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This is The GPL Podcast from gopherpucklive.com.
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This podcast is sponsored by Jerry Peters and First Class Mortgage.
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Visit us at firstclassmortgage.com.
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Now, here's Joop and Vigo.
1:04
Good evening, and welcome to The GPL Podcast, episode number 224.
1:11
Well, good evening, Vegoe.
1:13
How's it going with you tonight?
1:16
It's going fantastic.
1:18
Ready for the long holiday weekend here.
1:20
We saw some great hockey with the Gophers in Ann Arbor, and a sweep, just as I predicted.
1:26
You did predict that.
1:28
FYI, having camera issues, I might flick on and off tonight, but we'll just plug through, and hopefully, it doesn't act up too much on me.
1:36
It was earlier, so it probably will.
1:38
Well, we've got a popular guest that was on with us last season, and is now making his return, Veegs.
1:45
Pretty excited to have Jack Ramsey back on.
1:47
Let's bring him on now.
1:50
Jack, how's it going, man?
1:53
It's going good, guys.
1:54
Officially a reoccurring guest.
1:55
I'm proud to be able to say that.
1:57
Well, your buddy Shearhorn's been on with us a couple of times, so we figured we'd better equal it up here, and we tried to get him on, but apparently his vacation is just too important to him.
2:08
He's a busy man.
2:09
He's got people to please.
2:11
He is.
2:11
Okay, first thing I got to know, did you tag anything during hunting season this year?
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Was it successful?
2:18
It was successful.
2:19
It was more successful than last season.
2:22
Did you drive around and scare people on campus just for old time's sake?
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I should have taken a victory lap, another tour.
2:32
Maybe with rifle season, we're wrapping up rifle season in Wisconsin this weekend.
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I haven't tagged out on that, but I did tag out with a doe and a nice buck with my bow.
2:41
So I'm done on that and trying to add one more deer before we officially kick it off ice fishing.
2:47
To be honest, I would say that, I would say doing it with a bow is really the way it should be done.
2:56
I don't know, maybe it's just a little more fair for the deer.
3:00
Is that 100% true, the fair chase rule?
3:03
Yeah, I mean, I sighted in the rifle and I've never rifle hunted.
3:07
And I went out and sighted in the rifle from 300 yards after 5, 10 minutes.
3:12
I'm like, I shouldn't be able to proficiently shoot this thing from 300 yards and go shoot an animal.
3:18
Granted, you can shoot a bow from 20 yards pretty quick, but there's a lot more that goes into it of not spooking everything.
3:23
Oh, yeah.
3:24
That's so what's your range on the bow jack?
3:28
My max range of my my max range that I shoot is 40, but I don't think I would ever take a 40 yard shot.
3:36
The three or four deer that I've shot with my bow have all been under 20 yards.
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So my buck I shot was like 8 yards this year.
3:43
So jeez.
3:45
So yeah, it's a little more a little more ethical than the 40 yard shot lock can go wrong in that time.
3:52
I know I I'm not a hunter.
3:54
I've got a lot of hunters in my family.
3:56
I always just kept thinking my I'm way more impressed with the bow and and compared to like you said a rifle.
4:02
I mean, it's just it just seems more fair.
4:06
Yeah, it gets your heart pumping.
4:08
Veegs a really good weekend, but I will preface it saying, you know, it will do great at the end of the year.
4:14
It's got Minnesota in first place.
4:17
But Michigan was not full strength, and I'm not sure people should read too much into it.
4:25
Yeah, you don't want to read too much into it.
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I thought that Minnesota played very solid hockey all weekend, which was the big thing I was looking for.
4:35
It was disappointing that Michigan wasn't full strength.
4:38
Jess Meyers hinted on the podcast that the Wolverines were going to be short, quite a few players.
4:43
I wanted to see Fantilly against the Gopher Decor and see how they'd hold up against him.
4:48
They kind of call him a Matthew Nyes-like kind of player.
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Well, if you take that kind of guy out of your lineup, it really changes what you're able to do.
4:55
But they still had Luke Hughes on the blue line, and Michigan still has a lot of talent.
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Sam Iskevich is a big name player for them.
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And I thought the Gophers did a great job shutting them down.
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I think their first period Thursday night on the road was just textbook.
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I think they had four ozone draws to start the game after the center ice face off.
5:19
They let in shots pretty handily through the first 10 minutes, and they just took care of business that way.
5:25
I think they got some bad luck on the penalty calls.
5:29
I think the Big Ten gave Luke Middlestadt the number one star of the weekend to make up for the two calls that they called against him.
5:37
But they persevered.
5:39
Their power play showed up again for another weekend, which is nice to see.
5:42
I thought their penalty kill did a nice job overall on the weekend as well.
5:46
And Jack, as someone who's been to Yost, boy, those first 10 minutes, nothing is bigger than that.
5:53
Just getting through that.
5:57
Yeah, no, the children of Yost, as they call themselves, they do a pretty good job.
6:02
And I'm sure you guys saw the pictures of Bob behind the bench.
6:06
That was the best one I've ever seen.
6:08
That was pretty funny.
6:11
But yeah, it seems like every time we played there, the first, it was, there was multiple goals within the first 10 minutes.
6:18
And it's kind of a horse race right off the bat there.
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And you can't really get sucked in.
6:23
Granted, this weekend, they're missing a lot of guys.
6:25
So a little bit easier for the Gophers to do that.
6:28
But typically, that's not the team that you want to, you want to get to a horse race with.
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Now, now, Jack, I mean, if you were playing in Michigan like this, and they were missing some top players, would you be a little disappointed too?
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You're like, you know, we maybe didn't get their best or you just kind of roll with it.
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I mean, as a player, I would think that's like, man, I want to get their best.
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I'm, I don't know.
6:50
I think that the college season is so short.
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It's kind of a blessing.
6:53
Let's take the points.
6:55
I'm in the Big Ten and you're probably going to get a healthy Michigan team later on.
7:01
Grant, this gives us a much better odds to win the series.
7:04
You know, we can't lose it now, but I would take it.
7:07
I would, I would take it.
7:08
And I think the Western Michigan thing last year and just kind of the whole Michigan offseason last year scandal left a bad taste in my mouth.
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So make and play is my opinion.
7:23
Well, Connor Eargood was saying Thursday night that they shouldn't even have been playing Veegs, you know, our writer from the Michigan Daily.
7:29
And look at that.
7:30
He's rolling his eyes, folks.
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I mean, this is big boy hockey.
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It's on the schedule that the fans are going to be there.
7:40
The players are there.
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They have enough to play.
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They still have a ton of talent in their lineup.
7:46
They're going to play.
7:47
I felt bad that they had a player that was so severely sick that he had to go to the hospital and get an urgent care.
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And the good news is that he's out this week and he's back and he's feeling better.
7:57
That's great.
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But at the same time, everybody deals with injuries.
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Everybody deals with illness.
8:03
Everybody deals with all this stuff.
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You got to play through it.
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And that's why you have a deep roster.
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And guys who are lower in the line chart get a chance to play.
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And that's how it goes.
8:14
They still had pretty good defensive players playing.
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They still had their goalie playing on like the Gophers who didn't have their number one goalie play.
8:22
Bardo had to play.
8:22
And I thought he looked very good all weekend, which was good to see.
8:26
Oh, yeah.
8:26
And, you know, I'm happy they played.
8:29
I would have been incredibly frustrated had they canceled for regular illness.
8:34
We're post-COVID now and these were not COVID illnesses.
8:37
Yeah, Bartoszkiewicz was, you know, it's what we wanted to see, Veegs.
8:41
I mean, you wanted to see if there's someone else.
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And yeah, they didn't have all their offensive guys, but they couldn't stop Duke this past weekend.
8:50
Duke scored four out of their five goals.
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Yeah, Duke's a very good player.
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He's gritty around the net.
8:57
I think Michigan, one of the things they were trying to do is try to get traffic around the net.
9:03
And Duke took advantage of that.
9:04
And I think that's something that Bartoszkiewicz is going to have to get comfortable with as he becomes a Big Ten goalie.
9:09
And he's going to have to use that size and hold up a little bit better.
9:12
I think sometimes he got a little bit too much on his belly.
9:14
He's got to be able to get back in that strong position so he can still move a little bit laterally.
9:19
But it was good to get him in there.
9:21
I've been saying that since the last opportunity he got, Bob had to get him back in there at some point just to see what he has and give him confidence in case something like this happens where Close gets sick or injured.
9:35
And Jack, if there's any type of illness, it's going to go through the entire locker room.
9:40
You guys are just, you're in the same, you're so close to each other on the bench.
9:44
I mean, everywhere you live together, it's just, there's nothing you could really do about it except just try to get through it.
9:50
Isn't that true?
9:51
Yeah, no, and you could say that it cost Michigan two games this weekend.
9:57
Gophers could have swept them easily still, but it's a good thing for them that, you know, whether it's RSV or the flu and whatnot, it's good that it kind of ripped through their team and they don't have to worry about it likely for the rest of the year.
10:10
There's other teams and other coaches out there that are probably shaking right now because they're looking at a series coming up and they're just waiting for it to hit them because it's going to get to you.
10:18
It's going to get to your team eventually.
10:21
So overall, a great weekend, Veegs.
10:25
The pairwise doesn't take into account who played.
10:31
I mean, who played for Michigan because Minnesota got a big bump by winning both games in Michigan.
10:38
Yeah, and we joke that it's always too early to look at pairwise.
10:42
Now is the time when we want to start looking at the pairwise.
10:44
I feel like 80% of the teams in the top 14 right now usually are the ones that make it.
10:51
There's a couple of exceptions here and there.
10:53
And then of course, the teams that win their conference tournament.
10:55
But you want to be in that top 10, top 12 for pairwise right now.
11:00
It's so important to get these wins.
11:02
And we always say, sweep at home, split on the road, splits on the road against a team like Michigan are massive right now.
11:09
Especially with how well the Big Ten played in their non-conference schedule, it gives the Gophers a good spot right now.
11:17
So great weekend.
11:18
Let's move on to something a little more fun, Veegs.
11:21
I noticed you had noticed a couple of weeks ago that it had been a while since the Gophers had taken a penalty shot.
11:31
And you had noticed who was the last person to miss a penalty shot, didn't you?
11:36
I don't know where you found it somewhere.
11:38
Where did you find it?
11:40
Well, we were looking through the game notes that Brian Deutch used to always put together.
11:43
And most of the game notes are pretty positive things.
11:46
They're like last penalty shot scored, or last shutout, or last hat trick, or last five assist game or whatever.
11:52
Well, they used to have last penalty shot missed.
11:56
And it was Jack Ramsey for the longest time.
11:59
And that's just got to burn in the soul, knowing that that SID would pin that to you like a scarlet letter.
12:06
And now we finally have it replaced.
12:09
Matthew Nyes is now last penalty shot missed.
12:13
That puts myself in good company.
12:14
What's about your missed penalty shot, Jack?
12:17
Yeah, I don't know if we went over this one last time or not, but it's a good refresher.
12:24
I think it was penalty kill, picked off D2D pass, it was penalty kill, picked off D2D pass, go down, get tripped on it.
12:32
And in the Big Ten, I don't know if it's NCAA wide, but you have the option to take the power play or take the penalty shot.
12:40
And we have Mike Gensel at one end of the bench screaming, take the penalty shot.
12:47
So right away, my confidence is doing really, really, really well before that.
12:53
And then, and then Don goes, can anybody on the ice take the penalty shot?
12:59
And the referee goes, no, it has to be, it has to be Ramsey.
13:01
And I'm like, okay, there's shot two to the confidence.
13:03
That's, that's great.
13:04
And he looks at me and he's like, do you want to take it?
13:06
And I was like, yeah, I'll take it.
13:07
Sure.
13:08
I'll take it.
13:09
Yep.
13:10
Get out there.
13:11
And I played juniors with Tyson Jost and he would do this, this move on the penalty shot where he'd open up his hips and go, go low glove.
13:19
I think he's a lefty maybe and he'd go low blocker.
13:21
So maybe that hurt me.
13:23
But I tried that, felt like I almost toe pick, put it right into his glove and he held it right out in front of my face.
13:28
And I think that was an ESPN game too.
13:30
So I had 30 Snapchat videos when I got home from the rink because we lost the game.
13:36
Got home and yeah, just 30 Snapchat videos of just my friends at the bars or the frat house or at their place, not scoring.
13:43
So that's a tough one.
13:45
There's still some sleepless nights over that one.
13:47
That's something I'll never forget.
13:48
But at least I'm in good company now and my name isn't there.
13:52
Your name's not there and you know, Nice did miss and then later in the game, they had another opportunity, Veegs.
14:00
And yeah, Nice had the chance again.
14:03
No, he said no, I'm not going to.
14:05
No, no mobs.
14:07
They took the power play and they ended up scoring.
14:09
So that was, it ended up working out well.
14:13
But Jack, you're off the records for last missed penalty shot.
14:16
So I mean, there's some positive there.
14:20
Feels good.
14:20
And at least you can laugh about it today.
14:23
Right.
14:23
No, it's that's one of my more memorable stories.
14:26
You don't forget the good and you don't forget the bad.
14:27
And you can go back and laugh at it.
14:31
I honestly didn't remember it, but I'm sure somebody in the chat find the YouTube video of it and we'll share it later.
14:41
All right, guys, we had, okay, that's our little bit of humor.
14:47
There was a situation a couple weeks ago, Veegs, Michigan State, Ohio State.
14:54
Jagger Joshua was called something on the ice.
14:58
We don't know what.
15:01
The player was kicked out and it kind of came to a head this week when Jagger just eventually got on Twitter and social media and says, why hasn't anything happened here?
15:14
And I think that's the first a lot of us even heard of it, because we're not going back and looking at other games and it kind of stays quiet, Veegs, but what happened here?
15:25
Well, how did this get so messed up, especially with the way things are these days?
15:32
You just own up to it.
15:36
Yeah, I almost think it has to come down to that hockey isn't high on the radar at Ohio State.
15:43
And Gene Smith didn't assert himself into the situation like he probably should have.
15:50
And they kind of kicked the can down the road.
15:53
And especially when the ref hears it and calls it out and calls a penalty, that's pretty rare that the ref gets involved in a situation like that.
16:01
I had a high school team where we had a black kid on our team.
16:04
And it was very frequent that he would get some sort of racist things said to him.
16:11
And it was infuriating for us, for our coach, and to see teammates have to go through that kind of stuff is extremely frustrating because in hockey you're always told that you can't retaliate.
16:24
It's hard to not retaliate for something like this.
16:27
And you hope that the authorities, when they do recognize it, take care of it for you because they're supposed to.
16:33
And we're supposed to protect people in this game.
16:36
We're supposed to encourage it.
16:38
And it's really frustrating when that doesn't happen.
16:41
And I think the best thing to come out of this is how much it's blown up on social this week.
16:46
Yeah, it wasn't until it got blown up on social, Jack, did anyone really do anything.
16:51
And that's kind of the whole thing.
16:54
It's like, you know, yeah, but he's now off the team.
16:56
It's like, okay, you're being reactive instead of proactive, which you could have been doing a long time ago before, you know, Jagger Joshua had to come out and say something because he could clearly see nothing was changing or nothing was being done.
17:13
That, what I don't understand about it, and I work in new sports and risk management, and you just said it, I always tell people, let's be proactive, not reactive.
17:24
That's the worst thing you can be.
17:28
You can save a little bit of face as a school.
17:33
And I understand the team has excused him.
17:36
I don't know if that's permanent or temporary at this point, but the fact that it's kind of shame on the Big Ten that they release an announcement and they don't release a suspension or anything.
17:50
They just say, they basically don't have enough information to do anything unless there's updated information that I don't know about.
17:57
But you have a player that heard it, that was said, and he has to go to social media to bring it to light.
18:03
Shame on the Big Ten.
18:04
It was more than a week later too.
18:05
This was weeks ago.
18:08
And shame on the Big Ten.
18:09
And I don't know if the referee changed what he heard later on.
18:15
But the referee assessed a penalty.
18:16
The referee heard something.
18:19
And kicked him out.
18:20
So he heard something enough to kick him out of the game.
18:23
So I don't understand how the Big Ten can talk to your referee.
18:27
And that just shows a disconnect right there.
18:30
That this guy kicks him out of the game and a player hears something.
18:33
And you're not going to say you don't have enough information and do something about it.
18:36
I think that's kind of shame on the Big Ten.
18:38
And what's so strange Vegoe is that from what I heard, this player, I don't know how he's pronounced, but as I said, Loka or something like that.
18:48
I think that's right.
18:49
He played with Joshua's brother, didn't he?
18:52
At Ohio State.
18:55
Yeah, you would think so.
18:55
I know Europe's had issues with racism in soccer, and there's just something there that comes out.
19:07
I know this kid's from Illinois, but maybe he's got this foreign influence in his family, but it's frustrating to see in hockey.
19:19
Yeah, I think we start growing and then it's like we just take these huge steps back and it's just doesn't make sense.
19:25
And the thing is, it has nothing to do with political correctness or anything like that.
19:30
It's just right and wrong.
19:32
We've evolved over the years.
19:36
Yes, I said a lot of stupid things when I was a kid, but you know what?
19:40
Things change, you evolve, society evolves.
19:44
And the fact that we're going backwards in some areas is very frustrating.
19:48
And we've seen this, you know, with some of the pro players.
19:52
And it's.
19:55
I don't know what else to say about it.
19:56
It's like it's we're not getting anywhere.
19:58
It's it's difficult.
20:02
You'd like to see some sort of justice in the situation.
20:05
I don't know exactly what the right penalty is, but you would like for Joshua to feel like there's been resolution that's satisfactory to him in some way.
20:16
And I think it's restorative justice is how we try to treat these things.
20:22
And that would be the best case for me.
20:25
It's frustrating to see.
20:27
The only thing we can do is it is our party is to educate our youth about it and educate each other about it and try to come to a better understanding.
20:37
And honestly, Jack, we have to keep talking about this and we have to call it out.
20:41
And we see the bullshit like this that the Big Ten and like schools like Ohio State are sitting on their hands.
20:50
Yeah, I don't I don't understand how there there is an uproar about it.
20:57
I mean, or what the fallout will be at Ohio State.
21:00
You know, if I'm if I'm on one of the other teams, you know, you have a football team who funds your entire you know, sports section who has a lot of black guys on the team.
21:16
I'm going to be pissed at at my school about this.
21:19
I'm going to be pissed at the Big Ten.
21:20
Like I there has to be some sort of fallout and some sort of looking back at this.
21:24
And how did we f this up and just be proactive and reactive.
21:28
But the same thing is proactive and reactive.
21:33
The thing shouldn't happen in the first place.
21:34
So what are we doing to prevent this stuff from happening?
21:37
It should be simple knowledge is that this shouldn't be happening.
21:39
But obviously, there's still a lot of work to do.
21:43
I don't.
21:45
Does it even go back to just the chirping on the ice?
21:49
I mean, because there's still a lot of chirping on the ice.
21:51
It's not that kind of chirping.
21:53
It's, you know, the chirping I've heard in the past is a lot more kind of funner stuff.
21:59
I mean, oh, your sister is doing, you know, just that type of stuff.
22:04
It's not meant to be super personal.
22:06
It's just meant to get under your skin a bit.
22:10
Yeah, no, there's a line.
22:14
I've often thought that the best way to take care of this stuff is to have more diversity in the game.
22:19
And it's just it's shocking that Dakota Joshua's team has a player that has this now tied to them.
22:28
I would think playing with Dakota Joshua, you would have some perspective on what it's like for a black player to be playing college hockey, and you would internalize that.
22:37
It would reflect in your future and your perspective on things.
22:40
It's just shocking to see that this is this is the scenario we have.
22:47
Well, yeah, but like you said, Jack, I mean, yes, we can penalize, but why it how do we stop in the first place?
22:53
And that's just we just don't have an answer for that right now.
22:58
It's just.
23:00
Yeah, I don't know.
23:02
It's tough.
23:04
Not trying to bring the podcast down, but it's a legit thing that we should be talking about.
23:08
And that's why you're not here to solve problems.
23:11
But you know what?
23:12
We are here to call out, you know, when we think these universities and organizations can do a better job.
23:18
And they clearly didn't in this case.
23:21
And hopefully, they learn their lesson, Veegs.
23:26
I don't know.
23:27
It seems like hockey, we have all kinds of issues, you know, with the Bruins sign, the Mitchell Miller kid, and not even doing the background on that.
23:37
We've got a lot of work to do in our game to educate people on what's right.
23:43
Well, we're going to come back for some more positive things right now.
23:47
But first, we need to hear from our sponsor.
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Alright, thank you Jerry for sponsoring the podcast.
25:27
I've got some congratulatory news here.
25:32
A big hockey guy who's been around the community for a long time is retiring.
25:37
Paul Allen from Minnesota State has been there, well their SID and a lot of other things at the University forever.
25:44
He's been helping us out for 15 years.
25:48
Going down to Mankato and seeing games and getting us credentialed.
25:52
He's retiring in December.
25:55
Big congratulations to Paul because it's a loss for our hockey community because he's been so supportive and he's been so outspoken for this community, from being a Texas guy even.
26:08
So congratulations, Paul.
26:09
It's great to see that you're finally putting that dang Minnesota State team behind you.
26:15
I picked the wrong school, but look at you.
26:18
So congratulations, Paul.
26:20
We're definitely going to miss you in the college hockey community.
26:23
So there's that.
26:26
All right, Veegs.
26:28
Arizona State, what do we know about them?
26:30
Are they still thugging it up like they used to?
26:33
Not like when Jack was playing.
26:35
It's a different team at Arizona State.
26:38
You know, they're in the Muld Arena, which is not named after the hairstyle.
26:41
It's a donor for the rink.
26:43
And when the COVID pandemic hit and everybody was trying to figure out what to do with their schedule, the Big Ten was gracious enough to invite Arizona State to play an entirely road schedule against Big Ten teams.
26:56
And in return, the Big Ten teams all promised to come out there and Minnesota's up first.
27:01
And Powers has a pretty decent squad this year.
27:05
You know, they've done pretty well.
27:06
They beat North Dakota.
27:07
They swept Colorado College.
27:10
They're, I think, have seven transfers on their roster.
27:16
I mean, who doesn't want to go there for a transfer a year to play at Arizona State in their new rank?
27:22
So I think it's a little bit more talented team.
27:24
You know, they've started to get some of their recruits coming in that are a little bit more skilled.
27:27
So I think it will be a good test for Minnesota this weekend.
27:31
All right, Jack, when they did come to Mariucci, I think when you were still playing, I thought they were a bit of a cheap.
27:40
A lot of undisciplined penalties, and they were top 10 ranked then as an independent when they came into Mariucci.
27:51
They were.
27:51
No, you are right, and you're recalling it correctly too.
27:55
It was senior weekend too.
27:58
That's right.
27:59
I believe correctly.
28:00
Yeah.
28:01
I think that was maybe the second game of my career that I started.
28:04
So right on.
28:06
I did score first shift, so that's another core Gopher memory for me.
28:11
But yeah.
28:11
Who were your line mates for that first shift?
28:13
Do you remember, Jack?
28:16
Sadik was at right D, Novak actually was lefty, and then I think it might have been Sheehy and Gates.
28:26
I remember joking to the coaching staff that maybe you want to keep Rammer on that line.
28:30
It could be an effective trio.
28:32
Come on now.
28:33
It took four years to figure out how you do starting.
28:37
Yeah.
28:37
No, I think we took offense to them coming in being ranked that high.
28:43
Being a lot of Minnesota guys, we're like this.
28:45
It's an Arizona team.
28:49
I don't know.
28:50
I don't remember their strength of schedule, but I just thought it was a little flukey that they were ranked that high.
28:57
And the game got, I think both games kind of got out of hand.
29:01
And yeah, they got chippy.
29:02
I think there might have been two or three ejections on the weekend and we sent them packing.
29:06
So it was good.
29:07
Yeah.
29:08
They were like five, one, six, one type games.
29:10
They weren't very close.
29:11
And like you said, they were kind of riding high.
29:15
And I believe they elicited top ten or at least they did make the tournament.
29:19
Didn't they, Veegs, that year?
29:21
I thought they did or it was really close.
29:24
I think it was close and I think they missed.
29:27
I think they were potentially going to make it the COVID year and then it didn't happen.
29:32
But Jack, do you remember who finished that weekend in goal?
29:37
Broccoli Cowlitz?
29:39
Yep.
29:40
And it was a, I think he probably got about 30 seconds, 40 seconds.
29:48
We still managed to have an absolute D-zone breakdown and he made a post to post like sliding save.
29:55
That was unbelievable.
29:56
I was like, seriously guys, we're going to get Cowlitz in with 30 seconds left and we're going to screw him over and give up a goal.
30:03
He would have never put his pads on again for the rest of the year if we would have done that.
30:09
Well, last time they were here, Veegs, Johnny Walker did a lacrosse goal against the Gophers.
30:18
That was a nice move because it just took a weird bounce and it just kind of almost landed on his stick.
30:24
Yeah, I think it just kind of landed there so it takes some of the skill out of it of a part of that typical lacrosse goal he lifted and he just took advantage of it.
30:32
But you know, this Arizona State team is a little different than those previous ones.
30:36
You know, they've got a little bit more depth.
30:39
Jack Jensen, who is at one time tied to Minnesota, is there and having a nice season with them.
30:45
And there's a bunch of Minnesotans on the team.
30:48
So it'll be a good experience for them to play against Minnesota.
30:51
And you know, everyone usually gives their best when they're playing the Gophers, especially kids from Minnesota.
30:56
So it should be a great series.
30:59
Should definitely be fun.
31:02
They've got a new arena jacket, it's what they need.
31:05
But they've also got a partner in the arena in the Arizona Coyotes.
31:10
That is just messed up in my mind.
31:13
I mean, how does that happen?
31:21
It's kind of speechless when you see the pictures of the locker rooms and everything.
31:25
Yeah, because they do like a temporary locker room in the adjoining room or something.
31:29
Yeah, with the sheets up.
31:31
Oh, it's...
31:33
And is it basically that they got kind of kicked out of their arena?
31:39
What was it?
31:40
It's super complicated.
31:42
You know, the Arizona ownership group in the city of Glendale have been fighting over tax payments and rights to the Gila Arena and things like that.
31:51
And so everything just kind of blew up and they saw this opportunity.
31:56
And from what I've heard, the NHL releases to the ownership groups, true ticket sale numbers.
32:03
And Arizona was giving away probably 4,000 to 5,000 tickets a game to boost up their attendance numbers.
32:11
So their attendance is tickets distributed, but their tickets sold is something that actually gets distributed to the NHL ownership group.
32:19
And their actual ticket sold was around 6,000 or 7,000.
32:24
So that's how many tickets they can sell anyway.
32:27
So maybe this is sort of them just kind of buttoning up and getting value to their season ticket holders and things like that.
32:34
Because there's not a huge fan base there.
32:36
And it's a great rink.
32:39
And eventually those locker rooms won't be curtained off and they'll be real locker rooms.
32:43
But for the time being, that's what they're dealing with.
32:45
It's just the road team.
32:46
So, I mean, there was it, is it isn't it Cooley, the one that's drafted down there, he could be playing in the same rink next season.
32:56
He could be.
32:56
And he was on a podcast this week where it sounds like he's not much of a student and he's looking forward to training pro.
33:03
So we'll we'll see what happens there.
33:05
You know, I think Cooley definitely needs a little more seasoning to go right to the NHL.
33:09
I don't think he's quite ready for that.
33:12
He has a lot of skill.
33:14
He's a good skater.
33:14
He's got good competitiveness more than I expected out of a high pick like him.
33:19
He's a little fiery, but I think he's got to learn to apply that in the right way.
33:24
And we're more this is only going to benefit him.
33:26
He's taken our only two five minute majors this year, too.
33:29
Yes.
33:30
And I, the one at Michigan is it was a frustration shove.
33:37
I didn't think it was necessarily, you know, a dirty, dirty play.
33:41
I can see why they called him a major.
33:44
The way he landed could have been devastating.
33:47
It could have.
33:48
And that's really the bottom line when it comes to how the refs are going to call these things, right, Jack?
33:53
I mean, there might, there might not have been some intention there, but the way he hit him, really unnecessary.
34:01
He, he almost went head first into those boards.
34:06
Yeah, that's that was, you know, that can be a couple inches or a foot from, you know, serious, serious injury.
34:14
And he's obviously a very skilled hockey player.
34:16
He's a great hockey player.
34:17
He knows the game.
34:19
You know, not to touch the guy there.
34:20
So I think the wires just crossed a little bit or something, but, you know, not to hit the guy.
34:25
So I'm not sure.
34:27
I'm not sure what he was thinking.
34:29
But yeah, that's that's a play that you can't you can't have happen.
34:32
I was surprised that it kept him in the game.
34:35
I mean, so.
34:38
I think that's a play that happens after an 80 second shift.
34:42
I think that's that's what happens.
34:44
It's a good point.
34:46
And it was so strange, though, is that he thought he was out of the game, went out.
34:50
They're like, no, this is just a five minute major.
34:52
You got to come back.
34:53
It's like, what the hell?
34:55
And then he gets and then the next day he finds out he's not playing two and a half hours before the game.
34:59
And I noticed Deutchy was tweeting pretty quickly.
35:03
And I'm like, why do you do this so late?
35:05
I mean, because Deutch knows the kind of position that Scott Slarks is in, like his last second BS.
35:11
It's like he could have told this earlier in the day because that really messes up plans for a team.
35:17
Does it?
35:17
Jack Wilson, you got a player, you think's playing and then two hours before.
35:21
No, sorry, you can't.
35:23
Right.
35:23
It puts it.
35:25
Who got thrown in the lineup for him?
35:27
Nobody.
35:28
They didn't have anybody because Fish and Schmidt had to stay back because of Big Ten travel rules.
35:35
Oh, and they had Stoddicker with on the trip.
35:38
They needed the three goalies because close was sick.
35:43
Sick.
35:43
They brought the three goalies and then they had Stoddicker with, but they already were dressed in 70 and they decided not to move a forward or a D to forward.
35:52
So a lot of guys had to play with Snuggerude and Nyes that night.
35:56
Correct.
35:57
Gotcha.
35:58
I remember seeing that now and that makes sense.
36:01
All of a sudden, he's a good look.
36:03
He looked good except for the breakout when he had to go on the wall and he didn't really know what to do.
36:09
There was a scoring chance against.
36:11
I think at that moment, the coaching staff said, he looks great on the rush, but not so great on the breakout.
36:16
Let's put somebody else there who maybe will get a little more involved.
36:19
It was a pretty sweet goal though, Veegs.
36:22
Well, it's just Lecombe doing Lecombe stuff where he can rush and create space and change the angle and pick a spot.
36:29
He's a really talented defenseman.
36:32
We would like to see more of that.
36:33
I think with them playing the 7D, all the defensemen have been more active.
36:39
We've seen Faber be more active.
36:41
We've seen Johnson be more active.
36:42
We've seen Kester be more active.
36:45
I think that's a real strength of this Gopher team.
36:48
I think another strength is going to be their spreading out the time on ice.
36:52
We saw Brad Schlossman put out all the time on ice for all the top leagues.
36:58
It was yesterday, I believe.
37:00
When he did Big Ten, there were no Minnesota guys in the top at all.
37:05
I actually grabbed Schlossman and had him give me the Gopher time on ice.
37:10
I put it on the GPL message board.
37:13
If anyone is interested in the time on ice averages for the Gophers over the year, I think it's going to match your eye test.
37:19
You're going to see Faber and Lacombe at the top because they're playing so much special teams time.
37:26
Then you'll see Johnson next.
37:28
Then you'll see Kester and Middlestadt.
37:30
You'll see Thomas at the bottom there for ice time for the defenseman.
37:34
Chesley is actually pretty high up too.
37:36
Yeah.
37:37
Jack, that can be a really big thing at the end of the season because you know how it's like, you roll four lines, you keep it more balanced.
37:44
When it becomes crunch time, you know what?
37:46
You can go to three lines.
37:47
You can maybe play your defense because you haven't overplayed them the entire season.
37:53
Yep.
37:54
No, that's huge.
37:55
And late season, if you dive deeper into late game, for sure, if you're rolling four, you go to three.
38:01
The other team is rolling three, you know, relying heavily on two.
38:05
They're just not going to have the gas in the tank at the end of the game and the Gophers are.
38:08
And that's one of their strongest attributes, for sure, is their depth.
38:14
That was a big difference on Friday, I thought.
38:16
It was a pretty tight game.
38:17
I thought Michigan came out in the second game, way more aggressive in the neutral zone and didn't give away the red line and the blue line to the Gophers quite as much.
38:25
They're much more aggressive stepping up, forcing the Gophers to play some pucks deep and things like that.
38:30
And I thought the Gophers did a great job of not turning over the puck in the neutral zone and still protecting it.
38:36
But I think as the game wore on, Michigan got tired legs.
38:39
You know, they were kind of rolling three lines and shortening things up against the bench, and the Gophers were able to just pull away.
38:46
You know, it just reminds me of, I mean, if you're playing it smart like this, it can work out well because I always saw how Suter would play so many minutes for the wild during the season.
38:56
I mean, he led the league or was really close to it.
39:00
By the time it got to the playoffs, he just ran out of gas because you're playing even more games at that time of the year, back to back and big series.
39:11
And I think, you know, they started to cut his, you know, minutes his last year here.
39:17
But seeing that with our guys like Faber and whatnot down a couple of minutes a game, Veegs, I think it's going to be a huge boon.
39:28
Yeah, I think so.
39:30
The one worry I have with this Gopher team for ice time is Jackson Nelson.
39:34
He is the one center that they count on a lot to win draws.
39:38
And even in Michigan, we saw this a couple of times where he'd come out for a D-zone draw.
39:42
And if they could win it and get the neutral zone, he would get off.
39:45
You know, it's kind of almost like the Miko Koivu thing that The Wild would do is they'd put him out there for so many draws.
39:50
And if he could win some, he'd get off right away and let somebody else take on the ice time.
39:55
But I think that's the one thing is the Gophers need to develop some centers who can be a little bit more reliable in the faceoff circle.
40:02
Cooley's been okay.
40:03
Hougland's been okay.
40:04
But they're not quite as good as Jackson Nelson.
40:08
There you go.
40:09
Predictions for the weekend, Veegs.
40:11
I think this is a tough weekend.
40:12
It's going to be a tough environment.
40:16
They cannot play to Arizona State's level.
40:19
They need to show them that they're a top team, because we've seen, it's just a lot of history in the past of playing to the team's level.
40:31
Unfortunately, we've seen this team have a really good weekend, and then have a dip, and then have a good weekend the following weekend.
40:38
With this being a weird travel weekend with Thanksgiving, the Nyes family apparently is hosting the whole team.
40:45
All the other parents are involved, so it's not all in the Nyes family, and they probably won't be all having swordfish.
40:50
They might have some turkey.
40:52
But, it's just a little bit of an off week.
40:54
And so, I'm hesitant to see how they do on the first night.
40:59
And, you know, this could be a weekend where they split.
41:06
What do you think, Jack?
41:08
Are you going to be watching these games?
41:09
They're free.
41:10
By the way, free stream, folks.
41:12
It's free.
41:13
You can just find the link.
41:15
I'll tweet it out.
41:16
You don't need to bitch about no TV, because there will be TV.
41:19
But I'll be watching this one.
41:23
For sure, I've been stuck in, you know, I've been in Wisconsin the most of the season.
41:27
I've been following it on Twitter, and I can't get Valley Sports out there or whatever channels it's on.
41:33
I think you can really look deep into this one.
41:35
You might not have to, but from my experience and Thanksgiving week games, the student section factor, gone.
41:44
You know, let's think about Arizona State students, probably a lot of out-of-state kids, and all those kids are going to be gone.
41:51
So student section is most likely going to be pretty empty.
41:54
The rinks probably going to be pretty empty.
41:56
That's just usually how it is on Thanksgiving weekend games.
41:59
So I don't think that's going to play a factor into helping ASU out.
42:04
I think it's going to help Minnesota in some ways, because a lot of people are traveling down there.
42:10
There you go, so I mean, we might have, that would be awesome.
42:12
And I'm going to Arizona in about two weeks for a golf trip.
42:17
And I was thinking, just bad timing.
42:19
If I wasn't going on that, I absolutely would have been there for a game this weekend, got in some golf, it would have been an absolutely perfect guys weekend.
42:26
So I'm sure there's a lot of people doing that, which sounds awesome.
42:30
But yeah, I think the advantage is all Gophers and whatever the Gophers have to deal with, Thanksgiving, dinner, you know, tomorrow and stuff.
42:37
ASU is not traveling, but they still have all those distractions too.
42:42
So I like Minnesota.
42:44
I think we just covered it.
42:45
I think our depth is going to take over.
42:48
I think we're going to have another sweep on our hands.
42:52
A little more positive than Vegoe.
42:53
I'm going with sweep too, Veegs.
42:55
We'll have to see what happens.
42:57
But I always have that fear in the back of my head that, like you said, good weekend, bad weekend.
43:05
I wouldn't say bad weekend, but because they're not getting swept or anything like that, Veegs, on these quote unquote bad weekends.
43:12
But they're definitely not playing to their potential.
43:14
So hopefully the swordfish or whatever the knives serves is some good stuff and good motivation for them.
43:22
Yeah.
43:23
I mean, the Gophers aren't free of the illness bug yet.
43:26
It's still going through the team a little bit.
43:28
So we'll see what happens come the weekend.
43:30
I just think it can be a little stressful traveling on the holidays, knowing that the bugs are already going through the team and carrying that through a weekend where you're going to be playing in that environment where you're going to have to create your own energy.
43:44
That's always the biggest thing in these empty ranks and these weird weekends.
43:48
You have to create your juice from yourself and we'll see what happens.
43:53
This is a young team still.
43:54
There's a lot of freshmen who haven't had to do those kinds of things before.
43:57
So I'm just a little cautious coming to this weekend.
44:01
Ian Bowie is saying Phoenix Podcast made it sound like a lot of the Coyotes fans want to go see Cooley.
44:08
Come cheer for Cooley.
44:09
That'd be great.
44:12
I understand the tickets are tough to get and they're not cheap.
44:16
Yeah, they're going to be expensive.
44:18
It's a big ticket for this weekend.
44:19
So it's going to be exciting.
44:22
One more thing.
44:24
Vego, it's Thanksgiving.
44:25
What are you thankful for this year?
44:31
I'm very thankful for the health.
44:34
My dad went through some health scares this last year.
44:37
We got to spend some time on the golf course.
44:40
I've got young kids and so coming out of the pandemic where my kids are in school every day and getting to play sports.
44:47
My son and daughter got to play baseball this summer, got to play full games.
44:52
We're coming into hockey season where we're not wearing masks on the ice and we're able to communicate.
44:56
I feel like I'm connecting with the kids that I'm coaching so much better.
45:01
So I'm thankful for all that and everyone's health.
45:06
Hopefully, the Donald's watching.
45:07
The Donald does like to watch live.
45:09
So hopefully, you're doing great, Donald.
45:11
Hopefully, we get to see you back at the arena.
45:14
Jack, what are you thankful for this year?
45:17
Man, an endless list.
45:21
Got married in September.
45:22
I'm thankful for my wife, my family.
45:26
Thank you.
45:28
And I'd say today, most importantly, thankful for hockey.
45:31
Led me on this path to be able to do this with you guys.
45:34
Led me to college.
45:36
I'm helping out with the Minnetonka High School team.
45:38
So I get to stay involved with the game there, my men's league team.
45:41
So hockey keeps me busy and it keeps me full of joy.
45:44
So I'm very thankful for that.
45:45
How fun is the men's league?
45:49
I mean, Vego and I played together on a D-League team, but it was more about just having fun than the actual games itself.
45:58
It's so much fun.
45:59
I mean, you meet great guys.
46:02
The thing is, I'm ultra-competitive, which leads to, I have a nine o'clock game, so I'm getting home at 11, which leads to me going to bed at 2 AM and it just carries on.
46:14
And I'm thinking about what could have gone wrong here.
46:18
And I'm like, half the other guys are just going home and having a few beers and going to bed.
46:23
And I'm just thinking about men's league.
46:25
So I need to tone down the competitiveness level a little bit.
46:31
We used to go out afterwards.
46:33
A lot of times at the SuperRink, we'd just go upstairs and drink at the SuperRink.
46:37
And VEGS, we would get midnight, one o'clock a.m.
46:41
And it was just what we did.
46:43
And I always had the long drive home, but that was always...
46:46
It was a tough start because we played Monday nights.
46:49
So that sets you up for a real tough Tuesday.
46:52
I was totally worth it.
46:56
For me, I'm thankful for all the GPLers.
47:00
We did our donation-a-thon.
47:02
We're going to be moving servers.
47:04
A lot of them came through, donated quite a bit of money for us to get moved over to a new server.
47:10
They did it within 24 hours.
47:11
They donated over $800.
47:14
I am super thankful to all that gang.
47:17
They come through every single year.
47:19
It's truly a fan-supported site.
47:22
So thank you to the GPLers.
47:26
I think that's going to do it.
47:27
I think it's about time to open up my bottle of wine here and head to...
47:32
I did have a hot toddy to soothe the vocal cords for the show.
47:36
So that was a good start.
47:39
Jack, thanks for coming on.
47:40
You're going to hang out for over time, aren't you?
47:43
You got it.
47:44
All right.
47:45
Veegs, what are you working on?
47:50
Life.
47:51
Life juice.
47:52
We're just trying to keep things together.
47:55
You know, it's been fun.
47:56
I've been on the IR a little bit the last two weeks.
47:59
So I'm just trying to keep my practice plans for my youth teams together.
48:02
We got our first game coming up.
48:03
So there'll be some stuff coming up in the second half when I've got a little bit more time.
48:07
So, yeah, sounds great.
48:09
Well, that's going to do it for this episode of the GPL podcast.
48:12
Thanks, Jack, for joining us again.
48:15
We'll be back next week.
48:16
And where our guests will be Ben Holden, who's going to be calling the games on BTN for Michigan State coming up.
48:23
For those of you currently watching live, stay tuned for some overtime.
48:26
For the rest of you, we'll see you next week on The GPL Podcast.
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