0:04 This is the GopherPuckLive Podcast, episode number two, recorded October 11, 2011. 0:18 Hello, and thanks for joining us here on The GPL Podcast. 0:22 I am your host, Craig Cotner, and I am once again joined by my fellow co-hosts, Hammeh and Cardinal. 0:27 How are you guys today? 0:28 Doing good. 0:31 Good as always. 0:32 Well, also joined the podcast is an actual real broadcaster and a familiar voice for college hockey fans. 0:43 You listen to him calling go for hockey on TV for over 20 years. 0:47 Nowadays, he's the new color commentator for the Gopher Radio broadcast. 0:51 And of course, I'm talking about Frank Mazzocco. 0:53 Frank, how are ya? 0:55 Hey, great. 0:57 I'd be an analyzer, though. 0:59 Analyzer, color commentator. 1:00 I'm an analyzer. 1:01 Well, I think you have plenty of color to the broadcast, don't you think? 1:04 Yeah, I like analyzers. 1:07 What's that new name these days? 1:09 Analyzer, yeah, well, it's my invented name. 1:12 Analyst sounds a little distressful. 1:15 I'd rather be, you know, you have deciders and you have analyzers, and I'm an analyzer. 1:21 Well, I think I speak for all the fans where it's great to have you back involved at Gopher Hockey. 1:27 Why don't you update us on what you've been doing for the last year and a half, you've been away from the game. 1:32 Wow, I feel like I've been in another universe. 1:37 It's taken some time to get back into this, especially now that, as of Monday, it was the start of the old routine and I'm not ready for that. 1:48 Well, some may know, but several years ago, I can't remember, three, four, five, I actually tried to, no, scratch the word tried. 1:59 I actually started a professional photography business. 2:02 I was doing studio work and the last two and a half years I've been in studio space of my own. 2:09 So the last 18 months, just about seven days a week, I've been devoting myself into that because I'm a one man shop and it takes all of it. 2:21 I need 48 hours a day to get that thing going and keep it going. 2:25 So that's what I've been doing. 2:26 I've had space in Northeast Minneapolis, doing portraits, doing seniors, doing product shots, just about anything legal, I will do. 2:36 Oh, careful words there, anything legal. 2:40 Anything legal, I can take it right up to the edge too, if I need be, as long as the right amount of money is involved. 2:46 Of course. 2:47 So that's, but it's been a passion. 2:49 I've loved it and actually in the last couple of weeks here I've ramped up for hockey. 2:54 My eye has not been behind the camera enough and I've got to keep those skills up too. 2:59 So I plan to bring the camera on the road this year, which is going to be fun. 3:04 And you get to visit Anchorage, which you've never been able to do on TV. 3:08 And there will be living proof that I will be there. 3:11 You can rest assured there will be living proof. 3:14 What, no studio with a fake background or anything like that? 3:20 Oh, no, we didn't really fool anybody, did we? 3:22 You fooled probably many people, I'm guessing. 3:26 The second go around, the stuff we did from Colorado College, well, via Colorado College, we weren't there, you know. 3:35 I think that did fool a lot of people. 3:37 But the previous year's adventure up in Anchorage, we wouldn't have fooled my dead grandmother. 3:44 I mean, that was bad stuff. 3:48 That was bad. 3:50 Oh, you mean that fake audio that they had going in the background and you only had the video signal? 3:55 I thought it was entertaining. 3:56 I was just happy that we could see the games. 3:58 Well, the audio loop was from a college baseball game, I'm sure, because there was a ding every once in a while. 4:08 And the puck wasn't going off the pipe either. 4:13 Well, now you're with the radio broadcast with Wally Shaver and you have a couple of games under your belt. 4:19 How do you think you did? 4:20 I mean, I think you sounded great, but how did you do and how does it feel to be back and doing radio because you haven't done radio in quite some time, I believe. 4:31 Oh, yeah, really, but I'll go with your judgment on that. 4:34 Okay. 4:34 If you said I was great, I was great, no problem. 4:37 Right there with you. 4:41 Now, last radio game, Doug McLeod was still in town. 4:47 Yeah, do you go back as far as Doug? 4:49 Yes, I remember him on radio and on TV. 4:55 So this would have been right around, it was before the new Mariucci Arena, so 1991 in there. 5:01 He started to do some TV work. 5:03 He started actually doing Gopher Hockey on MSC and I was sort of like nudged out because Channel 29 didn't renew the rights and all that stuff. 5:14 So he was doing TV and I wasn't and when he had a conflict, he was good enough to give me his radio stuff. 5:20 So I did maybe a half dozen games a year or so on radio. 5:23 So that would have been the last time, that's what, 20 years. 5:28 Yeah, I know it's an adjustment. 5:29 I finally figured out over the weekend that it's like going from right wing to left defense. 5:36 Hey, at least you don't have to dress up anymore. 5:39 That's true. 5:40 No suit and tie, though I did see you wearing the coat. 5:43 I had a sport coat and a shirt. 5:45 I think open collar is casual and that's fine. 5:49 I can do that. 5:51 But yeah, no makeup. 5:55 But what I'm finding is that I'm carrying as much gear because we're going high tech with all of our Twitter stuff. 6:01 So I've got to have a laptop and a little more work than I thought there would be, at least early on here. 6:08 Well yeah, that's one thing I've noticed. 6:10 You're encouraging people to actually tweet you in pregame and during the game at Mazzpuck and Twitter and they can send you questions and you can answer them. 6:21 I noticed you did some pregame, you were doing some during the game. 6:24 I've noticed you guys have started adding audio clips of interviews during the game. 6:30 I've noticed a bunch of changes and one of the big changes is that Wally has a broadcaster with him now. 6:38 So I notice you reading even some advertising copy and things like that. 6:42 So the broadcast has changed quite a bit. 6:49 I'm not saying that I'm the genius behind this but there are some things that I'm pushing for partly because I've got to bring what my strong suit is. 6:57 My strong suit is not playing the game as you guys well know. 7:01 I've got to bring my broadcast background and stuff like that and my geekness to the show and try to do some of these things. 7:09 I really think that the social media stuff could be very vital to what happens in radio in the future because radio is changing now very much as much as TV is. 7:21 If we can keep the people engaged in radio to have them tune in and stay tuned in, what the heck is wrong with that? 7:30 That's kind of what I'd like to do through that, to keep them engaged and then break it up a little bit. 7:35 With the technology the way it is, and there's no reason why you can't just do drop-ins, like we started to do, time will determine whether we can sustain this or not, but that's the goal. 7:48 If it's easy to do, if the technology makes it easy to do, if I can run those things from my laptop without an engineer, sorry unions, but that's where we are right now. 7:58 We do it. 7:59 Well, I think it also helps the fan engagement. 8:02 Every fan loves to hear their question or hear their name on the radio or whatever, so you're right, it does help fans stay engaged with the game on the radio. 8:11 So I can see why you would want to do that. 8:14 Yeah, and I'm going to try my very best not to back off from questions. 8:19 You know, if it's a personal attack, no, I won't repeat it. 8:23 You know, like if it's attacking some player or a coach or whatever. 8:27 Of course not, because, you know, it is a Gopher Sports Properties broadcast. 8:31 Let's not forget that. 8:32 But you know, the other part is that that's never been a part of me. 8:39 It's never been a part of what I do, so. 8:40 Well, you don't want to get the Sioux fans all riled up by ripping on them or anything like that. 8:44 You know, they love you. 8:45 All I have to do is inhale and they get riled up. 8:49 So yeah, I had a couple of questions I was going to ask you that revolved around our favorite fans from North Dakota. 8:57 In particular, my biggest one that I, the thing I always heard, and I heard this in TV as well when you were on TV, Mazzocco is such a homer, you know, for myself, I always, of course, I'm a Gopher fan, but I've always felt that you are pretty balanced in how you call the game. 9:13 Now, do you sometimes find yourself editing how you present things because you want to, like whoever the opponent is, you want it to be, you know, a balanced approach or how do you, I mean, you probably don't think about it, but how do you, you know, has that ever come across your mind? 9:31 No, I do think about it. 9:32 I thought about it a lot. 9:33 And Wally and I started thinking about it from day one when Channel 29 started reaching some cable stations, not cable stations, but they were carried by cable operators throughout the state. 9:47 Well, we realized that there's people in St. 9:49 Cloud watching, there's people in Duluth watching. 9:52 And then when I moved over to MSC, those people were actually paying my salary in effect. 9:57 So, no, I wasn't going to diss them. 10:01 Of course not. 10:02 And you want to give due credit. 10:04 And then Tom Reed and I started working on it. 10:08 Never wanted to be so lopsided that those people were put off. 10:12 So to answer your question, yeah, I do pay attention to it. 10:16 And publicly, what would I say to that comment? 10:18 Well, no matter what TV broadcast you listen to, you go on the network. 10:23 It could be a game between the Browns and the Rams, right? 10:28 And you go to Cleveland and they say, oh, they're so pro St. 10:31 Louis. 10:31 And you go to St. 10:32 Louis and they say, oh, they're so pro Cleveland. 10:34 No matter where, okay? 10:36 So that's going to happen. 10:38 But to our friend there who said that I was such a homer, really, man. 10:45 Have they heard their own broadcasts? 10:47 Yeah, that's the thing. 10:48 Publicly. 10:51 Oh, God, they're, oh, man, those, you know what? 10:54 Pat Sweeney does a pretty good job on TV. 10:57 But there's no question who they're pulling for. 11:01 Right. 11:02 Radio is a little bit of a different story. 11:06 Yeah, that's a little bit more knifey on radio. 11:10 I've heard other broadcasts from other teams and I don't see, I see just as much. 11:14 I mean, it's maybe not to the level of Glenn Sonmore, who is, of course, the biggest Gopher cheerleader, you know, and everybody knows that and everybody loved him to some degree for it. 11:23 But I think we all see, you know, that with other broadcasts as well. 11:27 So I never thought it was necessarily a fair criticism. 11:31 Well, thanks. 11:33 Well, I know Gopher fans too with, you know, back to the FSN tie and when Sega sort of would do the Wisconsin games, I mean, Gopher fans would be all over him. 11:40 And obviously he and Wugger would kind of have some fun going back and forth. 11:44 But yeah, I think it's more a byproduct of just, hey, they're the enemy. 11:48 So I'm going to look at it with a critical eye and say, oh, yeah, he's anti-Gophers and everything else. 11:52 Whereas like, Sega sort of, he never bothered me. 11:55 Like, yeah, he was a little bit over the top with some things, but his analysis was good and everything like that. 11:59 But yeah, I think it's just more of a byproduct of, you know, I don't like that team. 12:03 So I'm going to look for every little thing to kind of pick at him. 12:05 I thought Sega sort definitely toned down his schtick when he was with you guys in the booth, though, on TV. 12:13 I mean, you watch him on a Badger-only broadcast, and he was way over the top. 12:19 But when he was with you guys, I thought he was pretty fair and pretty in the middle and giving the Badger point of view, but not cheering as much as he would during a normal broadcast. 12:31 That was one of the hardest things I was ever involved in. 12:34 I think it was also one of the most lopsided, unfair things to do to fans. 12:39 And I'm not just stomping on Rupert Murdoch and his folks, but MSC did the same. 12:46 I think it started in MSC, didn't it? 12:49 Pretty sure it did. 12:50 My memory fails me. 12:53 But man, what a tension to put your fans into, to have to listen to these guys. 13:01 And it became, well, he said this, so I'm going to say that. 13:06 And I remember one time we were playing at Mariucci Arena. 13:11 Doug was with me, so I know it was a Fox game. 13:16 Gopher said an regular season attendance record went over the 10,100 mark or something like that, and they announced the attendance, and crowds going crazy, and Doug repeats it on the air. 13:30 And Tom said, well, yeah, but the Badgers have led the nation in attendance for the last three years. 13:36 Well, that's not the point. 13:38 The point is that this team in this new building just did it for the first time. 13:44 So there was that constant, if you say this about one team, then you've got to say something about the other. 13:49 It was a mess. 13:50 It was really a mess. 13:52 Well, I think we need to move on to what happened this past weekend, which was a couple of blowouts. 13:57 We've got the Gophers beating Poor Sacred Heart, 9-zip and 6-zip. 14:04 Kent Patterson, co-defensive player of the week. 14:08 Ryan, why don't you start us off? 14:09 What did you think of the weekend? 14:12 Well, going into it, despite the last couple of years, you had to feel like the Gophers would take care of business. 14:18 Sacred Heart, it's not like they're Niagara or Mercyhurst or some of these other East Coast teams where they're not good on an annual basis, but every once in a while, you never hear anything out of Sacred Heart, and they obviously look the part. 14:31 But I think the biggest takeaway for me was that, granted, you can't take a whole lot out of certain players' play or things like that, but just that over the past few years, this team has played down to the competition a lot. 14:42 You look back to last year, and Lucia always talks about how, hey, we beat Michigan and we beat North Dakota and we beat Duluth, but the home series against Anchorage in the playoffs when you get swept and losing at Bemidji when they needed those points at the end of the year. 14:55 I mean, just a lot of times where they played teams they should beat, and it was a struggle, and that definitely wasn't the case this weekend. 15:01 Now, obviously, the worst WCHA team is probably a lot better than Sacred Heart, but just that they did what they should do this weekend. 15:07 They got a lot of guys in the lineup, a lot of guys scored goals to hopefully get some confidence, and it probably could have gone a lot better from a Gopher standpoint, all things considered. 15:17 Yeah, you basically stole the words out of my mouth. 15:21 The biggest thing for me was that we saw them play down in the competition in recent years, and it was nice to just see them. 15:30 Granted, it wasn't exactly a full blast from the start of the game. 15:34 I mean, it was a little bit of a struggle early on for both games, at least in terms of we weren't exactly blowing them up, but it was nice to see by the end of the game it wasn't in doubt and that we had thoroughly defeated them in both games. 15:47 And that to me, as much as you can take away from a series like that against an overmatched opponent, that was probably the biggest thing. 15:55 Frank, who stood out for you? 15:56 I mean, what players kind of caught your eye for the Gophers? 16:02 Maybe some, well, that whole sophomore class, which I didn't have a chance to really look at in detail last year. 16:11 I only caught a couple of games last year. 16:14 But, Howla, who, man, was fabulous. 16:20 Some of the guys in the blue line, Marshall can shoot. 16:26 He can move, too. 16:27 Schneider, yeah. 16:29 I mean, I am really impressed with the freshmen and sophomore classes because I think you and I may have talked even during the summer, Craig, about how Don had a good, pretty good, probably more than just pretty good. 16:43 He had a very good recruitment. 16:48 And Kyle Rao was the only really... 16:50 We are starting to lose you a little bit there, Frank. 16:53 Me? 16:54 Yep. 16:54 Can you just pick up right where you left off there? 16:57 You kind of lost your audio for a second. 17:01 I wonder if it is because I am pulling on this cord. 17:03 Alright, listen... 17:10 But you are right. 17:11 You talked how things needed to change. 17:16 I think they have changed. 17:19 I also like how a lot of freshmen got on the board this weekend to get the confidence going. 17:27 Marshall scored, Ambrose scored, Warning, Rao on his first shift of his first game scored. 17:37 It's obviously a sub-part competition, but Lucia always seems to say that it gets them going. 17:46 He hates to have them go week after week without getting that first goal, and it can really boost their confidence. 17:53 Yeah, and I'll kind of go in the other way on that. 17:55 The one guy that really stood out to me, and yeah, he had six points on the weekend with Jake Hanson, but I know, I think it was in Friday night's game that I was tweeting for GPL, and Hammy was going to, I think he said right after, he was typing the exact same thing, and that it was 8-0 or 9-0, whatever, with three, four minutes left in the third period, and Hanson was just busting his tail back in the zone end to break up a play, and obviously his shot that he had on Friday night where he scored his one goal was just a cannon, and he's a guy who obviously came here with a lot of fanfare and was a pretty highly recruited kid. 18:27 He did pretty well in the USHL, and it's fair to say he hasn't lived up to expectations, and to your guys' point, there are going to be a lot of freshmen and sophomores that this team is going to count on to do a lot of things. 18:37 I mean, that's just kind of the nature of a lot of the big-time programs, especially this one, where they've had a tough time keeping kids around, but Hanson's a senior, he's an assistant captain, and he's the kind of guy that can maybe put this team over the edge where it's not just seniors on the third and fourth line that are relied to check and do the little things. 18:55 If you could have somebody like him be a big-time wing that can score maybe 20 goals this year and provide physical play at both ends of the rink, I think that could be a huge thing for this team. 19:04 So hopefully he can kind of keep it going here into this weekend and beyond. 19:08 I thought Hanson was all over the place. 19:11 Defensive zone, offensive zone. 19:14 I think he showed a ton of speed. 19:15 I don't remember him having so much speed. 19:18 Yeah, he did. 19:19 He hustled. 19:21 Go ahead, Andy. 19:22 I just remember that one break that he had going down the right wing, which would have been to the left of the Gopher bench, where it was afterburners. 19:31 And his feet were just chugging away. 19:35 Because I'd heard about Hanson coming on as a scorer last year. 19:40 No one ever said a thing about speed. 19:43 Yes, and that's one thing you mentioned in the broadcast. 19:46 Who's the fastest guy on the team now? 19:49 Well, post-game Saturday we asked Don, and he said, well... 20:00 During the last five minutes here, whatever internet connection I had was really jumping around, so I'm not sure all of what you guys talk about in terms of people. 20:12 But I did mean to mention Nate Schmidt and Ben Marshall. 20:16 I hope that I did and that they got through. 20:19 Helgeson I thought was very noticeable on Friday, not as much on Saturday, but I guess he's not the type of defenseman that is going to stand out and be noticeable. 20:27 You just want them to push bodies out of the way. 20:31 How about Sam Warning? 20:35 You know, I'm not surprised because last winter, I was speaking to Ben Marshall's dad, and he had just seen a game between Ben's team, Omaha, and Sam's team, Cedar Rapids, and he told me that Sam played great. 20:55 He said he was all over the ice. 20:56 I don't know if he said dominant, but he was very strong in that game. 21:03 He did have a pretty good offensive year there, so I can't say that I'm necessarily surprised that he started off that way. 21:09 Hopefully, it's a sign of things to come. 21:12 What I really liked about his first goal is the patience he showed. 21:17 He came down right in the middle after a turnover, and he held the puck, almost like he was waiting for his other player to get into position. 21:26 Then he just looked at the goalie real quick, ripped it up over his shoulder into a space about five inches by five inches. 21:32 There was not much space there for him to fit that goal. 21:36 As a freshman in his first game to show that kind of poise, I thought that was very encouraging. 21:42 I thought all those young kids showed poise. 21:45 I don't know that there was a guy out there who got rattled during the weekend. 21:49 Now, granted, they weren't given a lot of reason to be rattled by Sacred Heart, because Sacred Heart didn't play an in-your-face kind of game. 21:57 They never could have caught up to the Gophers to even try to play in-your-face. 22:01 That was a poised group. 22:03 I hope what they got from that was to learn how to play those kinds of things. 22:08 In other words, get that memory muscle stuff going. 22:10 Remember that these are the skills that are going to take. 22:13 Now, they're going to have to do it five times as fast on Friday night against Duluth. 22:18 Basically, that's what they've got going. 22:22 Can I go back to Jake Hanson for a minute? 22:25 You guys watched last year a bit more. 22:28 One of the things that this team has not had in the last couple of years, and that happens when you get a little thin on talent, is you don't have people within the group pushing the group. 22:40 One of the concerns that I talked to Wally about on the air was you've got all of these people, you've got two great classes, now it's looking like freshmen and sophomores, but you don't have the built-in know-how to win that seems to come every year in places like North Dakota. 22:58 There's just that whole atmosphere mentality that they know how to win. 23:02 All right, so taking that down now to an each-game kind of level, how much do you think having Buxted and Howla on this team and the skills that they bring is making Jake Hanson a better player? 23:18 I mean, we always talked about in the past, the best Gopher teams had a lot of depth, and they all kind of pushed each other hard for the best playing opportunities, whether it's on the power play, whatever it might be, and having that kind of talent where you know that you have to raise your game just to be on the potential list of first-line, power play, whatever it might be, I just think you can't underestimate that on any team, so it is nice to have that and have those guys back. 23:45 You know, Buxted, to have him back this year was great, and hopefully these guys can lead the freshmen down the same path. 23:54 Yeah, and I mean, speaking to the depth, I mean, how many was it, two, three, four years ago, where, I mean, this is nothing against Evan Kaufman or Ben Gordon, but I mean, those guys shouldn't be first-line wings on teams that are going to be NCAA tournament-bound, and obviously it showed that the team wasn't there when those guys were featured, so it's nice to have, you know, you kind of look ahead to this weekend, and, you know, even weekends to come where, you know, the Gophers may not have a Hobie Baker finalist-type player up front, but, you know, forwards, one through 12, I mean, this, you know, Lucia said this immediately, I mean, this should be maybe the deepest group that they have, and, you know, it's a good mix of some, you know, guys with size, too, and where, you know, Bugstad and Ambrose, and, you know, just, you know, some different guys who can get in there and mix it up. 24:42 I mean, I think they have a nice mix up front, and they'll obviously push each other for playing time and power play time and the things that players covet. 24:50 I'd like to go back. 24:52 If I could interrupt, I want to go back to what Frank was talking about with some of the defensemen. 24:58 I know we get on a weekend like we just touched on. 25:01 I mean, when you're outscoring teams, nine-nothing in a game or whatever, you're outscoring teams, and you're outscoring teams, the defense tends to be secondary because you don't really think about it in a nine-goal game. 25:11 I was really happy to see how Nate Schmidt played, especially after that first period or so of the first game. 25:17 I thought he looked a lot more confident and just looked like he was somebody that would be countered on this year. 25:24 I also, of course, liked how Ben Marshall played. 25:27 He looked very slick out there, very prepared for what he was going to be facing in college hockey. 25:32 Granted, Sacred Heart will probably be saying that the whole show, but to me, I think Ryan has touched on this in the past. 25:40 It's going to be about defense for the Gophers this year, as far as I think we'll score, but I think how is the defense going to play against some very good teams? 25:51 And I think that seeing guys like Schmidt and Marshall play well, I think that's a good sign and hopefully something that they'll be able to continue to improve on this year. 26:02 Well, one thing we hadn't seen in the last few years are obviously the defensemen contributing on the offense, that pass out of the zone, just keeping the play going. 26:14 And another thing we hadn't seen is a defenseman jumping up into the play at the appropriate time. 26:21 And on Marshall's goal, it was a play where he cut towards the net. 26:27 He started moving aggressively towards the net, got the pass, put it in the back of the net. 26:32 And that's just something we haven't seen in a couple of years. 26:34 Someone being aggressive, but yet he's quick enough to get back into the play when his part on the offense is done. 26:41 Yeah, and I think a lot of that, too, is just playing with confidence. 26:44 Obviously, he had a very good year, especially, you know, playing as a high school senior in the USHL playing defense. 26:50 And I think he was a first-team all-star. 26:52 And so to have that confidence coming in here, and, you know, again, that's kind of one of the benefits of playing a Sacred Heart early on is, yeah, you know, you don't get, you know, like Duluth playing Notre Dame last weekend, but at the same time, you can build some confidence. 27:03 And, you know, going back to Nate Schmidt, and the one play that really stood out to me was on Friday night when he got the puck around the red line and just showed great patience and not just getting rid of it right away, kind of bought a little bit of time, did a little spin, and he got it over to Bugstad. 27:15 And that's where he, you know, drove the net and flipped the backhand right over the goalie's glove. 27:19 So, you know, seeing those guys, you know, with offensive defense, man, I mean, so much of it is confidence. 27:24 I mean, you think back to guys like Vanelli and Goligoski and how many times they would just, you know, drag that puck right along the blue line while on the power play. 27:31 And, you know, having somebody there and just waiting that extra half second and getting shots through. 27:35 And, you know, it's tough to be confident as a defenseman when you don't have anything to go off of and you're turning the puck over and things like that. 27:41 So to give these young guys a chance last weekend to show that, and, you know, I think that's going to be one of the big issues this weekend is going on the small ice sheet against a, you know, pretty hard floor-checking team in Duluth. 27:51 But, you know, they do have the confidence, I think, from this past weekend to do well up there. 27:56 Yeah, the size of the rink plus the skill of the competition, it's going to be like a five times whammy in cutting down their time and space. 28:05 So that's, and I've often heard that the toughest adjustment is not going from a small rink to a big rink, but the other way. 28:12 From a team that's used to having a lot of time and running around with a lot of space to suddenly go to a small rink, that's where the timing suddenly becomes critical. 28:19 And in terms of that confidence, I mean, you just take that through this line up and you go from forwards to D to goaltender. 28:25 And if those defensemen have confidence in their goaltender and they're going to be able to make some of those passes, if the forwards have confidence in the defensemen, they're going to be able to start breaking up the rink a little bit and get themselves into a spot where they can get open and get to a puck or get to an opening where that puck can get to them. 28:43 It's just always one is going to feed right off of another and we haven't had that in a long, long time where Doug liked to talk about putting the links of the chain together. 28:54 Boy, there's, I think we're really starting to see some of those links come together really nice now. 29:00 Frank, I'm curious, you know, you mentioned about the going from a big rink to a small rink. 29:05 In your experience watching the Gophers do this, I've always felt personally that maybe the adjustment isn't that difficult in the sense that a lot of these guys grow up on these smaller rinks. 29:19 I mean, that's all they play on basically. 29:21 And they get to college, then they get the Olympic sized rinks. 29:24 So it's not like they can entirely forget how to play on smaller rinks. 29:29 They might not be used to it. 29:30 Maybe it takes them a period or so. 29:31 I mean, is that kind of what you see when you watch the Gophers go to an NHL regulation size rink from the Olympic rank? 29:40 What kind of adjustment do you tend to see? 29:43 Twofold. 29:44 One is that the weaker teams that the Gophers have had have not been able to adjust as well because they haven't been able to get the skills to complete the passes and those smaller rinks and the time was taken away. 29:55 The other is the physical play. 29:57 If they get into a smaller rink against a physical team many years, we just haven't been able to take it. 30:03 We haven't been able to take the pounding. 30:05 I don't think that should be an issue for the next couple of years. 30:09 It better not be an issue the next couple of years. 30:12 But no, I do believe that teams that have come in, particularly those that haven't been in the WCHA, have come into Mariucci Arena, they have foundered for a long time on that big pond trying to figure it out. 30:25 Yes, that's been tough for them to do, but they also haven't come in with a lot of skilled players either. 30:30 Some of them. 30:32 Well, let's take a look at the WCHA this weekend. 30:34 We've got three series. 30:36 Let's start off with Bucky Badger heading up to Michigan Tech. 30:41 Cardinal, I know you weren't too high on Wisconsin this year, but usually Michigan Tech is a walk for them. 30:50 Yeah, Wisconsin, they split against Northern Michigan last weekend at home, and that's pretty respectable. 30:56 Northern Michigan is usually a pretty, they may not have the most talent, but Walt Kyle, I think he's still the head coach there, and they usually field a pretty respectable team in Wisconsin with how young they are, and they're even younger than the Gophers are, and obviously, especially in the back end with freshman goalies. 31:11 So to get a home split against that team, I don't think it's the end of the world. 31:14 Michigan Tech, obviously Mel Pearson takes over there, and it's a complete rebuilding job from the ground up. 31:21 They swept American International last weekend, so maybe the one team that's worse than Sacred Heart maybe, but it could be a little bit dicey going in there. 31:31 You know they're going to be pretty fired up for their first home conference series with a new coach. 31:35 So a split wouldn't shock me. 31:37 I mean, Wisconsin, even though they're young, they're infinitely more talented. 31:40 But I wouldn't be surprised if Tech hung in there and got a point or two out of them. 31:46 Yeah, I'll be curious to see how Wisconsin's goaltending situation holds up this year, particularly when you go on the road. 31:54 Now, granted, Michigan Tech doesn't exactly have the most hostile of crowds. 31:59 It's not like you have 10,000 fans raining down on you, but still having to go on the road in an unfriendly environment, freshman goalies that haven't been tested in WCHA. 32:10 It'll be interesting to see how they adapt to that. 32:13 And Wisconsin, definitely their margin for error isn't going to be as great this year because they don't have spectacular offense either. 32:22 So it'll be interesting. 32:23 This might be, usually you think a tech is rolling over for good teams, but we don't know that Wisconsin is really on that level, so we'll have to see. 32:33 I think it wouldn't surprise me if there's a split in the series. 32:38 I think one of the biggest attractions right now, one of the biggest hurdles, let's call it that, for Michigan Tech is finding themselves under a new coach. 32:47 Things have got to be different up there. 32:49 Lord knows all we have to do is look at the bank and see what a new coach can mean for a football team. 32:54 So I think that's going to be one of the most significant hurdles this weekend. 32:59 It's just hard not to think that the Badgers won't get at least three points out of there, though. 33:05 Again, you've got a team that has some semblance of a winning tradition, history of winning. 33:13 I know the goaltenders are young. 33:14 So that's what I would really think. 33:17 It should be three out of four. 33:19 I'm with you, Frank. 33:20 I'm thinking Wisconsin is going to either sweep or take three. 33:24 Tech is, well, tech. 33:27 That's just the way it is. 33:29 Well, then we have Bemidji heading out to the Schwartz show out in Colorado Springs. 33:37 That could be interesting. 33:38 Obviously, Bemidji just came off a split at Miami. 33:41 So I think they could give CC a hard time. 33:45 Yeah, CC, I mean, they haven't played. 33:48 I think two exhibition games. 33:49 So they haven't had the real thing yet. 33:51 Whereas Bemidji's been arguably as tough as his opponent as you can draw in week one going out to Miami. 33:56 But I think the one concern maybe for Bemidji is that going out on the big ice sheet with the, I don't want to make too much out of the elevation type thing, but maybe early in the year conditioning wise, that might be a little bit tough on them. 34:08 And they're going to be definitely the underdogs. 34:10 So I don't know if Bemidji's got what it takes to contain what CeCe's going to bring up front with that top line, like you said, Jupe with the Shorts brothers. 34:18 But you know, Bemidji, it's just tough for them to play that, you know, defensive packet in type game on the big ice sheet out there, whereas Miami has a small ice sheet. 34:26 And you know, it's a little bit easier to play that way, you know, when you're dealing with the small dimensions. 34:32 Guys, help me out. 34:33 What's Bemidji bringing back this year? 34:36 And what was their final poll ranking before the tournament? 34:40 Do you remember last year? 34:43 I have no idea on that one. 34:45 Wouldn't they have gotten... 34:47 Weren't they a top 12 anyway? 34:49 I don't think they quite were. 34:52 But I know that, you know, obviously, I think they needed help to get in last year, didn't they? 34:56 Because obviously they beat Duluth in the play-in. 34:59 Wasn't that the play-in? 34:59 Or one of the play-in games, I guess, at the WCHA Final Five. 35:03 But... 35:05 Yeah, I just pulled it up. 35:06 I mean, you remember how they just owned Omaha last year and they ended up sweeping Omaha in the first round of the playoffs. 35:12 And that's how they got to the Final Five. 35:13 They beat Duluth in overtime in the play-in game, quote unquote. 35:17 And then Denver took care of them pretty easily in the Friday night game to end the season for them. 35:22 But yeah, they finished 15, 18 and 5. 35:25 And I know for my NHL cheering, I'm a big Philadelphia Flyers fan. 35:29 And one kid that the midget lost was Matt Reed. 35:31 I think he was a senior last year and he was a 24-year-old senior. 35:35 But I know he made the Flyers right out of camp. 35:37 And I know Bob McKenzie picked him to win the Rookie of the Year in the NHL. 35:40 So that's obviously one kid. 35:42 I think they still have, I can't remember, Hunt maybe on the blue line. 35:46 I know I think I saw his name in some preseason stuff. 35:49 So they still have a big-time defenseman. 35:51 But I think they lost a fair amount out front, even besides Matt Reed. 35:57 I would hate ever to have to bet against either of the seratory teams, you know, Air Force or Bemidji. 36:05 But CC should run the table on this one. 36:09 Yeah, I'd agree with that. 36:10 I mean, it's hard to, I mean, these early season series, it's really difficult because you don't have any kind of pattern from recent weeks to really pick up on. 36:19 But I would say even with how Bemidji performed at Miami, I would probably have to give the nod to CC in both games. 36:28 Yeah, I agree. 36:29 I see CC taking four points this weekend. 36:33 Close game Friday night, you know, they haven't really played any real games yet, but I think Saturday night or whenever they're scheduled, they'll take care of them pretty well. 36:44 That leaves us with our Gophers heading up to Amsoil Arena in Duluth. 36:50 Hammeh, what do you got? 36:53 You know, when looking at this, after the Sacred Heart Series, you can't really get a beat on what exactly we have yet. 37:02 I mean, we've talked about how it's going to be a heck of a lot different plan on a smaller rank against a much more talented team in Duluth. 37:10 And so it's very difficult. 37:12 I really, it's one of those things where I think if they limit the damage of that top line with Connelly and Brown and, you know, maybe stay out of the box a bit and limit their power play opportunities, I think certainly there's a good chance to win, you know, both games. 37:28 I'm not going to certainly predict that we're going to sweep on the road this early in the season with a young team, especially against the defending champs. 37:36 But I do think that we do have, I think, a little better depth up front than Duluth does. 37:42 I think that they have a little more high end, of course, on that top line. 37:46 But depth wise, I like what we have. 37:48 I think that our size, you know, we talked about guys like Ambrose and Bukstad and Budis. 37:54 I think those guys in the forecheck can do a lot of damage and Alton Helgeson throwing their weight around in our own zone. 38:02 I like what we have. 38:04 We didn't talk about him earlier, but Kent Patterson, he played two shutouts. 38:09 Granted, he wasn't tested a great deal, but he did make some very key saves in this last series at important times when it was still a little bit more in doubt. 38:17 And you can't underestimate a good goalie on the road. 38:20 So I'll go with the split for the Gophers. 38:25 It wouldn't surprise me either way. 38:27 Anything that happens on the road in Duluth, you never know. 38:30 But I'll go with the split. 38:34 I'm going to name Kent Patterson, the Gophers' star of the weekend going in. 38:39 He has to be. 38:40 I think he has to be. 38:41 Because they're probably going to lose one game, and a lot of it is going to be on youngster mistakes, I think. 38:48 I think their inexperience is going to probably get bent to the point of breaking at least for one game, I think, this weekend. 38:59 There's going to be a lot of energy, but it's going to be like a second opening night for them. 39:02 I mean, for crying out loud, you know, they raised the banner last week. 39:05 Now they're going to have the Gophers coming in there. 39:06 You think the intensity is going to be down because they raised the banner last week? 39:10 I don't think so. 39:11 Yeah, so I mean, I think everything is going to come at the Gophers this weekend. 39:15 And hey, Duluth played a really good team, which may be a better tune-up for this coming weekend than what the Gophers went through in their three games, essentially a three-game exhibition. 39:26 And again, we say that with all due respect to Sacred Heart, but a team that only had, what, five, six wins last year in the Atlantic Conference, Atlantic Hockey, is not, I think Cardinal, as you said, is not as good as the last place team in the WCHA. 39:41 Anyway, a lot of stuff is going to come at the Gophers, and we're going to find out how much this team is going to need Kent Patterson. 39:48 We'll learn a lot about that this weekend. 39:51 Yeah, and just to touch on a couple of things. 39:53 I think one thing last year, Duluth had one of the best power plays in the WCHA, and the Gophers' penalty kill was atrocious, and special teams are the one thing I don't think you can really take a lot out of last weekend for the Gophers just because they put a lot of different units out there. 40:06 It's not like it was Unit A and Unit B going out each night. 40:09 I mean, they mixed and matched a lot, but that's one area where the penalty kill is going to have to be good. 40:14 I mean, you know Duluth is going to come out, and I'm assuming, and Frank touched on this earlier, where they're going to challenge the Gopher defense, and I'm sure they're going to dump the puck in and send a couple of forecheckers and try to create turnovers, and I'm sure that's going to happen at times with 500 classmen in the lineup for the Gophers on the back end. 40:30 So hopefully avoiding the penalties, avoiding the turnovers. 40:32 I think Friday night, the first period is key if the Gophers can get to the locker room scoreless or tied. 40:38 I mean, I think that would be a nice advantage for them, the rest of the series. 40:42 And like Hammy touched on too, where the Gophers, I'm assuming that guys like Nick Larson and Siketty are going to be in there at least on Friday night, just to have a little bit more experience as opposed to an Isaac Sinner avoid where they looked okay last weekend, but conference game on the road, tough environment. 40:59 You think you'd go with some older guys. 41:02 But just lines one through four, I think the Gophers should be able to maybe wear down Duluth a little bit. 41:07 I mean, you look, I've seen Cody Danberg, who was expected to be an okay player for them. 41:11 He's out with an injury, and obviously JT Brown and Jack Connolly, but then Oleksik. 41:17 But after that, Duluth doesn't have the depth that they did last year, at least as of yet. 41:20 I mean, there's a lot of guys with potential there. 41:22 But I think the Gophers, especially, I really like the Gophers' third line, if they keep Condon and Matson together with Ambrose, because Matson and Condon, I don't think either one of them is going to be a big time scorer, but just with their speed and aggressiveness, and if you can get somebody like Ambrose, maybe dig some pucks out for them and go to the net. 41:38 So I think the Gophers' depth up front should be good. 41:40 It's just, like Frank said, it's going to come down to the blue line, and whether or not some of these young guys can play well. 41:46 So I'm a little bit more bullish on it than maybe Hamian's. 41:48 I think the Gophers can go up there and get three points, maybe even sweep. 41:51 But again, I think early on Friday is going to be key. 41:54 They just can't be down two-nothing, three-nothing, something like that early. 41:57 Just weather the storm. 41:58 I don't think you have to worry about Patterson. 42:01 Hopefully, they can use that depth up front to wear out the dogs. 42:04 Cardinal's taking his risks with predicting a sweep. 42:07 He's going to be up in the rink up there, drunk hockey guy and all those guys. 42:12 Well, see, that's the thing. 42:14 I'll only be up there on Friday, so no matter what, because I've got to head out for work on Saturday. 42:18 So I won't be there at the end result. 42:19 So I won't have to take the full brunt of it if I'm totally wrong and we get swept or something like that. 42:24 Well, I'm going full Rube mode here. 42:26 I'm going Gopher sweep. 42:28 Why not? 42:29 Heck, I win a close one Friday night. 42:32 Saturday night, Bukestead gets the hat-trick and Fire Helmet's helmet ends up on the ice at the new rink. 42:40 I'm just going with it. 42:41 Why not? 42:42 Heck, if I'm right, I'm right. 42:44 If I'm wrong, I'm just a crazy guy running this thing. 42:46 Wow, that's scary that I'm the conservative one of this group. 42:54 How good is JT Brown? 42:55 I haven't seen him play other than the championship game and I had my eye stuck behind the camera of actually both of those games in the Frozen Four. 43:03 How good is Brown? 43:05 He's really good. 43:06 He was kind of just so-so maybe towards the middle of last year. 43:09 I don't think Gophers played Duluth in December. 43:11 I don't think he stood out a ton, but towards the end of the year and in the Frozen Four, he was just a beast. 43:18 He's got size, the speed. 43:20 I know Hammy can speak to it a little bit probably better in terms of him almost leaving this summer with, because he's undrafted. 43:25 So I know he definitely had some offers, but he's a guy who, if he plays with Jack Connelly all year, is going to be signing on the dotted line shortly after the Bulldogs season ends, because he's a pretty big-time talent. 43:37 The league says he's just 5'10. 43:39 He's got to be bigger than that, doesn't he? 43:41 He's thick. 43:44 His dad's a former football player, so... 43:46 Yeah, he's a pretty thick kid. 43:48 Got the genes, yeah. 43:52 He's a bull. 43:54 Yeah, like Cardinal said, I had heard this past summer that he had some opportunities to sign a free-agent deal. 44:01 And there were some people that I had talked to that were pretty convinced that he was actually going to go. 44:05 So it was, you know, very fortunate for Duluth to get him back this year. 44:10 But yeah, I'd be very surprised if he's not, you know, signed to a contract by sometime next spring. 44:20 Any other thoughts on the weekend? 44:23 One thing, real quick, I know we only touched on WCHA Series, but just a couple big non-conference ones just to keep an eye on for people out there. 44:30 Denver heads out east to play Boston College and BU, so that will pairwise and the whole bit down the line. 44:37 And then North Dakota hosts Maine, who last year at this time, I know Maine swept them out there. 44:42 So it will be interesting to see how North Dakota bounces back after Boston College took it to them pretty good last Saturday. 44:49 We'll see how the young Sioux team rebounds against another pretty stiff test this weekend up in Grand Forks. 44:55 And then to, you know, because I have to get my obligatory Sioux pot shot in. 45:01 You saw how they got smoked. 45:03 Can you do another attempt sometime when I'm not on the air with you? 45:06 Well, you could just be silent if you'd like. 45:08 You don't have to respond to anything. 45:11 Anyways, they got smoked pretty good by BC on Saturday. 45:16 And it was kind of interesting to me to read their message board about how they're all complaining about how they don't match up well against BC and so on and so forth. 45:26 And I found it ironic because I think it was a week or two ago. 45:30 Some of their fans were talking trash about how the Gophers are recruiting all these small forwards, blah, blah, blah. 45:38 And I'm thinking to myself at that time, well, isn't that exactly what you guys have problems with with Boston College? 45:43 And once again, Boston College proves that that formula works very well against a hacks doll team. 45:50 So maybe these guys need to think about why teams do these things. 45:54 If it's successful, Boston College is probably the most successful college team in the last 10 years. 46:00 If you go on national championships and whatever. 46:03 And so maybe those two fans got to do their homework. 46:07 Well, one thing about Boston College is they have been able to keep their players quite a bit better than Minnesota. 46:15 Minnesota has recruited those small guys, but they haven't had that time to mature like a lot of those Boston College small guys have done. 46:22 Well, most of those Boston College small guys that we're talking are 5'8, 5'9, which is kind of what we've recruited a little bit more of recently. 46:34 And I think I've heard Bluccia talking on the radio about how they've kind of had to adjust and maybe look at those guys, at recruiting guys that are more going to be top college players and not necessarily going to be the ideal NHL prototype, first, second round draft pick type of guy. 46:52 So I think that that's something that they've actually probably have learned some lessons, maybe even from their opponent this weekend, Duluth. 46:59 I mean, they got a championship basically because of some very skilled, smaller forward. 47:05 So we'll see how it goes. 47:07 I just had to throw that in because I thought it was kind of ironic. 47:13 OK, now that wasn't too bad. 47:14 I thought you were really going to be launching grenades. 47:17 No, no, no. 47:20 Although, I'm sorry, you inhaled, so they're probably mad. 47:25 But that won't be the first time and it definitely won't be the last. 47:29 Yeah, there's a lot of... 47:30 So I agree with you guys, the small guys, that just... 47:34 I said that a long time ago about... 47:36 I think when Brian Gianta was playing for Boston College, he was starting to bring in the little shrimps. 47:42 And then after the lockout, when the NHL started tapping more and more NHL players, it just became more and more apparent that the big guys are going to go in a hurry, and you better build a good college hockey team. 47:57 And I think that he did that. 47:59 Yeah, and I think Lucia has been more candid from what I've heard this offseason about how they had not necessarily done the best job of planning for losses to the pros. 48:12 And I think that they've seen maybe the light a bit here in the last year or so. 48:17 And their recruiting targets, they do seem to be looking at some guys that are more of those quick water bug types that are going to stick around three or four years and hopefully do some damage offensively. 48:29 So hopefully, that's going to pay dividends like it has for Boston College in recent years. 48:35 Right, and that doesn't mean you don't have to take a Bugsted or a Howler or even a Hanson. 48:41 You're still going to want to take those guys, but just be prepared for what happens. 48:46 The void that they leave, if and when they do go early, that you've got somebody with skill to replace them, even if it's somebody who's smaller. 48:54 Yeah, and Lucia has touched on this too, but in his defense, it's such a tough cycle to break out of. 48:59 Because you look at Nick Letty where when Lucia recruited him, I remember when he committed, it wasn't like people were doing cartwheels. 49:06 I mean, he was a solid player at Eden Prairie, but nobody thought he would turn into a first round NHL draft choice and be gone after a year. 49:13 But it's such a tough cycle to break out of because, you know, he ends up leaving early and then they have to bring in, you know, like Justin Hall, who was supposed to play in the USHL. 49:21 He has to come in a year early and, you know, he was okay last year. 49:24 But I think we could probably all agree that if he would have played in the USHL last year and come in here as a 19, 20 year old freshman with a full season under his belt, he would have been a lot better off, you know, but he's still going to be an okay player. 49:35 But it's just that cycle where you're going to, you know, you can't always just fill the roster with, you know, Jake Parenteau type guys where they're 21 year old freshmen. 49:42 I mean, you got to bring in some of your high school kids early. 49:45 And it's just a real tough thing to get out of. 49:47 So hopefully they can, you know, they didn't really have anything big this off season. 49:50 You know, Ness was pretty much expected. 49:52 And, you know, Max Gardner, again, he's another victim of a guy who probably came in here a year too early. 49:56 But hopefully they can, you know, everything will be quiet during the season. 49:59 And then in the off season, nothing too unexpected. 50:02 And they can kind of get the recruiting cycle back on key. 50:09 Now we're going to move to a little bit of feedback that people listening can send us. 50:15 Remember, you can always send us questions and feedback to podcast.gopherpucklive.com. 50:20 Just a few this week. 50:21 We have John Moody. 50:24 He asks, please take a moment to give us a background on each of us. 50:29 He seems to think we have famous forum handles, but who are we? 50:36 Yeah, who are you guys anyway? 50:40 Cardinal, we'll start with you. 50:41 Oh, boy. 50:45 Feel free to not answer, but hey, I read his question on the air. 50:50 So this is kind of like why should I be talking about the Gophers kind of question? 50:55 Yeah, is this like playing background or is this like just personal background? 51:00 I think he kind of wants to know who we are. 51:04 Okay, so I'll go first, then you guys can go right ahead. 51:07 I mean, feel free to skip it if you don't want to talk about it. 51:09 Yeah, no, no, no. 51:10 We don't dodge questions. 51:14 No, I mean, just grew up in the Twin Cities and was a lifelong Gopher fan, and with my parents were big fans, and every Friday and Saturday growing up, it was get around the TV and watch Frank and Doug and have a blast and watch the Gophers, and I ended up going to school at River Falls for financial reasons just to save a little dough, but still went to pretty much all the home games and went to pretty much every road game I could and have been to all the WCHA ranks, went to Anchorage, been out to Denver, CC, you name it, and I don't know, just had a writing background kind of through school and got hooked in with Craig and GPL and been doing the writing thing for a few years now and seems to be going okay and just a big hockey fan and love the Gophers pretty much. 51:55 The Mysterious Hammy. 51:58 You know, this is the question I... 52:00 Whenever I go on interviews, I dread this kind of question. 52:03 It's like, tell me about yourself. 52:05 Who are you? 52:06 That's like, even with people that, you know, I'm just meeting for the first time, I have a terrible time with this question. 52:12 Make it up, just make something up. 52:14 No, I grew, you know, I'm like, I kind of grew up in the area and I... 52:20 I remember going to Gopher Games with my father at the old Mariucci, you know, in the 70s. 52:27 Don't ask me specific memories because I just remember the benches and the crappy views in some respects. 52:33 But I do remember the energy of the crowd. 52:36 And of course, you know, you grew up with it on television. 52:39 And I was, you know, a hockey player all the way, you know, from your sports all the way on up. 52:45 And so I just loved the game. 52:47 I was in different sports, but in baseball, quite frankly, was my best sport. 52:51 But just grew to love the game. 52:55 And then I went to college at the U as an undergrad and got my bachelor's degree in psychology, believe it or not. 53:05 And then it's funny, we had Pride on Ice for many years. 53:09 And I got to be heavily involved in posting on that board. 53:13 And ironically enough, that's how Coach Gensel got to know me. 53:18 He must have read the message boards back then. 53:21 And I remember he recognized my name. 53:24 And of course, I've talked to him over the years and stuff. 53:26 So it's kind of funny how that developed. 53:29 And then, of course, GPL started up after POI kind of went the way of the dodo. 53:34 And ever since then, I just wanted to... 53:39 You know, it was really about contributing to the sites because I didn't feel that maybe the local media, especially at least in the newspaper version of it, I didn't feel like necessarily it covered all the angles, especially with recruiting. 53:52 So I thought that maybe that was something that I could help contribute. 53:56 So that's kind of where I worked my way into things. 54:00 Well, as for me, I would say I started following Gopher Hockey in the late 80s. 54:07 I was a Jefferson kid, and you know, when the first good player that I saw at Jefferson, Tom Peterson, went to the university, that's when I started to follow the team, you know, the late 80s, the late Stauber years. 54:20 And then I really got big behind it when a bunch of Jefferson kids went to the U. 54:25 You know, you had Crowley, you had Anderson, you had Parrish, well, not Parrish, geez, he went to St. 54:30 Cloud. 54:31 But you know, a lot of those kind of players, well, the Treble, heck, even those Joey Pankratz who played like three games for the U. 54:39 Oh, yeah. 54:40 But a lot of those guys who won their titles together, they went up and started playing for the U, and obviously MSC, watching it every weekend with Frank and Doug. 54:50 And then, you know, I was on the Pride on Ice website. 54:55 Then, during the 2003, Frozen 4, their site just crashed, went down. 55:01 No one could access it. 55:04 Which site was that? 55:05 prideonice.com. 55:07 Matt and Kyle Barron ran that site. 55:09 Oh, I thought that was yours too. 55:10 No, no, no, no. 55:12 The problem was that both of them, I think, were in Buffalo, weren't they, Cardinal? 55:19 I believe they were both in Buffalo. 55:21 Kyle was for sure. 55:22 I can't remember Matt, but I know Kyle was. 55:25 And they had no site. 55:27 So I just put up a temporary little site during the Frozen Four and let a few fans know, you know, here's a place you can go and at least have a message board for now. 55:38 And obviously that grew and grew and I did video highlights and got busted doing video highlights. 55:46 Of course, now you can see everything on YouTube and I guess I was just five years too early. 55:50 And that's about it. 55:52 I just kind of keep chugging along. 55:53 I don't have a huge hockey knowledge. 55:56 I didn't play hockey until I was an adult, but I kind of come at this as a view of more from the fan than a lot of hockey knowledge. 56:05 Craig, where did you go to college? 56:07 Mankato State University. 56:09 Oh, he's a Mav. 56:10 I'm a Maverick. 56:12 Were you a Maverick? 56:13 Was it a Maverick back then? 56:15 When did it change? 56:16 They were the Mavericks when I was there. 56:18 I'm not that old. 56:20 Just asking when it changed. 56:23 I'm not sure when they... 56:24 They used to be the Indians back in the 70s, but they were always Mavericks when I was there. 56:30 But I was there when they were still a D2 team. 56:34 And that's when the Gophers had those Jefferson players. 56:37 So I was always a pure Gopher fan. 56:41 Some would argue they're still a D2 team. 56:46 They've had... 56:47 They've had... 56:48 They've had a couple good teams, but that's about it. 56:51 But that's my story. 56:53 Frank, do you have a story? 56:54 Well, I got here in 82. 56:57 And in 81, I went on the Witness Protection Program, and so that's all you're going to know about me. 57:02 Oh, we're just having fun with you. 57:08 Yeah, no. 57:08 Before that, it was out of school, it was Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and then here. 57:19 Most of that was my early hockey. 57:21 Yeah, yeah. 57:24 Just a puck chaser, that's all. 57:28 Do you want more detail? 57:28 No, no, that's fine. 57:29 I think a lot of people actually know your story because you're famous and we're not, so. 57:34 Well, Colonel Kennedy. 57:36 Tom Reed says, you used to be somebody, didn't you? 57:40 He's such a good friend. 57:43 Okay, I've got another question. 57:44 We've got Chris, and actually it looks like it's, Tricks are for Kids on GopherPuckLive. 57:52 My suggestion for the podcast would be to talk about new recruits and what type of players you expect them to be. 57:57 I listened to the first podcast and I don't think this was covered. 58:00 Not sure if there's been one since. 58:03 I sort of follow the recruiting of this team and I know what type of players Rowan Ambrose are projected to be, but a lot of people don't. 58:10 And I really have no idea what to expect out of guys like Warning, Boyd, Isaacson or Thompson. 58:16 So I guess he just kind of wants to know about some of these guys we haven't heard much from. 58:20 Like your Boyd, Isaacson, Thompson. 58:23 What do you guys think? 58:24 Hammy, you have a vast knowledge of a lot of these guys. 58:28 Well, I mean, I think the funny thing is that they are going to be playing different roles in college than what they played before. 58:37 So it's kind of hard to necessarily predict. 58:40 I mean, we've talked about it before. 58:41 A lot of these guys come into college having been, in some respects, the big man on their team. 58:47 They come to the U and all of a sudden it's, where am I in the pecking order? 58:50 I mean, a guy like Boyd, I remember seeing him back at Hopkins a few years back and he was one of the best players playing all the power play and now he comes to the U and he's going to be penalty kill, fourth line type of guy and he might eventually grow into things like that as he matures but it's hard to really say what they're going to see as freshmen. 59:14 I mean, everybody knows what Rao is capable of and he's going to be getting, apparently, top line minutes. 59:22 I would imagine he's going to be pretty productive and Ambrose is a physical kid. 59:28 He threw his fists around in the USHL. 59:30 Of course, he's not going to be doing that much on the college level, at least not without getting suspended, but he's going to give you a physical presence. 59:40 We saw this last weekend. 59:41 He's going to park his butt in that scoring slot area and make it difficult on the opposing team to move him and score some ugly goals. 59:50 So, I mean, it's hard to say what some of these guys are going to do. 59:55 Cardinal, I don't know if you want to add to some of that. 59:59 Yeah, I think just the overall picture is that some of these guys, and this team may be a little bit different in that you see Raul and Warning being on the top two lines. 1:00:08 I think ideally in a perfect world, those guys would kind of work their way in, but just given A, the current state of the program and not having a lot of big-time scorers coming back, but B, just the nature of college hockey with freshmen who get put in big-time spots now where maybe five, six, seven years ago, that wasn't always the case. 1:00:25 But just hopefully that guys can kind of bide their time and have the patience and use a kid like Boyd and like Hammy said, where you kind of forget about him a little bit because he went out to the national program for a few years, and so he wasn't real local, like a kid like Ra where he was Indian Prairie and playing at the XL Center every spring. 1:00:44 You just hope that maybe he's a fourth-line guy this year that plays 20, 25 games, but then he uses the summer, bulks up, and maybe a guy like Buxted leaves, and maybe even Buddhist leaves or something like that, and next year he can come in and really be that contributing force. 1:00:59 Just hoping that some of the guys that have been big-time players in the past can just kind of, maybe you don't get that right away, but stay with it, have the patience, put the time in in the weight room, and look at this as a three- 1:01:11 to four-year window where you're going to be a big-time player down the road, not necessarily, hey, I didn't play that much the last three months, and then the wheels start to go in motion of, hey, can I go somewhere else? 1:01:21 And it's just, you don't want to think that way, but you just have seen it too much all over college hockey, and in particular with this program the last five years or so. 1:01:28 So I guess, kind of big picture-wise, that would be my two cents on it. 1:01:35 Do you have any thoughts on some of the new guys? 1:01:36 Some of the lesser-known guys, maybe? 1:01:39 Well, I'm impressed with, as a group, I'm impressed with how savvy they seem to be about the game. 1:01:47 And I'll go back to say again, the teams they have played so far, the exhibition and then the two with Sacred Heart, they had a lot of time to do things. 1:01:57 They maybe didn't even have that much time in junior hockey. 1:02:00 I bet it was tighter and more competitive for the level that they were at before they came in. 1:02:07 But they seem to have the smarts, they seem to have the skill. 1:02:13 A couple of them have the size. 1:02:16 So I think that as a group, they're going to be pretty darn good. 1:02:22 You know, we already talked about what a surprise Sam Warning was, and I think that's going to be great. 1:02:27 Ambrose, I just want to see more and more of. 1:02:30 And I think they also have guys in Marshall, Thompson for sure. 1:02:37 And I don't remember how much shooting Nate Schmidt did on Saturday, but those three guys seem to be able to shoot the puck from the blue line. 1:02:44 And it's been a while since we've had. 1:02:47 Well, okay, Kate Fairchild came in and he shot a lot from the blue line, but then it tapered off after that. 1:02:51 But if these guys can continue to shoot from the blue line, they're going to generate a lot of offense from there. 1:02:56 And so, so far what we've seen, and I think, Joep, you mentioned it earlier, as we were talking 15 goals on a weekend, and we haven't had much opportunity to dissect how well they're going to play defensively. 1:03:11 Somebody asked in the question on the air on the radio, you know, is their foot speed good enough? 1:03:16 Are they going to be able to skate in the WCHA? 1:03:18 I think so, but I don't know. 1:03:21 You guys have a better handle on that? 1:03:24 I thought, well, I think that they're, well, the D-Core, you know, that's the one thing I was a little bit concerned about at times. 1:03:34 I, with Hull and Helgeson, sometimes they're a little bit slow, I think, to react. 1:03:41 I get a little bit concerned about that, especially if they're going to be playing, you know, at least they're going to be one of your top two pairings. 1:03:47 So I get concerned about that. 1:03:50 Hopefully it's unfounded on my part, but that's a concern for me. 1:03:55 Alt, I think, I'm really impressed with Marshall. 1:03:58 I think people don't underestimate the impact he's going to make. 1:04:03 He made that one little spin move last weekend that was just amazing. 1:04:07 Like in the corner, it didn't turn out to be a goal, but I just remember a little quick spin move and I was like, wow. 1:04:12 And, you know, in a series like this next one where we're going to get pressured a lot, you can't underestimate a kid that can really skate with the puck, you know, and transition it out of your defensive zone offense. 1:04:23 So I think that he'll be very, I really hope and I predict that he's going to be an all-rookie on the WCHA this year. 1:04:32 I agree. 1:04:33 I agree. 1:04:34 Well, we have more questions, but since we've already gone for over an hour, it's probably a good time to shut this thing down. 1:04:42 We will be talking about future recruits maybe next week or the week after. 1:04:46 You know, and well, Frank, thank you for coming on. 1:04:52 Hey, glad to do it. 1:04:54 Thanks for wasting an hour. 1:04:56 I won't be with you guys every week because you're going to want to vary it a little bit. 1:05:03 Hey, I'll come back time to time if you want me to, if you'll have me. 1:05:07 Maybe after Christmas, after some of the season has happened and you've gotten a few more games under your belt. 1:05:12 That'd be cool. 1:05:13 Yeah, I'm going to have a little more. 1:05:14 And then also make sure I survive the trip back from Grand Forks. 1:05:19 Good luck. 1:05:22 Remember, you can always follow Frank on Twitter at MazzPuck. 1:05:26 Send him all those questions during the game, pregame, whenever you need to. 1:05:30 And if you have some photography needs, you can always go to www.mazzoccophotography.com and maybe he can help you out there as well. 1:05:39 Right, Frank? 1:05:40 Anything legal. 1:05:43 Don't forget, you can also follow my fellow co-hosts on Twitter. 1:05:47 Hammy is at Hammy Hockey. 1:05:49 And Cardinal, you can see him at Ryan Cardinal on Twitter. 1:05:55 Ryan also has his weekly appearance on the Paul Allen show on KFAN. 1:05:59 So make sure you check it out. 1:06:02 Well, that about does it for this week's podcast. 1:06:04 We plan to be back next week. 1:06:06 We'll wrap up the Duluth series, Preview Vermont, and like I said, hopefully get into that recruiting talk. 1:06:11 Remember, if you have any questions or any feedback, you can send it to podcastatgopherpucklive.com. 1:06:18 Until then, thanks for joining us.