after this last weekend, if they get a lead after the first period. 9:48 And of course, on the other side of the coin, you know, they're not a come from behind team whatsoever. 9:53 So the fact that they got up on Friday, you know, I guess it shouldn't be surprising that they won that game. 10:00 I was a little bit disappointed, to say the least, about our performance. 10:04 But, you know, I was glad to see the guys kind of rally on Saturday. 10:09 And, you know, after Howell's goal, I mean, that's, you know, as loud as I've heard of Mariucci in a long time. 10:16 Even, I would say, more than maybe that North Dakota series earlier in the year. 10:20 But either way, I mean, it was very exciting to see those guys. 10:23 I really wanted to see them kind of win the game and actually earn the McNaughton, as opposed to just sort of, you know, backing in, so to speak. 10:30 Even though Lucia says there's no such thing as backing into that title. 10:33 But, you know, I wanted to see them, you know, earn the trophy with a win. 10:37 And so it was nice to see that. 10:39 And Wisconsin certainly played better than I expected. 10:42 You know, I mean, they're, you know, they're going out to Denver. 10:45 And I think that's going to be a hell of a series, even though Wisconsin's been kind of down this year. 10:49 Ryan, play of the year by Schmitt back on the point to get the game winner Saturday? 10:55 Yeah, I mean, they've had, you know, obviously a lot of good plays this year, but that one's going to come to mind just considering what it did, and the spot he did it in the third period. 11:03 And, you know, when you put it all together, I think it has to be. 11:05 And, yeah, I was talking with somebody at work today about how loud Mariucci was, and the last time I remember it being that loud was probably against Wisconsin when Ehrman scored that penalty shot goal in the 4-0-5 or whatever it was. 11:17 And that's obviously kind of a unique circumstance, so the penalty shot thing. 11:21 But that was in the third period, I think, on Saturday night. 11:23 And that was obviously a really good team, just like this year's team. 11:26 So, yeah, it was great to see. 11:27 And Friday night was weird, and they just didn't play that well. 11:30 And, you know, you just wonder if they were thinking ahead or whatever, but, you know, give Wisconsin credit, like Andy said. 11:36 I mean, they've been playing really well recently after, you know, they easily could have folded up Schaub after they got swept by North Dakota and St. 11:42 Cloud, but they played tough since. 11:43 And, yeah, like he said, they're going to give Denver everything they can handle this weekend, I'm sure. 11:48 Definitely. 11:48 They definitely will. 11:49 I was definitely disappointed Friday night. 11:52 It got to the point where I went downstairs to listen to the interviews, and I just didn't even want to listen to it. 11:57 I got up and left. 11:59 So I was a little down on the team Friday night. 12:01 I usually haven't been like that recently, but I was pretty down on the team. 12:06 Obviously, Saturday night, Muxtad came back. 12:10 I don't know if he was a huge factor, but it seemed to lift the team a little bit. 12:14 But again, they played much better team defense Saturday night than they did Friday night. 12:20 Well, I mean, that's been kind of the key all year for the Gophers. 12:23 I mean, we talk about some of the offensive numbers with certain guys, but the reality is that the Gopher success has been keeping the goals down. 12:31 I mean, they're just above, I think, two goals a game, and they've been that way for most of the season. 12:35 And Patterson's, of course, generally played well for throughout most of the season. 12:39 And the defense, with a few exceptions, has been very solid overall. 12:45 So I know Lucia mentioned in his show yesterday that they're kind of driven by their defense this year, and that's kind of how they think that they'll continue to win if they're moving forward. 12:56 So we'll see how it goes. 12:59 Well, let's take a look at the rest of the WCHA. 13:02 We had DU headed to UNO last weekend and put them away, swept them. 13:09 I don't know what's that, how many, at least four straight for UNO losing at home. 13:14 Now they've dropped to seventh place and are going on the road for the WCHA playoffs. 13:19 Colonel, what do you think? 13:21 Yeah, it's tough with Omaha. 13:22 That's a team that, you know, the goaltending has been inconsistent. 13:25 And you look recently, I mean, it's kind of stabilized. 13:28 I mean, it hasn't been great, but I mean, they've given up three goals in each of the last five games. 13:31 And, you know, that's kind of the key number for most teams in which we had talked about it, where if you have two or less, you're going to be in a lot better position to win than if you give up three or more. 13:38 And I mean, obviously that makes sense, but just three seems again, just to be kind of a key number, but it's kind of not now that their goaltending has stabilized a little bit. 13:46 It seems like the offense isn't there like it was at the start of the year. 13:49 So yeah, I mean, that's a tough break for Omaha, but who knows? 13:52 I mean, like you said, they've lost four in a row at home and they had a decent amount of success, especially the second half of the year on the road. 13:58 So who knows? 13:59 Maybe it'll be better for them to get out of town. 14:01 And they're certainly not going to a team with a lot of playoff success in St. 14:05 Cloud. 14:05 So there's no reason why they can't go up there and probably push it to three games and see what happens. 14:10 Tim, what do you think about UNO's collapse last four games at home? 14:15 That's surprising. 14:16 I mean, they hadn't been swept in the regular season since 2008. 14:20 Now back to back weekends. 14:22 Yes, and you thought they went up to, they played some real good games early January, mid-January, thought that was going to kind of pull them to a very good season, they beat Duluth. 14:35 And you thought that that would be the momentum they needed to carry them through the rest of the year. 14:41 And if something happened towards the end, I know they ran into a, Minnesota played incredibly well last week, or two weekends ago, and they ran into a pretty good team in Denver. 14:55 Denver's playing real well, so maybe it was the luck of, some bad luck in scheduling, but UNO is supposed to be a pretty good team. 15:04 They made the national tournament last year, and they default on your home ice like that. 15:12 It's very, very unusual for a Dean Blase team. 15:17 Hammy, well, Omaha's bad was definitely good for St. 15:21 Cloud, because they went and beat Duluth. 15:24 It took three points from this weekend, and now got the last home ice spot. 15:30 It went to UNO's failures. 15:31 Yeah, I mean, well, I was just looking. 15:33 You know, UNO's what lost five of their last six, and I think they're like four, seven and two since the start of the year. 15:40 And so they're obviously not playing well at all. 15:43 And yeah, you have to have St. 15:44 Cloud credit, you know, despite some of the injuries and departures at midseason, they've managed to kind of pull it together and earn that last home ice spot. 15:52 And I'm not surprised that they gave UMD all they can handle. 15:56 For some reason, UMD just seems to struggle in that rank. 16:00 And so certainly they did some, the Gophers, a big favor on Friday by winning that game, because they kind of took the pressure off to some degree on Saturday. 16:11 So UMD definitely blew an opportunity there. 16:13 And but yeah, St. 16:14 Cloud, you have to give them a lot of credit. 16:17 I think we lost Cardinal now, so hopefully he's coming back. 16:19 Ryan, you there? 16:20 I am, it's, yeah, it's kicked me off twice here in the last couple of minutes. 16:24 Wow, sweet. 16:26 Yeah, so I'm here now. 16:27 Hey, what a podcast. 16:29 This is going to make great audio for later, let me tell you. 16:31 Well, we were just talking about how, you know, UNO has collapsed at home and St. 16:36 Cloud took advantage this weekend by getting three points at when they're playing Duluth. 16:41 Yeah, and I heard a little bit of what Andy was saying. 16:43 Yeah, I mean, give St. 16:44 Cloud big time credit. 16:45 I mean, I thought once, we swept them in late January, that would kind of be the end for them. 16:50 And there were 40 or 500 at that point. 16:53 So you figure, you fought hard with all the injuries and maybe this is the time where they kind of fell off and the exact opposite has happened. 17:00 And they went out to Wisconsin and swept and they played really well since. 17:04 And credit Mike Lee, he's the guy that maybe had to live up to the hype so far at the college level. 17:09 And he gets heard at the start of this year and you think, okay, where does this career kind of heading? 17:12 But since he's come back, I mean, he's been a real spark for them. 17:16 And, you know, Hinojewski is the guy where, you know, if they would have finished a little higher in the standings, I'm sure he'd be, you know, maybe a first or second line, all the VHA type, and he usually carried him. 17:25 And he was really well against the Gophers. 17:26 Maybe I think a little bit more highly of him than I should. 17:29 But he's been a horse for a long year, especially since the ball went down. 17:32 And yeah, I mean, that's a team where, you know, I don't know, they make it to St. 17:35 Paul, how far they're going to go. 17:36 But, you know, despite the fact that Omaha is a decent team, you have to, you know, like St. 17:40 Paul and Omaha this weekend. 17:43 The rest of the series this weekend were all sweeps. 17:45 We had UND sweeping Mankato, CC sweeping Michigan Tech, and Anchorage getting swept by Bemidji. 17:55 Hammy, do you have any thoughts on any of those games? 17:58 Since they're all sweeps, there's not much excitement going on there. 18:01 Yeah, I mean, I didn't really expect Mankato to go into Grand Forks and win any of the games. 18:07 And I mean, the only thing that was somewhat surprising to me was I thought that Tech might give CC a little bit more trouble than they did. 18:17 So I mean, that's the only one that was a little bit surprising for me. 18:21 But other than that, yeah, nothing too shocking there. 18:25 Tim, anything, peak your interest about the rest of those series? 18:29 Yeah, I looked at that Tech game. 18:30 And Tech had a lot to play for. 18:32 They were still in contention for that last home night's spot. 18:37 And I think that that opportunity hasn't come around very often for them. 18:42 It would have been really nice to see them play some home games during the playoffs. 18:49 It's kind of disappointing for them. 18:52 Other than that, I think that the games went as expected. 18:56 We were sitting at Campus Pizza late on Friday night. 19:01 It looked like, or Saturday night, it looked like Anchorage was going to win that game. 19:05 I woke up in the morning and sure enough, the Midgee came back and they were down 3-1 at one point. 19:14 So that surprised me a little bit that Anchorage didn't hold on. 19:17 I know they're not a great team, but they were at home. 19:20 It was their senior night, their last home game of the season. 19:25 And it affected draft, it affected seeding. 19:28 So that set Wisconsin at Denver. 19:33 Well, that wrapped up the WCHA regular season. 19:36 And of course, at the end of every season, everyone's got their best forwards, best goaltenders, coach of the year. 19:43 Hammy, I know you put out some lists today. 19:45 What are your thoughts on some of the players of the year and the players that stood out for you in the WCHA this year and your picks? 19:53 Well, I mean, some of the put together, someone, Siu Fan, put together some blogger, all WCHA awards, pulling, you know, for my first team. 20:02 I mean, it was really difficult. 20:03 I said on Twitter that really the no brainers are Jack Connolly, Justin Schultz, and Ken Patterson as first teamers. 20:12 After that, for me, it's like you can make good debates for, you know, a number of different players for some of those final spots on the first team. 20:21 Kind of, you know, I put Nick Bukestad as a first teamer. 20:23 I think he's personally, you know, personally, I believe he's the most physically dominant player in the WCHA. 20:29 I mean, he might not have, you know, the top stats, but in terms of a guy that can just absolutely take over a game with his, you know, physical gifts, I mean, he's definitely, in my mind, the top guy. 20:41 So, I mean, I put him up there. 20:44 You know, I put Zucker up there. 20:46 Maybe it's a little bit of, you know, he didn't have as strong of a years. 20:49 I kind of thought he might, but nonetheless, you know, I think he's among the best forwards up there. 20:55 So, I mean, that would be my first team, those six guys. 20:57 I don't know if you want me to run through any more than that. 20:59 But as far as player of the year goes, you know, I gave it to Connelly over Patterson. 21:04 You know, some of it's probably a little bit of giving him some credit for the career he's put together at UMD. 21:11 So, you know, maybe that's why I gave him a little bit of a nod over Patterson this year. 21:15 But, you know, Justin Schultz is kind of the no-brainer pick as Defensive Player of the Year. 21:20 And the toughest one for me, you know, is, well, actually two toughest. 21:25 There's Rookie of the Year and then there's Coach of the Year. 21:28 I give Mel Pearson the nod, Coach of the Year. 21:31 I know that you could say Lucia. 21:32 I know you could say Haxdahl for all the injuries he's dealt with. 21:35 But, you know, I said on Twitter last year Tech had six points and were in last place. 21:41 This year they have 26 points and just missed out on home ice. 21:45 So that's a pretty steep improvement. 21:48 You know, I'm not saying it's all him, but nonetheless, he's the leader. 21:50 So, and WCHA Rookie of the Year, I gave it to our boy Rao. 21:56 I know, you know, I wouldn't have an argument, you know, if they gave it to the kid Denver. 22:01 But, I mean, I'm going to go with Rao. 22:04 He had such an impact the whole year. 22:06 Played on the top line and the team that won the league. 22:09 And he had, you know, more game-winning goals than any other rookie. 22:12 So that's where I'm going with that pick. 22:15 Tim, do you get to vote on any of this stuff, being the big wig? 22:19 Not on the official WCHA. 22:21 I did have all of the people a couple of years ago, but that's a different kind of award. 22:26 So... 22:27 Well, what are your thoughts, then, on some of the WCHA awards? 22:31 I agree with a lot of the suggestions that Scott recommended, or Ryan recommended. 22:39 Jack Connelly, definitely player of the year. 22:42 Mel Pearson, definitely the coach. 22:44 There's no... 22:45 I don't think it's even that close in Pearson. 22:48 How do you take a team that's been traditionally in the cellar and make them competitive night in and night out from day one of the year? 22:58 They develop confidence, they play a much more up-tempo style of hockey, and they're not the same tech team. 23:06 And I think that they're going to be a serious threat in the new incarnate of the WCHA that is around in a couple of years. 23:13 I think that if Mel sticks with it there, and everybody, if they stay patient with that, I think he's going to be, I think that Michigan Tech is going to be a great team. 23:23 So I would look at him for sure. 23:27 Defense, a player, definitely the defenseman on Wisconsin. 23:34 Schultz, he had a phenomenal year in goaltender. 23:38 Ken Patterson. 23:41 All those shutouts, all those critical saves that he's made, keeping this team together when the defense has had lapses. 23:52 I think he's the goaltender. 23:55 Ryan, what are your thoughts on these awards? 23:58 Yeah, in terms of the Coach of the Year, I mean, the only kind of, I put Lucia in this, I'm definitely not been the biggest Lucia fan in the last few years. 24:04 I just think, and obviously with Pearson, I mean, you can't really argue him or Haxel, I don't think, I mean, those three, like Hammington, are clearing away. 24:11 But I mean, I think with Pearson, just, you know, what tech fans will tell you is that they were so banged up last year, that it's a lot of the same players. 24:17 It's just that they managed to stay healthy this year, whereas last year they, you know, were hit so hard by the injury bugs. 24:23 So I think that played into it a little bit. 24:24 But again, I obviously won't have a problem with that. 24:27 But I just know Lucia, again, that's a whole more bunch of the pressure he was under. 24:31 And year after year, the last couple of people are calling for his head. 24:34 Apples like me, you don't know what they're talking about. 24:36 But I mean, he was under the guidance here. 24:38 And if they would have been a 500 team or made the tournament, I mean, I don't think he'd be around come this fall. 24:45 So just the pressure he was under. 24:46 And obviously, again, it's a lot of credit for that, I think, too. 24:50 And then, yeah, I mean, player of the year, I went with Jack Connelly and made reason, again, I don't know if this is the right way to do it or whatever. 24:55 But like Hanny said, kind of a career achievement thing. 24:58 He's a senior and from all accounts, a great guy in the whole bit. 25:01 And to stay with the Lou of me is going to be probably over 200 points, which too many of those these days in college hockey anymore. 25:08 Shelton, defensive player of the year. 25:10 And I won't look full leggy as the rookie of the year overall, just because we're all kind of slumped a little bit in the middle of the year. 25:15 And so like, you know, pretty much being the number one defensive for Denver, running their power play and being a point for game guy in conference play. 25:22 I mean, that's, you know, that kind of says it all. 25:24 And then first team forward, Jack Connolly, Drew Schar, and then Brock Nelson from North Dakota. 25:29 And the Brock Nelson thing just might stick out a little bit, but like Andy said, this is physically, I mean, him and Dukes, I think are the two guys that this range in can kind of take over. 25:38 And, you know, I just think you have to have somebody from North Dakota out there, given everything we went through this year. 25:43 I mean, there's a reason they're still standing and, you know, are going to be the best team in the league at this very moment, and I think he's a big part of that. 25:50 Yeah, I forgot to mention that Ben Blood would be my other defenseman on the first team. 25:54 And I see that Ben Blood got his assistant captain back last week as well. 25:59 Yeah, that was some pretty tough discipline, what, they took the letter away for what, a month or whatever? 26:07 Well, what can he do? 26:07 It is the Sioux. 26:08 I mean, they just do things differently up there. 26:12 I guess. 26:12 Yeah. 26:13 Well, we got a PairWise question, so I'm going to direct this towards Tim here. 26:19 Miles emailed us and asked, with the Big Ten Hockey Conference starting in 2013, how will this potentially affect the PairWise ranking system? 26:29 Currently the WCHA plays 28 games, and if everyone plays each other four times in the Big Ten, that's only 20 games. 26:36 Will the added non-conference games in the Big Ten give them an advantage in the PairWise? 26:42 How in general will these new leagues affect the PairWise? 26:46 I think the new leagues, what you'll see more so out of it than a direct effect would be indirect on the PairWise. 26:56 Every team is still going to get the other one automatic qualifying bid, and you've got to earn it. 27:01 You're at large, but it's the same way, it's the same formula. 27:04 Nothing's going to change there, but the scheduling is the biggest impact. 27:08 What you're going to see is teams like Minnesota wanting 20 home games, which means they're going to schedule weaker non-conference opponents in a lot of those games. 27:22 I think traditional rivalries, they'll probably have a rivalry weekend or so with the Duluths and the North Dakotas of the world, but the schedules, if you used to see any Sacred Heart, you're going to see some of the weaker teams in Atlantic and the ECAC. 27:39 Oh, yippie. 27:41 And the new found WCHA makes you see some weaker teams in those conferences. 27:47 So the strength of schedules are going to be weaker for those teams, but their winning percentages and their non-conference schedule should be, or winning percentages should be pretty strong. 27:58 So because they're all going to have that effect, but they're going to be able to demand the weaker teams come in to them. 28:04 They're not going to go on the road as much. 28:08 They also lose, all the Big Ten teams that are currently playing, lose the Alaska exemption if they go to Alaska. 28:16 So that will further exacerbate the problem on home versus road games. 28:22 It's two last games they're going to play all together. 28:26 So you're going to definitely see an influence on the strength of schedule. 28:31 I think their strength of schedules are going to go down. 28:34 So they're going to have to earn it. 28:36 The Big Ten teams are going to have to earn it by a higher winning percentage. 28:41 Or they're going to have to schedule tough non-conference opponents for their limited non-conference road games. 28:47 And that's where a Home and Away Series versus Duluth or some sort of round-around and every other year alternating series for Duluth and Denver's are going to have. 29:02 But North Dakota, you may see that to help bolster some of the non-conference schedule. 29:09 But at home, it's going to be pretty weak. 29:12 Well now, isn't now from what I remember, okay, we've already locked in Notre Dame in future seasons, I believe. 29:20 For the next three years, I believe. 29:22 Yeah. 29:23 And I know that what they've talked about BC and BU doing kind of a trip out there and then having them return, correct? 29:29 A couple of times. 29:30 And, you know, at this showcase, I would assume Duluth and St. 29:35 Cloud, you know, will probably still at least be pretty solid, if not good programs. 29:41 So, I mean, I guess I can see that to a degree, but I'm not entirely convinced it's going to drop off significantly. 29:49 But, you know, until you see the schedules, it's hard to say for sure. 29:53 Yeah. 29:53 And I think, too, I mean, one thing to consider is that, you know, who knows how Penn State's going to, you know, play out in the United States? 29:59 I think they're probably going to be good, maybe quicker than somebody like Ohio State, where it took them a while to kind of get their footing. 30:06 But, you know, when you look at the Big Ten schedule, I mean, most of those teams are pretty good year-in-year-out, especially Ohio State. 30:11 And they obviously bombed the second half of this year. 30:14 But with LCP there now, you have to think they're going to be at least pretty solid. 30:18 So, I mean, you are going to need weekends where it can't always be either Big Ten opponent or former WCHA rival, or you're just going to burn yourself out. 30:25 I mean, you need to factor in the cupcake thing. 30:27 Or if every weekend is, you know, some huge conference game or, you know, playing Duluth or somebody that, you know, or Mankato even, that, you know, gets their one shot at the Gophers and gives you everything. 30:37 I mean, I get all teams are like that, but Mankato is going to give it more than somebody from ODIF. 30:42 So I think you have to factor that in too, where not every weekend can be, you know, just ramped up huge emotional type thing or, you know, the teams are just going to kind of wear themselves out. 30:52 Okay, we have another question from Frozen4champs. 30:56 He actually has two, but we already answered the coach of the year questions. 30:59 But his number one question is, Kyle Rowe is by far the biggest pain in the ass to opposing teams the Gophers have played in recent years. 31:07 Has anyone else been that kind of a nat in recent years other than Sepus? 31:13 Yeah, he's the last one I can remember. 31:15 It really hasn't been too many, have there? 31:17 You know, the one that in the last ten plus years that sticks out for me is Westrom. 31:23 Yeah. 31:24 You know, but I mean, that's so long ago that, you know, I don't know that the Gophers have really had one of those guys that really, you know, annoyed the hell out of the other team to the level that, you know, we've seen in the last couple of years with a few players. 31:35 So who knows? 31:36 And Rao actually gets out there and hits too. 31:39 Yeah. 31:39 He's not one of those guys who just talks and then kind of, you know, dives behind one of his bigger teammates. 31:44 He sticks his nose in there and he's not afraid to mix it up physically. 31:48 So we saw that hit on Labate. 31:50 I mean, he actually, you know, he actually destroyed him on that open ice hit. 31:53 And, you know, Eves was whining about it. 31:55 I don't know what the hell he's whining about. 31:57 To me, that was a perfect hit. 31:58 So, but I mean, you know, yeah, he's not afraid of that kind of stuff. 32:02 Well, actually, Composer has another kind of question along the same lines, you know. 32:07 He asked me, you know, I was in between the benches during the row hit. 32:10 He was kind of wondering what was being said down there. 32:13 And unfortunately, I can't really tell you what was being said because there was a lot of F-bombs going on by the players and the coaches. 32:21 And they were very upset and how long it took them to get the game going again after the row hit, which was a perfectly clean hit. 32:30 Yeah, I don't understand at all what happened there. 32:33 I mean, that was all about Yves complaining. 32:35 It's like, look, if you don't see it right when the play is happening, you don't stop the game for five minutes to discuss it, just drop the puck. 32:42 So yeah, I don't get it. 32:43 And Gensel was going nuts since he was yelling at the ref saying, is this an effing group hug or something? 32:51 We pay you guys over $300 a night. 32:54 I mean, F-bomb this, F-bomb that. 32:57 It was very entertaining. 32:58 I picked the right period to be down there. 33:00 Well, it kind of reminded me of when Wisconsin played St. 33:04 Claude a few weeks back. 33:05 And I forget the players involved. 33:09 Nick Oliver and Ramage, I believe. 33:11 Yeah, and we're Ramage. 33:12 And I don't think there, I can't remember, but one of the deals was that there wasn't really a penalty called on the play. 33:16 But then after the referees talked for a while, everything else, and Ramage, I mean, he got kicked out of the game. 33:21 And that's kind of when things snowballed for Wisconsin. 33:23 So maybe he's just thinking kind of the same deal, where it's a big open ends hit, and the way referees these days, and headshots, and concussions, and the whole deal, that maybe if, obviously, the crowd reacted to it, and the players laying there on the ice, and there are a lot of parallels, maybe he's just trying to work them over, and he's falling back on what he saw before, where he worked over the refs and got a call, and we try and do the same thing this time around. 33:46 Yeah, that's exactly what Andy Baggett suggested. 33:50 As the beat writer for Wisconsin, he suggested that exact play and was what was going through Eads' head. 33:58 He got a five-minute major and a game to cue for it, and he thought that that hit was almost identical to the hit that Ramich got the five-minute major for. 34:12 Well, the coaches weren't happy, so that's about all I can say about that. 34:17 Hamme, do you have any questions this week? 34:19 Do you see any Twitter questions? 34:20 No, I actually haven't. 34:22 I haven't seen anything come across. 34:23 It's been a little quiet because obviously we had some issues earlier. 34:28 Well, let's get into this week then. 34:29 Obviously it's WCHA Playoff Week and a very interesting time of the year for everyone, obviously. 34:37 Well, let's kick it off. 34:38 UNO heading to St. 34:40 Cloud. 34:40 Tim, do you have any thoughts on that? 34:42 That's going to be a good series. 34:44 It's going to be a very good series. 34:45 St. 34:45 Cloud is playing really well right now and UNO is not playing well at home. 34:51 Good thing they're on the road, I guess. 34:53 The St. 34:55 Cloud is the last few weeks, four or five weeks, they're putting it together considering their injury situation and the goaltenders are playing well. 35:06 I think St. 35:07 Cloud is going to win that series and we're going to see them at the Excel on Thursday night. 35:12 Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that. 35:14 And I think, from what I remember, UNO has had a good amount of success against St. 35:20 Cloud, but the way they're playing, it's kind of hard to pick against St. 35:23 Cloud right now and UNO is slumping. 35:25 And it wouldn't shock me, maybe, if it goes to three games. 35:29 But I do think that St. 35:30 Cloud is going to come out of that series with a trip to Excel. 35:34 Yeah, no, I agree. 35:35 And I think you can look at how the teams match up. 35:37 I think they're kind of similar up front. 35:39 And I think the top two lines for each team are pretty solid. 35:42 I think they kind of go with each other. 35:44 But you look from there on out, I mean, I think St. 35:46 Cloud's team, especially their top four, you know, serves better overall unit than what Omaha can roll out. 35:52 And obviously St. 35:52 Cloud is going to have the engine down with Mike Lee, despite Omaha's new fall and decent goal-hitting as opposed to the Trenard. 35:59 But it was the first few months of the season. 36:01 So, you know, I won't be surprised if one of these teams is pretty high scoring. 36:05 But yeah, I would be very surprised if St. 36:07 Cloud didn't make its way to St. 36:09 Paul come Thursday. 36:11 Michigan Tech not even going home. 36:14 They're staying in Colorado Springs this week and get to face them again. 36:19 Hammeh, are they going to get swept again? 36:23 You know, I don't think so. 36:24 It's simply because, I mean, when you play that many, that the same team that many times in a row, I mean, it, you know, you're going to probably break through at least one time. 36:32 So I think that, you know, it's not like CC has been going gangbusters and rolling through teams on the second half. 36:39 They've had their ups and downs. 36:41 And so I really suspect that that series is going to go three games. 36:47 I don't think Tech's going to win two games there. 36:49 So I'll probably have to go with CC on that one. 36:53 Yeah, I agree with that. 36:55 Scott's taken it. 36:55 I think that it's very difficult to win a team four times in a row, more or less two times in a row. 37:04 So I think Tech is playing inconsistent down the stretch. 37:11 They've played better in some of the road series recently than some of their home series. 37:17 I think that CC is not playing that well either. 37:22 I would not be surprised if, you know, CC wins the first game and Tech wins the second, and then CC advances on a Sunday game. 37:34 Yeah, and you know, I kind of just like CC a lot in the series. 37:37 It's just a bad match up for Tech. 37:39 And the weird thing is them staying out there, you wonder how that's going to have an impact on a team, and you know, coaches talk about routines and the whole deal this time of year. 37:47 And it's such a unique deal to be in a place for nine, ten days, depending on how long the series is going. 37:53 But I think if you're going to win on the road at this time of year in the WCHA playoffs, you seem to have really good goaltending and, you know, Tech's goaltending has been okay, but it's just not at the level it needs to be. 38:03 And I think if you lose the matchup in terms of goaltending, which obviously you with Thorenberg like being awesome for CC pretty much from January on, and then also with CC having the better high end players, I just think those are the kinds of things that typically went out. 38:17 So I guess I won't be super shocked. 38:19 Like Andy said, if Tech wins one of the first two games, because it is tough to beat a team, two, three, four, five times in a row, whatever it would be, but yeah, I think CC wins. 38:27 And I think they have a decent shot of pulling up so that once they get to St. 38:30 Paul's, because their high end guys are just so good, and they have the gold pending right now as well. 38:36 Bemidji has played fairly well against North Dakota this year, but Tim, do they have a chance of doing anything this weekend at UND? 38:44 I think North Dakota is way too hot right now. 38:47 I think they're one of the most consistent teams in the WCHA, as always in the second half of the year, under the Axtol era. 38:58 I don't think that they have a chance. 38:59 I'd be absolutely stunned if North Dakota doesn't come out of that series. 39:05 Now, I wouldn't be surprised if it goes three games. 39:07 A lot of series do, but I would be absolutely stunned if North Dakota is not at the EXO. 39:15 Yeah, the same deal. 39:16 I mean, North Dakota, they've been unbelievable since that Gopher Series. 39:20 They've failed every week. 39:21 And it's been true. 39:22 I mean, they have been super consistent. 39:24 And it's unfortunate because I think going into Saturday, there was a shot of Wisconsin being the team that would go up to North Dakota. 39:30 I think it's all right. 39:31 But obviously, they didn't. 39:32 And I think Wisconsin may have had a better shot. 39:34 And for sure, they had a better shot that night. 39:36 And yeah, the Midgee, it's not a good matchup. 39:39 I mean, the Midgee had a tough time scoring. 39:41 North Dakota had no real issue with that despite their injuries. 39:45 I mean, you wonder if, I mean, they were down to 17 skaters, for the most part, last weekend, if that's going to start to catch up to them. 39:50 But if it does, I mean, maybe it's going to be in St. 39:53 Paul if they have to play three games in three nights or, you know, a quick turnaround of playing maybe in the afternoon on Friday or whatever. 39:59 But yeah, I don't see them, you know, having any trouble this weekend. 40:02 Does Mankato have any chance up in Duluth? 40:05 Anyone got a thought on that? 40:09 Well, I mean, they were pesky when they played each other in Mankato earlier, you know, this year. 40:14 So, I wouldn't be surprised if they gave them a little bit of trouble one game, but I would suspect that Duluth is going to sweep that series. 40:22 Anyone else? 40:23 Pretty much going to be a sweep? 40:25 Yeah, I think so. 40:26 I mean, Mankato, again, they've been okay since the start of the year, but that's a bad matchup for them. 40:31 I know they played Duluth tough down in Mankato, but, you know, just going up to Duluth where, you know, despite your lead struggles a little bit here the second half, you know, they just stopped CT at home. 40:40 And, you know, I didn't have to tough life to go on. 40:42 I think Duluth will kind of get re-engaged here this weekend and take care of them too. 40:47 I think it's Ditto. 40:48 I think some of these series are pretty imbalanced. 40:53 They're not good matchups for the team. 40:55 You got a team that's too hot against a team that isn't showing much right now. 40:59 So it would be very hard pressed to pick Minnesota State to take two of them. 41:09 I just don't see it happening. 41:10 And of course, finally, we've got Anchorage coming back down to Mariucci like they did last year, except this time the teams are a bit different than they were. 41:21 Last ten meetings, Minnesota's one, six, lost four, but obviously two of those big losses were in the WCHA playoffs last year. 41:32 Friday night's game is going to be on FSN+, Saturday's night's on FSN, and I believe there might be some radio issues because of Big Ten basketball with the Gophers, but I'm guessing they're not going to win their first game, so that won't actually be an issue. 41:48 Sorry, I'd love to rip down Tubby's team whenever I can. 41:51 Hammy, does Anchorage have any chance this weekend? 41:55 I mean, are the Gophers just pissed from last year? 41:59 Well, I mean, I think, you know, the way I look at it is, you sometimes wonder, well, they just had this big emotional victory on Saturday, they won the MacNaughton, and you know, is there going to be any little bit of a hangover from that, you know? 42:12 I, you know, and they have been up and down on, you know, Fridays, they've been very inconsistent, so you kind of wonder, you know, if they get off to a bad start, you know, what's going to happen? 42:22 But, you know, the reality for me is, I think it's actually good that that anchorage is coming in this year because, you know, all these guys remember what happened last year, and they can't afford to kind of fall asleep at the wheel and not give a full 60-minute effort both nights, or, you know, if it goes to three games, all three games. 42:40 But, you know, so I don't see how the Gophers are not going to be in St. 42:44 Paul, you know, but, you know, maybe one game will be, you know, I think it will be low scoring. 42:50 I don't think it's going to be, I think, you know, Anchorage will probably play, you know, pretty conservatively. 42:55 Obviously, they're not going to have the horses to get in a big offensive shootout with the Gophers. 43:00 So I would suspect that they're going to be playing conservatively and try not to make too many mistakes and really try to make the Gophers earn everything they can get. 43:09 Yeah, I mean, my only real concern is, the Gophers, they're not a politics scoring team, especially the last few weeks. 43:14 Me and Luccia talked about it on his radio show that they're not going to be the kind of team that goes and scores nice six goals and that type of game. 43:22 Anchorage is going to try to play that type conservative game and like the Al's do into their credit. 43:27 I mean, they've had success with it, not just last year, but I remember a Polosils freshman year and they pushed the Gophers to three games. 43:34 That was a really good Gopher team, a really bad Anchorage team. 43:37 So, but yeah, again, that's the only concern is that if Anchorage gets up one or two nothing, and somehow they just try to lock it down and the Gophers just had issues scoring. 43:46 But again, I don't foresee that. 43:47 I don't think there are any real parallels with the sort of last year. 43:50 The teams are entirely different. 43:52 Yeah, I'd be blowing away at this as a Gopher in three games. 43:56 And we removed the curse of John Hill. 43:59 Oh, that's true. 44:01 Oh boy, here we go with Hill again. 44:05 Tim, obviously, I think you're going to pick them to sweep, but what are the PairWise implications this weekend for Minnesota or maybe some of the other teams of the WCHA? 44:15 Well, the Minnesota losing games to a team as ranked as Anchorage in the RBI is going to be devastating. 44:25 They cannot afford two losses would be, if they get swept by Anchorage for some reason like that happened last year, that could be pretty bad for Minnesota putting them smack in the bubble. 44:39 They could fall that hard. 44:41 Losses to weak teams tend to get pre-amplified. 44:46 Their RBI will get devastated. 44:50 I've run some scenarios and they get right close to the border, they get the 14th area in the PairWise, which anything can happen to get a couple of upsets in the tournaments and they could find themselves out of the NCAAs and win the MacNaghten Cup. 45:05 It has happened before. 45:08 So you don't want to lose to teams that poorly, with that poor record. 45:15 They're under 200 for the win percentage in conference. 45:20 They're just under 300 overall. 45:22 That's not a good team for RBI. 45:27 So it's more hurtful for Minnesota to lose these games than even winning their RBI may go down. 45:37 So they have that little asterisk thing in there. 45:39 So that's always the adjusted RBI that we use. 45:42 But even winning this game, it's all about the RBI and the PairWise. 45:47 And this is a tough, not a tough physical series. 45:51 I think they're going to win this series. 45:53 I think they're going to win two. 45:54 But losing a game is not a good thing for the PairWise. 45:57 Now Minnesota is not going to really go anywhere even if they do win. 46:01 I mean, a lot of teams ahead of them, they have very little chance of moving up, do they? 46:07 They can probably get to fifth and maybe some outside scenarios where they can get to fourth if I have to run every single scenario and there's like 10s of millions left. 46:22 I don't know, the critical one is I don't know whether they can actually take the comparison to Mass Lowell. 46:28 They can certainly take the BU and they already have the LUT comparison. 46:35 So they can certainly take the BU comparison and move them up one slot. 46:40 But and they're point-wise, they're just like two points behind. 46:46 So if they can go up one slot and some of them have to roll drops a slot because some other game that I'm not predicting, then they can end up tied there. 46:55 But then the RPI, they have to get an RPI lead on Maslow. 47:00 And I think that can happen. 47:04 If they're the only two compared, then the RPI will put them ahead of them. 47:10 So if they end up tied for fourth, technically in fifth with Maslow, they may have a shot. 47:16 Other than that, they're a two seed. 47:19 If they win probably two games, they're definitely a two seed. 47:24 They could fall, if they get swept this weekend, they could fall away to about four, if not out, under crazy scenarios. 47:32 So you're at one seed, as you said. 47:36 They just, they cannot take the comparisons versus the teams ahead of them, other than being doing that fall. 47:41 So basically the best scenario, in realistic terms, is probably a number two seed at the best. 47:48 I mean, it's gonna take a lot of weird things for them to even get a one. 47:52 Yep, exactly. 47:54 I figure that much. 47:55 All right, well, I see another question here via Twitter. 48:00 Let me see, it's Minnesota M. 48:01 Can't really see his whole name, but he's wondering, do the Gophers need Patterson to be lights out in order to win the final five, or would they be okay if he was not quite at his best? 48:14 To win the final five, I mean, I think he's gonna have to be pretty good. 48:18 Now, a little bit off topic here, but I think we're, as email I left, Keith Langer, the end of their Gopher fan is on the site and Twitter and the whole deal, and we're wondering, it doesn't look like they received for the final five, because last year, I believe when Bemidji upset the lose, Bemidji, if they did receive, should have played Denver, I wanna say, but they ended up playing the Ritz-Decoder, maybe vice versa. 48:41 So, in terms of- 48:42 I thought they did receive. 48:43 Do they, see, I don't know, because they seem to have won enough. 48:45 But, say, in Friday, I don't know if they do, but between this weekend and the WCHA tournament, they do. 48:53 Yeah, but I'm talking to where I'm going, from Thursday to Friday. 48:56 See, I don't think they do. 48:58 No, they don't. 49:00 So, where I'm going with that is, if the favorites went out, I think it's safe to assume that the top, I think the top 14 million are a lot better than everyone else. 49:09 Now, that's not to say that Colorado College couldn't beat Denver or whatever, those Thursday matchups are going to end up being. 49:15 But, I mean, if the Gophers are going to win the Final Five, I mean, there's a pretty decent shot. 49:19 They're going to have to beat North Dakota, and then they're going to have to either beat or lose to Denver. 49:22 And, you know, those are obviously all really good teams. 49:25 And, you know, Patterson is the Gopher's best player, and they hang their hat on defense. 49:29 So, yeah, I mean, I think if they're going to, you know, win a couple of games down there, they're going to need him to probably make, you know, 30 saves or more. 49:36 I know they've been really good at keeping the shots down and everything like that. 49:39 But, you know, these are big time teams, and the Gophers are going to give up a few shots. 49:43 And, yeah, he's going to have to be really good the rest of the way if they're going to, you know, have aspirations of being another banner or two. 49:50 Nothing I can really add to that. 49:52 I totally agree. 49:52 I mean, you know, you need your goal ten to be pretty much, you know, rock solid. 49:58 Does he have to play out of this world? 50:00 I mean, I don't know that I would go necessarily that far. 50:03 I think the Gophers are good enough defensively as a team that, you know, they'll be able to eliminate some of the, you know, rebounds and all that kind of stuff. 50:10 So, I don't suspect he's going to have to be, like, spectacular, but I do think he's going to have to be, you know, pretty much what we've seen most of this season, which is very good. 50:19 Any thoughts, Tim, on Patterson? 50:21 Does he need to be on top of his game for them to win the final five? 50:25 I think he has to, he can't play poorly. 50:28 I think the defense has to be on top of its game. 50:31 I think the games that you've seen Minnesota struggle this year, you know, the Michigan States and the Wisconsin, and, you know, two of the Wisconsin games, you know, Denver, they fell behind early because, you know, some defensive lapses, maybe a soft goal here or there. 50:51 He hasn't given up that many soft goals this year. 50:55 Oh, we lost Ryan again. 50:58 Boy. 50:59 He's given up a few, but the soft goals have been kept to a minimum this year. 51:05 I think it's all about the defense not making the mistakes to expose, you know, just to turn over the puck ten feet in front of the net. 51:13 That's got to be few and far between for them to advance in either of the remaining tournaments. 51:20 Well, luckily, that is one of the things they have improved this year. 51:23 And a lot of people talk about, you know, Lucia being the Coach of the Year, but obviously, Mike Genzel coming back has made a huge effect back there on the defense and then playing team defense. 51:33 And we've talked about this week after week. 51:35 There really isn't that individual who stands out on the defensive end, but as a team, they are playing so well. 51:42 And obviously, that was a little lapse Friday night. 51:44 They're not going to be able to forward any of that kind of play like they had Friday night if they plan on winning the final five. 51:52 Ryan, are you back? 51:53 I am. 51:54 It was a temporary hiatus again. 51:56 Oh, jeez. 51:57 Must be that darn computer and wireless connection you're trying to use. 52:01 I'm on both. 52:02 It's on wireless. 52:03 I try to turn the wireless off but it's plugged in too. 52:05 So I don't know when you both turn on which one it goes off of, but it's on both. 52:08 So I figured it's doubling as good. 52:10 Well, we'll tell you, your audio has just been awesome tonight and I don't mean that. 52:15 Oh, my bad. 52:19 Well, do you guys have any other thoughts on this weekend? 52:23 Nothing specific for me other than my touchdown. 52:25 Tim, will you be making an appearance this weekend at Mariucci? 52:28 Are you still busy in Florida? 52:31 I will be at Mariucci both games this weekend. 52:35 So assuming there's none other. 52:39 I will be at Mariucci all weekend. 52:41 I've noticed you don't write as much for your website anymore, but every once in a while you do. 52:47 Is that more of an emergency backup writing or? 52:50 Yeah, I don't want to inflict on my editors the pain of editing me. 52:57 So I'm a mathematical person and I have a mild form of dyslexia and P-E-H is the word, though. 53:06 So I don't like to inflict it on them. 53:10 We've got Bryan Halvorsen. 53:11 I think we've directly improved our WCHA content this last couple of years, almost last year specifically by Bryan being involved. 53:22 He's the game reporter now at the university for us. 53:26 Yeah, Bryan's been on with us during some of our live broadcasts back in the fall. 53:32 He has been a good addition to your team and he's very entertaining in person as well. 53:37 So what do you see in the future of your site? 53:41 I mean, where are you going to go? 53:43 I mean, I've seen in the past, you guys have tried to expand in other sports, but it seems like you've kind of come back to your roots and just college hockey. 53:51 Do you have any plans for it in the future? 53:54 Well, I plan on continuing to expand our coverage of college hockey. 53:59 I think we're a little bit behind the scene on the app side of the world. 54:05 So we'll probably roll something that's more robust on the app side. 54:10 I've got something that I shared with Craig there. 54:13 Actually, I did add the PairWise to that this last week, so you'll see an improvement there. 54:17 Oh, your scores page, your HTML5 thing? 54:21 Yeah, the HTML5. 54:22 It's going live on Friday, we believe. 54:24 So it's scores.uscho.com. 54:29 It's going live. 54:30 We'll publish it on the front page on Friday to look at it. 54:33 All it does is, right now it refreshes automatically. 54:37 It takes the score of speed. 54:39 It allows you to navigate by conference. 54:41 And then you also get an automatic refresh of the PairWise. 54:46 So that should be it pretty well. 54:48 We're going to try to invest some more in our infrastructure. 54:51 We've had, we think we've gotten a major problem behind us that we were having for about the last month on Friday and Saturday night. 54:59 We found out something that was configured incorrectly. 55:01 We fixed that. 55:02 But we're going to invest and I'm going to invest some more in the infrastructure, some bigger servers because we're getting bigger and bigger on that side. 55:13 Well, just one thing about your scores.uscho page that you came up with. 55:17 I shared that link with quite a few people and they really liked it. 55:20 They thought it was simple, refreshed great. 55:23 It was great on mobile. 55:26 So I shared it with a few people and they really liked it. 55:29 But I told them not to share it at the time because you hadn't gone live yet. 55:33 But it was working pretty well the last two weeks that I have used it. 55:36 So it's simpler. 55:39 It's very light. 55:40 It uses a much lighter technology in HTML5 and JSON objects and all that nerd talk. 55:49 So it isn't heavy and you don't have to refresh anything. 55:56 It should just automatically refresh unless obviously your phone goes to sleep. 56:00 It works great on a phone. 56:02 So we're looking forward to that. 56:05 Bring some more coverage that way. 56:07 We've got some really exciting things that we're trying to put together for The Frozen 4. 56:14 So we've got, we're working on a giveaway at The Frozen 4. 56:18 We're working on some integrating our live broadcast, our live podcast on Vlog Talk Radio. 56:26 We're going to look at integrating that with some of the NCAA events that are going to be around there so you'll be able to see the live broadcast. 56:34 Okay. 56:34 Okay. 56:35 So there's some cool things going on there on the schedule side. 56:39 Again, as always, going crazy and bringing people, a lot of people to The Frozen 4 for our staff to get the best possible coverage. 56:50 Two photographers and about eight riders. 56:54 It's met at staff so it's usually around eight to ten people. 56:57 And quite a bit of booze, I think, as well? 56:59 There is some alcohol involved. 57:03 Just a little bit of alcohol involved. 57:06 Wouldn't be college hockey without a couple boozing nights, let me tell you. 57:09 Yeah, the WCHA Tournament. 57:11 I still find the WCHA Tournament my favorite weekend of the year. 57:15 I'm not looking forward to the Big Ten Tournament. 57:19 Sorry. 57:19 I don't think many people are. 57:23 I'm old school when it comes to that, like a lot of the people would visit your site and all the people associated. 57:31 The WCHA Tournament is the best tournament in college hockey, if not hockey, I love it every year. 57:38 It's so exciting because of the PairWise going on and all of the excitement. 57:41 Who's going to make the tournament and whatnot. 57:46 So that, you know, the NCAA Tournament, it's down to a couple teams. 57:51 Yeah, they got some awards that they're doing then, but it's not the same level of excitement. 57:56 There's so many more teams involved and it's these passionate rivalries, you know, the North Dakota, Minnesota, the Wisconsin, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Duluth Minnesotas and stuff like that. 58:07 Pretty much everyone in Minnesota. 58:09 Everyone in Minnesota, if you're a Gopher fan, especially, like I am, there's a lot of rivalries there and, you know, like the Yankees, everybody hates, I love them. 58:22 That's definitely the truth. 58:24 And now that they know that the main guy from USCHO is a Gopher fan, there's going to be so much bias coming from that site. 58:30 There's going to be a lot of claims of that. 58:33 And I've got, you know, I've got Jim, who's the photographer at the University of Minnesota, that is my west photography guy. 58:42 So that, you know, the Gophers are on the front page all the time, all year, and yada, yada, yada. 58:48 So we will get that complaint from the leads. 58:53 So that's it. 58:55 You know, the Gophers are having a great year. 58:57 And you go with the teams that are winning. 58:59 So, you know, congratulations to them. 59:01 The Gnot Cup, it's a great trophy. 59:03 It's a beautiful trophy. 59:07 They have a banner. 59:08 I didn't expect that. 59:09 I don't think a lot of people did expect it. 59:11 I'll tell you that. 59:13 Ryan, we were just kind of talking about the WCHA Final Five. 59:16 And one of the biggest things I know you've liked about that is the big tailgate that goes on every day. 59:22 Can you give us a little info on that? 59:25 Maybe we can get some more people down there this year? 59:27 Yeah, you know, I know what happens every day. 59:29 It's just what size, it's work and stuff. 59:31 It's tough for me to bunker down there on Thursday and Friday. 59:34 I usually try to make it down to at least part of the first game and then the night cap. 59:38 But yeah, Saturday and this year, it's kind of not necessarily unique to St. 59:43 Patrick's Day. 59:43 I was so excited with that Saturday before. 59:45 But, you know, it's definitely going to make it a little bit tougher. 59:48 And you add in the fact of the wild game at noon or one o'clock or whatever, you know, a lot of people down there. 59:54 So, yeah, that tells you a lot that everyone kind of frequents, or at least the main one is right behind the Dairy Queen there in West Seventh. 1:00:02 There's a water mat, I think, too. 1:00:03 And it's right by Fort Pond, which I guess is a little bit south, I want to say. 1:00:07 But, yeah, it's a huge lot there and you can't miss it. 1:00:09 And anyone wants to throw beer bottles at Drunk Happy Guy for all his trolling online for all these years, you can probably take advantage of it and go do that. 1:00:19 And he'll be a lot of them, actually, and yeah, there's a lot of them. 1:00:22 And you'll be the passed out one? 1:00:24 Could be, could be. 1:00:25 Well, I'm a father now. 1:00:27 I need to be more responsible. 1:00:28 Oh, you gotta be responsible. 1:00:29 Yeah, but no, I don't want to get down there, probably between eight and 10, just from avoiding the cluster that's going to be St. 1:00:37 Patrick's Day as much as possible. 1:00:39 That's a lot of partying before the game. 1:00:42 It is, but you know, it's like two years left before all those other smokes. 1:00:46 I guess you gotta make the best of it. 1:00:48 And yeah, I have some fans from all teams, you know, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and there's some of the tech fans. 1:00:54 So yeah, anyone that's listening to myself invites a good group of people in all of your time. 1:00:59 And that's kind of the biggest thing is that you do have fans from all over the place. 1:01:02 And obviously there's good-natured ribbing going along, but it all comes back to everyone loves that whole weekend and people better enjoy it because it's going away very soon. 1:01:15 Any other thoughts on this weekend, guys? 1:01:17 No, not for me. 1:01:18 Sweep? 1:01:20 Yes, I believe a sweep. 1:01:21 Sweep. 1:01:21 They're going to sweep. 1:01:22 That's going to happen. 1:01:23 Well, I'd like to thank Tim Brule for joining us from US College Hockey Online. 1:01:28 Yes, that's what I'm going to keep calling it. 1:01:30 Sorry, Tim. 1:01:32 That's fine. 1:01:34 And hopefully you can join us again sometime and maybe we'll all have better connections and the sound will be a little bit better next time. 1:01:41 I appreciate the invite and the chance to talk with you guys from Gopher Hockey. 1:01:48 I'm definitely still a passionate Gopher fan even though up in the price box we, you and I, can't exactly scream although we let out a few yelps here and there. 1:02:01 We have been guilty of that a few times. 1:02:02 Thanks. 1:02:05 Well, obviously his site is uscho.com. 1:02:08 It's the biggest thing in college hockey. 1:02:10 It probably will be for a long time. 1:02:13 Remember, you can always follow Hammy at Hammy Hockey on Twitter. 1:02:16 Obviously, Ryan is at Ryan Cardinal on Twitter. 1:02:20 You also see his writings on Gopher Puck Live along with Jeff Oftoast. 1:02:25 He does a lot of writing for us. 1:02:27 Ryan, I assume you're going to be on with Paul Allen, the KFA, in this week sometime? 1:02:32 Yeah, I would expect that. 1:02:33 I don't know if there will be another stadium press conference that will give me the e-call, but I believe that that is planned for Thursday, so we'll see if it comes to fruition. 1:02:43 All right. 1:02:44 Thanks. 1:02:45 That's going to do it for this week's Gopher Puck Live Podcast. 1:02:48 We'll be back next week to review the Anchorage series and give a preview of the WCHA Final Five. 1:02:55 Until then, thanks for joining us.