0:08 This is The GPL Podcast, part of the Pulltab Sports family. 0:17 You know, I think there is some shenanigans happening in the goalie community. 0:20 Are you gonna speak on that? 0:44 But the Big Ten's a bad conference. 0:46 That's a joke. 0:47 If this gets clipped, that's a joke. 0:52 Now, here's Jupiter and Vego. 1:04 Good evening and welcome to the GPL Podcast, episode number 243. 1:13 Well, Veegs, a lot of changes in the off season for us, for the team, just everything all around. 1:19 But I want to say the first thing we must say is that we're part of the Pulltab Sports family now. 1:24 It's nice to be part of a family, isn't it? 1:26 It is. 1:27 We've been friends with them for a long time, and now we made it official, and we're family for this year. 1:33 So it's exciting to have them on board and have them help us out this year, and we'll see where it goes. 1:40 So that's one of the changes. 1:41 The other change, you'll see my background here. 1:43 It looks like a mess. 1:45 It's a room under construction. 1:48 So there's no carpet yet or anything, and it's a little loud. 1:51 So I just threw some blankets down up on some chairs and stuff to hopefully deaden some of the echo in here. 1:57 So it's not too bad. 1:58 But this is the beginning of the office podcast studio man cave for me at my girlfriend's house as a basement. 2:07 So yeah, I sold my house, living in another house now. 2:11 So a lot of changes for me as well. 2:16 That's awesome. 2:16 Well, I'm excited to get this going this year. 2:19 A lot of expectations with the Gophers. 2:22 And it's been a hot, hot summer as we get to our first ad read. 2:28 Oh, gosh, yes, it has been so uncomfortably hot that you may have noticed some uncomfortable situations in your swimsuit region. 2:36 And one Minnesota company has a solution for you to keep that region cool, crisp, and comfortable. 2:41 It's Chill Boys. 2:42 The bamboo fabric they use for these boxes of breeze provides cooling comfort where it counts. 2:48 Check out with the promo code PULLTAB15 and get 15% off your order at chillboys.com. 2:56 Our sponsor, we are so fully behind VEGZ because we both use them ourselves. 3:03 Yeah, I've got this full mattress, I was telling Jupe this in our pre-show. 3:07 It's a little hot and it's been a little humid this summer. 3:10 And so the ChillBoys have been a good pajama for me. 3:12 The good base layer to sleep comfortably. 3:15 And I've seen some of John's little deals on John King from PULLTAB do this. 3:21 He's like, it's like the cool side of the pillow and it really is. 3:24 So I'm really glad they're on board sponsoring us along with some other sponsors we'll get into later. 3:30 But it's good to have them aboard, VEGZ. 3:33 Good to have them on board. 3:34 Definitely good to have them on board. 3:36 You know, we probably will still need them when we go up to North Dakota this year based on how the summer is going to never ending with the heat. 3:45 Well, we are heading to North Dakota, aren't we? 3:47 You and I are going up and we're going to do a live show from the Ralph that Thursday evening. 3:55 That's going to be fun. 3:57 I know when it comes up quick, doesn't it? 4:00 Just a couple weeks away. 4:01 Yeah, it's it's crazy. 4:04 You know, we did a couple of live shows. 4:06 You know, we did a live show from Tampa. 4:07 We did some post game and obviously some of the very last one wasn't the greatest, but we figured we could pull it off. 4:14 So like I contacted our guy up there, Eric Martinson, one of the assistant athletic directors, kind of number two in command up there. 4:23 He'd been a great friend over the years. 4:25 And he said, come on up, we'll do it. 4:27 So we've been talking about this for a year and we're finally going to have it happen in a couple of weeks. 4:31 It's going to be very exciting. 4:33 Yeah. 4:33 Big things for GPL this season. 4:36 A lot of simple off season stuff. 4:38 We have players coming back. 4:41 We have Cooley leaving late. 4:45 We have Iserman changing, flipping to another school. 4:50 And EM, and EM, it's a twister. 4:52 It's a twister. 4:53 There's a lot going on. 4:56 There's a lot going on. 4:57 But I think you have to separate the short term issues facing the program from the long term issues. 5:04 Short term, losing Logan Cooley, obviously a big factor in maybe the ceiling for this team this season. 5:14 He was going to be a hobby favorite right from the start. 5:18 Based on his skill, his compete, his effort, his battle level, you were expecting him to be your number one center and be the best player on the ice most nights. 5:29 Now that they don't have that, it kind of changes the dynamic of the roster a little bit. 5:36 I think you should be thankful that Jimmy Snuggeroo is back. 5:41 I've heard some rumblings over the last couple of weeks that it probably wasn't a sure thing that he was going to be back once Cooley left. 5:50 I think once Cooley went to the Dev Camp with Arizona and realized, oh man, I'm the best player here. 5:56 I'm ready to go. 5:57 It's going to be hard to tell my teammates. 6:01 And once he finally made that decision, it started impacting the teammates a little bit. 6:05 I think Jimmy went to the St. 6:07 Louis camp and maybe thought, am I ready to go pro? 6:11 I don't know. 6:12 These other guys are all going. 6:14 There's a lot of exits here. 6:16 Not just Logan with Matthew Nye is going pro and fitting right in with the Maple Leafs. 6:21 You look at Jackson Lacombe. 6:23 Looks pretty good with Anaheim right now. 6:25 Ryan Johnson has been okay with Buffalo. 6:28 He'll probably need some seasoning. 6:30 Of course, Brock Faber going right into the wild lineup. 6:33 I think these players see this stuff. 6:35 So excited for him locally. 6:37 Oh, for sure. 6:38 I mean, he's going into a great spot and he's happy to be there. 6:40 But I think a player on the current Gopher roster sees these players moving on so smoothly. 6:46 They're like, am I really that different? 6:51 Maybe, maybe not. 6:53 I think Jimmy's going to benefit a ton from coming back this year and being in this lineup. 6:58 You know, he's instantly the go-to player for Minnesota. 7:02 He's got 20, 25 goal potential this season. 7:06 He's going to be the sniper. 7:08 And the key, I think, for Minnesota this year will figure out how to get him the puck. 7:13 But otherwise, this team brings back a lot of experience at Ford. 7:16 And it brings back some defensemen who were probably held back in their development last year because of the return of so many good players. 7:23 But there's a lot of talent back there. 7:27 Let's talk about some of these guys coming back. 7:29 We already know. 7:30 We talked about this a little bit in the offseason. 7:32 We had a, if you haven't seen him, we had a show with Justin Close during the offseason that was kind of fun. 7:38 Even though he was out in the middle of Timbuktu. 7:41 We still did pull it off. 7:43 It was a little rough at times, but he was on the show. 7:46 He's back. 7:47 He was in the Great White North, Joe. 7:49 He was. 7:50 He was north, well north of where he, from Kindersley, as they say. 7:55 He said an hour north of Kindersley. 7:57 He was up at the Fishing Cabinet. 7:59 He was. 8:01 But you've got him back. 8:02 You've got Nelson back. 8:04 You've got Brodsinski back. 8:07 And from what, some guys, what Coach Motsko says, watch out for Mr. 8:13 Brodsinski. 8:14 I mean, he's quietly been a pretty good goal scorer throughout his college career. 8:20 I know I saw stat. 8:22 I think he's got the most games played and the most goals of players in college hockey right now coming into the season. 8:28 And he looks a little changed coming into the year. 8:32 I'm not going to say Brodsinski was a heavy guy. 8:35 But he definitely looks leaner. 8:37 And Matsuko has noticed that he's shown a little bit more jump with his first step. 8:43 And Brodsinski has shared with the media that he wants to be a guy who can be on the puck more and be that guy who wins battles along the walls and wins second chances for his teammates and distributes the puck a little bit. 8:56 Because I think he's been a little bit of a spectator on lines in the past. 9:01 You know, when he was with Walker and McLaughlin, those guys are just buzzing all over. 9:05 And I've talked a little bit about how that line didn't really have a lot of structure. 9:09 And I think that was probably frustrating for a player like Brodzinski to play with that kind of chaos. 9:14 Because those two guys excelled at chaos. 9:17 Brodzinski needs a little bit more structure to find space to get his shots off. 9:21 And then when he's playing with Nelson and Nevers, you know, they are grinders who are going up against the wall winning pucks. 9:27 And so he was kind of that space player. 9:30 Now, I think for his game, he wants to develop a little bit more of that puck battler on the wall. 9:38 So Cooley leaves. 9:40 We all saw the highlight goal a couple of weeks ago. 9:43 And then someone was telling us off the side that day, what we didn't see is Cooley lacking some defensive skills and back checking skills. 9:52 So there's going to be some bumps in the road with him, but it's like, oh, we are going to see the highlight reels because that's just how the internet is. 9:58 Did you notice who didn't see the goal, Jupe? 10:00 Do you know who hadn't seen that? 10:03 He had seen the other goals that some alums had scored. 10:06 Fake Bob? 10:07 Fake, no, it was real Bob. 10:09 Real Bob. 10:10 Real Bob said he didn't see the Cooley goal. 10:11 So, you know, sometimes that's maybe like, you know, I'm happy my ex-girlfriend is doing well. 10:17 You know, it's too soon to look at Facebook photos of what she's up to. 10:26 It was great. 10:26 It was great what he did in Minnesota. 10:28 You know, we're all happy about what he was able to produce with the Gophers, but he's moving on. 10:35 He's moving on to that Arizona lifestyle. 10:38 And another player that committed is also moving on. 10:41 Mr. 10:41 Iserman, Mr. 10:43 probably two or three or even number one pick next season, changed his mind, decided to not come to Minnesota next year. 10:53 Later that afternoon, he committed to Boston University. 10:56 A lot of online people saying, NIL money, it's all this. 11:02 We can't confirm that. 11:03 And we've heard it actually may not have been that. 11:08 Who knows what it really was. 11:12 And now, you know, I suppose if you had told me that it sounds like that he recruited Minnesota probably more than they recruited him. 11:21 Well, I think when you're a player like Iserman, you're looking at the top programs and you're selecting where you want to go rather than Minnesota's been hounding him since the day they could recruit him. 11:34 You know, when a player like that shows interest on that day and says, hey, we are interested in attending your school, you're like, oh, great. 11:41 That's awesome. 11:42 We'd love to have you. 11:43 What do you need from us? 11:45 What do you want to learn? 11:46 And he goes to the coach at 1201 going, hey, we want you. 11:49 We need you. 11:50 This is what we see you becoming for us. 11:53 So I think it was one of those things where it was like, oh, great. 11:56 We want to have a player like that. 11:58 And the more he thought about it, and maybe there's some family stuff coming out soon that you'll learn about that might show a little more reason behind the decision. 12:09 But you know, how many kids from Minnesota go to Boston and are the top five players? 12:16 You know, they're probably going to stay somewhere in the Midwest. 12:20 They're not often going to just go leave unless they really want to get away. 12:24 So I was surprised when he committed to Minnesota. 12:27 It's probably not very surprising that he's going to Boston. 12:31 And NIL might be an issue at some point, but I don't think that was the major factor here. 12:35 You know, I think it also comes on the tales of the Hagen brothers going to BC, and there was a lot of stuff about those two, about, they're getting 75 grand up front, blah, blah, blah. 12:49 Obviously, internet fodder, who knows, zigs, but probably a lot of the Eisenman stuff comes from what the Hagens decided to do, and a little more substantiated stuff with them. 13:01 Yeah, and I think that's what we're hearing right now, is that there's a couple schools, based on their early recruiting gets, are probably splashing some NIL money. 13:12 Just keep in mind that a lot of these collectives are having these agreements with players where they can't disclose how much money they're getting, because the collectives don't want that information out there. 13:23 So a lot of the stuff you hear is speculation because the players are being told to keep quiet about it, because it's a black market right now for the NIL stuff. 13:33 It's not really supposed to be public knowledge about what people are getting, and people don't want that out there. 13:39 And interestingly enough, we're going to have Derek Burns from Dinkytown Athletes next week on the podcast to talk about all things NIL. 13:49 Because he's the big guy over there. 13:54 He's kind of the co-person in charge over there. 13:57 And we helped them out this summer, and they helped us out. 13:59 We did some advertising for them on the site. 14:02 He got us just in close to be on the podcast. 14:07 I think some of the discussion should come back to Veegs. 14:10 It's like some of these places might be using it for recruiting. 14:13 But in Minnesota, it's more like we're rewarding the players that are already here. 14:18 And I don't think that's talked about enough. 14:20 I think that's the message that Dinkytown Athletes and most of the people in the Gopher Sports Athletics Department have been emphasizing is that these are the opportunities that will show up for you once you're here. 14:33 They don't want to be promising money to recruits before they get here. 14:37 I think NIL was originally passed so that people could profit from their likeness and things that made sense, like hockey players getting paid to do hockey camps, golf players being endorsed by golf companies because that's what golf is all about and giving lessons. 14:55 I think there were a lot of limitations on people before about what they could do and this has opened it up. 15:00 But now we've got this can of worms where people are trying to entice recruits to come to a campus. 15:05 I don't think that's what you're going to see in Minnesota. 15:07 And Moscow made sure he made a point of that. 15:09 You know, like 90% of NIL is just a kid, you know, talking about a burrito and getting free burritos for the school year like Chipotle or something. 15:19 He just used that as an example. 15:20 That was Logan Cooley. 15:21 He had a Chipotle deal. 15:23 But Bobby, but that's what the deal was. 15:25 That's exactly what it's supposed to be for. 15:29 I'm concerned, Veegs, about college athletics. 15:32 This could get out of control. 15:36 We're seeing it with the Big Ten, the rest of conference, getting even larger by adding Oregon and Washington State and you got UCLA, USC, all coming in next year into the conference. 15:51 It's all about money now and some schools. 15:56 Look at the Pac-10. 15:56 It's basically done for football. 16:00 It's all about football. 16:01 It's all about basketball. 16:03 But you know what? 16:05 We've got hockey in between, which is profitable, but most schools don't. 16:10 It's profitable for the NCAA. 16:12 But are you concerned at all where this is going? 16:18 Well, I think we're definitely at a tipping point where people are going to learn a lot about the finances of college athletics because the people who are investing in NIL aren't doing it because of a return on investment necessarily, which is how the rule was originally conceived is that companies would get returns on their investment for paying players. 16:36 What you're now seeing is schools having to navigate, gathering money to pay for their facilities projects and their coaches and their food budgets and their travel budgets and their stick budgets and their equipment budgets. 16:48 And now they're trying to say, okay, we still need that, but we also need our donors to contribute money to our collectives so that the players can get compensated like they are at other schools. 17:01 So it's gonna be interesting to see what the next decade looks like. 17:05 I think all the conference realignment decisions were made for football. 17:11 It's not made for basketball. 17:12 It's not made for hockey. 17:13 It's not made for soccer. 17:16 These are TV rating driven decisions for football. 17:20 And I think those are gonna pay off. 17:22 I think these conferences are gonna get bigger TV contracts because of this realignment. 17:28 But we'll see what happens to the rest of college football if they're not a part of the big leagues. 17:35 I don't know. 17:36 It's very scary. 17:37 And it could in the long run hurt our sport of college hockey. 17:44 I would say the biggest school I'm actually worried about in the next five to ten years, maybe not on NIL, but just worried, St. 17:52 Cloud State, Biggs, declining enrollment, big time. 17:57 The school is struggling. 17:58 They've got rid of a ton of sports. 18:01 They could barely keep anything else up and running there. 18:05 That is a school I am concerned about in the next five to ten years, just being a school, much less a hockey team. 18:12 Yep, they are going to have to watch themselves with what kind of decisions they make. 18:16 You know, they still have the big ice sheet there. 18:20 I'm sure they would love to shrink it, but they need to find the money to do that. 18:24 And it's not real evident that St. 18:26 Cloud has the financial support to keep up even with the teams in their own conference. 18:32 That's too bad. 18:32 We definitely, you know, they're definite rivals of Minnesota, but it's good when rivals are good, Veegs. 18:40 Even if they're in another conference, it's a good thing. 18:44 And you talk about facilities, you know, another one of our off-season shows, we were at Mariucci when it was under construction this past summer, and it was a mess then. 18:54 It's not a mess anymore. 18:56 The ice has shrunk down to 89 feet. 19:01 They've got new lights in. 19:04 Everything looks like it's ready to go. 19:06 Yeah, the corners look tighter. 19:09 You know, it's not quite as deep as they used to be, so the play should be faster. 19:13 And I think, you know, Bob talked about this availability. 19:17 He said, was it an advantage? 19:19 Yes. 19:20 Was it a disadvantage? 19:22 Yes. 19:23 So now this team does not have to adjust to the big rink and the small rink as often. 19:29 And I think it maybe allows them to focus more on the kind of player who's an NHL size rink player. 19:37 And I noticed it, especially like in their special teams when they get in the postseason, they just don't seem as fluid on the power play as you would expect them to operate at. 19:49 And maybe it's because they get used to the wider rink and the deeper corners, and then they get on the NHL size sheet and it's just a harder game for them to play. 19:57 And it's just different. 19:59 I don't really notice it too much anywhere else. 20:02 If anything, it's going to be better for offense moving to the smaller sheet. 20:07 So I've been there. 20:08 The lighting is an adjustment. 20:10 So when you first get to 3M at Mariucci Arena, the ice is brighter, the seats are darker. 20:16 I think you notice a little bit of glare from the lights overhead in certain seats. 20:22 So it'll be interesting. 20:23 Even the players have said, can you turn this up a little bit? 20:26 And it's like, no, that's kind of the way it goes because you'll lose pucks that go up in the air and stuff because of the darkness change. 20:34 So it'll be interesting to see how it goes. 20:36 I see a comment here. 20:37 I thought I'd bring it up, but kind of go back to our previous topic about Big Ten and whatnot. 20:42 With some gentle giant here, with so many new schools, you think BTN will broadcast less TV as they cover winter sports at the new colleges. 20:51 I've had a fear of this, Veegs, for a while. 20:55 All of a sudden, they're covering USC, Oregon, whatever. 21:01 That's more basketball, that's more volleyball, that's a lot of other sports during the winter season. 21:06 It could affect TV for the Gophers. 21:09 Yeah, and I think it's definitely going to affect, just like the Valley's bankruptcy right now is affecting what's going to happen with sports broadcasting going forward. 21:19 I think BTN is lucky that they have their streaming option and their streaming packages. 21:25 That's the thing that NCHC has relied on the last couple of years is building a strong streaming network to support something for their fans. 21:35 We have gotten pretty spoiled at Minnesota with all the games on TV, so I think we're going to have to deal with that streaming option as we move forward. 21:48 It's going to be interesting. 21:50 We'll get more into that later because there's still a lot of unknowns on TV this year. 21:54 We're hearing some drips and drops here. 21:57 Who knows? 21:57 But I know one thing, we've talked about our Pulltab Sports and some of the things we're advertising now, but another new sponsor of us is Unreal. 22:11 Unreal has joined the podcast as well as Chill Boys. 22:15 What can you tell us about Unreal? 22:17 Well, GopherPuckLive is all about Minnesota and so is Unreal. 22:21 The company was started in 2013 by a Minnesota entrepreneur, Michael Jordan, who had $300 in his bank account and is growing a brand to leave a legacy here as well. 22:32 Unreal is an independent clothing company. 22:35 They don't have any VC money and they're crafted around the athlete. 22:39 They release fresh looks, hottest drops, and donate 10% of all profits to organizations and worthy causes in our community. 22:47 Visit unreal.co. 22:48 That's a co, not a com, and use the promo code pulltab15 for 15% off your order. 22:54 Love that 15% off Veegs. 22:56 I've been going through some of their stuff on their site. 23:01 I gotta say, I'm not so positive on the Vikings issue. 23:04 I'm not feeling good, but some of the gear they've got is really nice. 23:09 Yep, they've got cool stuff. 23:11 The Viking drops are neat if you're into that. 23:14 They do have a Row the Boat partnership. 23:16 Yes, they do. 23:17 They work with Folds of Honor, so they're local. 23:21 They're like our own Under Armour Nike in Minnesota. 23:24 I like that. 23:25 I like the local part of it. 23:26 I love that he started it just a couple hundred bucks. 23:30 That's pretty cool, Veegs. 23:34 Well, let's also get into some of the current issues that the team has. 23:38 We've got Bemidji State coming in this Sunday. 23:44 Mike Kester gone for a month, Veegs? 23:49 I think a month is optimistic. 23:51 Oh, it's actually at practice the day that it happened. 23:55 And it's just one of those things you don't like to see. 23:58 And, you know, he's pretty optimistic about how the recovery is going to go. 24:03 I don't think he's had any lower body injuries before. 24:06 His injuries have always kind of been shoulder type things. 24:09 So I think this is something different for him now. 24:11 I think it's up to him to deal with. 24:13 But he's going to be a big part of this team going forward. 24:16 He was second team all Big Ten in the preseason voting. 24:21 I thought he was going to get to run a power play this year because he's got great vision and a lot of experience back there. 24:27 You know, when he's filled in on the power play, he's looked like a shooting threat, which is something that a lot of the Gopher defensemen are not able to do. 24:36 They don't see through the traffic. 24:37 They can't get pucks on that. 24:39 He was able to do that. 24:40 And so with him out, you know, I've seen Sam Renzell and Luke Middlestadt as the two defensemen running power plays for the Gophers in practice so far. 24:49 And those are two very capable players, you know, Renzell, first round pick of the Blackhawks, and Middlestadt, who was probably a big surprise to a lot of people last year that got him drafted in the offseason. 25:00 But it's going to be different not having Kester out there as an option. 25:08 And Mr. 25:08 Freshman Nathan Ari Goley got necked up as well in practice, so he probably won't be available on Sunday, will he? 25:16 Well, he actually kind of had a lingering thing coming into the season, and they just, you know, it flared up on him right away. 25:24 They identified it, and part of the recovery is just rest. 25:28 And so he needed to take some time away from the rink to get fully healed up for the season. 25:33 And that leaves the Gophers kind of shorthanded in goal. 25:36 I asked Bob, you know, how is he going to handle the workload with his goalie crew? 25:41 And he talked about how Aerie isn't going to be available for a little bit, but Closer is a reliable guy. 25:46 I know he's been dealing with some stuff, too. 25:49 You know, it's tough being a goalie. 25:52 And so we'll see what's going to happen at the start of the year if he's ready to go because he's going to be important for them because the season does not start off too slow. 26:01 We get the exhibition. 26:02 We get St. 26:03 Thomas right in North Dakota. 26:05 So the season ramps up pretty quick. 26:08 Yeah, I just I don't know. 26:10 Another new face to kind of fill in. 26:14 Is it Nick Michael Mitchell? 26:16 Do we Michael Michael? 26:18 It is Michael. 26:18 So Nick, he he's joked that if it was Michelle or something, he might have got better scholarship offers out of out of high school. 26:26 But when it's just Michael, it's just like, oh, OK. 26:28 Go to St. 26:30 John's, then. 26:31 And really, he's going to be a body for now, isn't he? 26:33 If something goes south, we don't expect him to play. 26:36 He'll probably play in the exhibition. 26:38 I'm guessing anyone who's able to play will be dressed. 26:40 Anyone who is at anything, any kind of lingering injury, or it's not worth playing against Bemidji State because it doesn't mean anything. 26:48 It's just a way to get kind of get things going. 26:53 But so we'll probably see him Sunday night, don't you think? 26:56 I would think so. 26:57 But he's being brought in as a guy who won't rock the boat, who will work hard in practice and be ready to fill in as needed. 27:03 I think chemistry is always an interesting thing with people at the bottom of the roster. 27:08 I've talked to this with coaches about how to handle the World Junior break before. 27:12 And it's a sign of a really good team is if you can have your players go play in the World Juniors and you have guys that fill in for those roles and do well. 27:22 And when the players from the World Junior team come back, the players who got that ice time, do they have the maturity to handle that transition from getting their chance and playing well to going back to their hardworking practice roles and being ready? 27:37 So, you know, I think Michael's a player that they brought in to say, hey, we need you to be ready, but we don't necessarily need you either, because this is a pretty experienced forward group. 27:48 You know, there's 13 guys who are ready to play here. 27:51 Yes, it is experienced, but the roster is a little short on players than even last year, Veegs. 27:59 And, you know, last year, we were a little nervous about, you know, only eight defensemen or whatever it was. 28:07 Will they be, you think they're going to be rotating seven guys in a game? 28:11 Will they rotate everybody or will they play just six? 28:15 I mean, there's a lot of little things they ought to think about. 28:19 Yeah, I think this team likes to play seven defensemen. 28:22 It's easier to manage than it is to do 13 forwards. 28:26 It's always going to be weird if you have that 13th forward that you're trying to fit in with seven defensemen, you can just kind of throw them into different situations. 28:34 And something that the Gophers have done the last couple of years is they mix up players for defensive pairs all the time in practice. 28:41 I've been to like a handful of practices this fall, and I've probably seen Middlestadt and Renzell and Chesley have different partners every practice. 28:51 So they're rotating through, so they are familiar to play with anybody in a situation, because when you have those power plays and you're just sending out one defenseman and the power play expires, you want to have two good players come out for that next shift. 29:06 So they got to be comfortable playing with anybody. 29:10 So what will you be looking for a Sunday evening when they do play Bemidji State? 29:17 I think what I'm looking for is just to compete for pucks on second chances. 29:24 I think last year this team could lean on Knives and Cooley to win back those second chances and create special teams opportunities with their effort and hustle and skill. 29:39 The Gophers bring back a lot of talent up front, but it's less experienced talent at that role. 29:46 So as much skill as the players they have coming back, I just don't know how productive they'll be because this team needs some high-end players to go along with its depth. 29:57 And you can see that from Snuggerud, but he's not really a nice, coolly kind of player who can just go win pucks and create scoring chances. 30:05 He kind of needs to play off of line mates. 30:09 And that's why I think it's good that he's played another year of college hockey, is that he can develop that skill a little bit more. 30:14 But that's really a big concern for me, is seeing who can handle that. 30:19 And honestly, Veegs... 30:25 Snuggerud was a little quiet at the end of the season. 30:28 He wasn't scoring as much. 30:31 I think the whole first line had trouble down the stretch. 30:35 Only Cooley was really kind of scoring. 30:37 Nice, hadn't scored in a long time. 30:41 And then obviously, we had that 2-on-1 in the championship game. 30:45 Puck went a little off a bit. 30:47 But Snuggerud kind of needs to get it going again, doesn't he? 30:54 I mean, it's not just, come back, he's going to be a superstar. 31:01 Maybe he's got a little something to prove, I think even. 31:03 I think he's got a lot to prove with his skating and puck battles and skill in that mindset of the game. 31:10 And it's going to be healthy for him. 31:12 He's saying all the right things. 31:13 When he's in front of the media, he talks about wanting to get back to the championship game. 31:19 He's talked about his dad saying he still thinks about losing the NCAA championship game. 31:25 And Jimmy, you've got the chance to rectify that in your life. 31:29 You know, I didn't, so take that opportunity and seize the day. 31:35 So it's a big opportunity out in front of him. 31:38 April is a long ways away from October. 31:40 It is. 31:41 But you have to progress throughout the year to be ready. 31:45 And I think, you know, for a player like that, to be the same player from October to April will be key because that's part of what made Brock Faber and Jackson LeCombe and Matthew Nye so great last year is they were consistent the entire year. 32:00 How many bad games did you see those three guys have? 32:04 Hardly ever. 32:06 They were there every night and they didn't make big mistakes. 32:10 So I think the other thing I'll be looking for is the defensemen. 32:13 Are they able to break out pucks cleanly or do they get under pressure? 32:17 Because the Gophers last year were a team that didn't get hemmed in their zone hardly ever. 32:22 You know, they were able to break out the puck pretty cleanly and relieve pressure and get going to offense. 32:28 Until this year. 32:32 Sorry. 32:33 We can go there maybe in overtime. 32:35 I might need a beer to have that discussion. 32:38 Because I've rewatched the game a couple of times and we'll get to it later. 32:43 But Quinnipiac is a good team. 32:45 They only had four losses last year. 32:47 When you have a 2-0 lead, your mindset maybe changes a little bit. 32:51 I did not think they stopped playing. 32:53 Sorry, you just kind of served that one up for me, Veegs. 32:55 I know. 33:00 Hey, Veegs, how's your hockey here? 33:02 Hockey here is pretty good. 33:04 I think, you know, I can never truly have hockey here. 33:09 I've seen the flow on you, though, before. 33:12 I mean, you might need to start getting to big flow going. 33:14 What do you think? 33:15 Yeah, with GopherPuckLive, part of the Pulltab Sports family this year, we have to make sure our hockey here is elite. 33:22 Yes. 33:23 And one weapon in your hair care arsenal should be Duke Cannon Men's Grooming Project. 33:29 They are a Minnesota company that makes hardworking products for hardworking men, whether it's serious flow styling putty, adding some structure to your game, like maybe the Gophers needed against Quinnipiac, or a news anchor with thick hair to increase some volume, like they may be needed in shots in that game. 33:45 Visit dukecannon.com, Target, or even your local hardware store for products to make your hair a weapon. 33:52 And as Motay said, we've got some hair game going on. 33:58 It's white. 34:01 It's white. 34:02 I can't do anything about that. 34:03 It's going to be white for a while. 34:05 You can still add some volume to it though. 34:08 You know, I might need some more product because when I do that, I look like it's got a big fro. 34:17 I look like I belong in the sweat hogs of Welcome Back Cotter, which half of our audience, or maybe all of our audience, has no idea what that is. 34:26 Yeah, putty might be good for you. 34:28 It might be. 34:29 A little grooming clay. 34:30 Yeah. 34:34 They definitely have it at the hardware store, Steve. 34:36 Like I was at Fratelloni's Ace Hardware, and I totally saw us in Ducan, I'm like, okay. 34:42 Sweet. 34:45 Which Steve was that? 34:46 I mean, is it No Hair Steve? 34:48 No Hair Steve doesn't need a lot of product. 34:53 Oh boy. 34:55 I wish. 34:56 Some of the comments. 34:59 I've got to start some of those comments. 35:01 We'll get to some of those in overtime. 35:02 It's going to be fun. 35:05 Freshman Veegs, we've got Mack Shrewd, Axel Begley, Sam Renzell, Nathan Airy, Jimmy Clark and Oliver Moore. 35:12 Let's start. 35:14 We have not talked about Oliver Moore yet, have we? 35:17 No, but we've got a bunch of fresh. 35:19 Well, let's start with him then. 35:20 Oliver Moore. 35:22 I do believe a couple of guys said that's the fastest guy they've ever seen in hockey ever. 35:30 He is probably right up there with Sammy Walker in terms of raw horsepower, just getting going. 35:37 I think Moore is maybe a little bit solider of a player build than Sammy Walker. 35:42 I think maybe his impact on college hockey is going to be quick. 35:47 I've seen him out there quite a bit with Jimmy Stuggerud and Bryce Brodzinski. 35:54 I think that's a sign that Bob wants to have those three together. 35:59 And he wants Brodzinski to kind of be a little bit of that Matthew Nise. 36:05 And, you know, let all the more work. 36:09 And we even heard some, you know, he was drafted 18 by the Chicago Blackhawks this past summer. 36:14 And some people were even saying his speed is comparable to Conor McDavid. 36:19 At this age. 36:21 Yes. 36:21 At this age, Moore is faster than McDavid was. 36:24 That's no joke. 36:26 That is some serious stuff. 36:29 And you see some of the stuff that Moore does is for his off-season workouts with running hills and plyos. 36:34 And the guy works at it. 36:36 Okay. 36:37 Another one. 36:37 We'll just have to bring this up here. 36:39 Where is Vegoe's Pulltab Sports water bottle? 36:43 It's right over his shoulder. 36:45 Look at that. 36:46 Look at that. 36:47 Right up there. 36:50 I love me some Yetis. 36:52 I know. 36:53 It's fun. 36:55 So, Ryan, you're very, you're not quite observant, but yeah, I see it in the corner up there. 36:59 I'll hide stuff on the shelf this year. 37:01 It would be like Elf on the Shelf. 37:03 It'll be GopherPuckLive on the shelf. 37:05 Little Easter Eggs for the podcast. 37:07 Yep. 37:10 Five more abs to keep. 37:14 Just one more. 37:15 One more and then we'll be good. 37:19 So yeah, Oliver Moore. 37:20 I think they're trying to find a good spot for him where he can contribute. 37:25 I think just like Logan Cooley, Bob's going to put him high in the lineup. 37:29 It's going to put him on power play. 37:30 I don't think you'll see him on penalty kill right away because they want to manage that ice time just a little bit. 37:36 Yeah, makes sense. 37:37 Moore is still a freshman, but he's going to be leaned on heavily this year, just like Cooley was. 37:44 And then on defense, Rinzel is the big name there. 37:47 I was surprised to see him running a power play because I know that he's a first round pick. 37:53 I know he had a good USHL year, but I always have this fear of these big defensemen coming to college hockey and not quite being ready for the speed of the game. 38:06 We'll see. 38:07 He's going to get the chance to run a top power play in college hockey. 38:12 If he's able to do it, he'll probably stay there. 38:15 If he doesn't, maybe we'll see Kester back there when he's healthy from injury, but he's going to get the chance. 38:24 I'm excited for the power play. 38:26 Like you mentioned, he's a playmaker. 38:29 You put him with another playmaker, like Mr. 38:31 Oliver Moore and Snuggerood, he's going to have two guys to set up. 38:36 Boom, boom, boom. 38:38 Look out. 38:38 I mean, Snuggerood's got that. 38:41 I'm guessing his cannon is up to a couple more millimeters. 38:45 It's full on big-ass cannon coming at you. 38:49 He's got the Howitzers going this year. 38:51 He does. 38:51 And he's got Oliver Moore, who you have to be afraid of scoring and dishing. 38:58 Well, I think having more to carry the puck on zone entries will be big for them as well. 39:04 That's always been a key to the Gopher power play is having a speedy guy who can just break through the zone, gain possession of the blue line and get going with the offense. 39:13 So I think he'll serve that role as well. 39:16 I've also seen Brody Lamb and Connor Kurth working on that unit. 39:20 They were freshmen who probably pushed into the pegs a little too early last year. 39:25 It was a little bit too much. 39:27 But we'll get to them more later. 39:29 But I know Batsko is expecting big things from them. 39:32 But Rinzel on the power play early, it's almost like kind of taking advantage of Kester being out because really I think that would have been Kester's spot. 39:44 Yes, it sucks for Kester. 39:46 But that really does kind of push him into a learning role and just throws him to the fire. 39:52 Yeah, Owen Power was able to handle the transition from junior to college really quickly. 39:58 You know, I think that's probably the comparison you're going to be making for how big of an impact can he make right away in college hockey. 40:06 A late ad, Axel Begley. 40:08 Is that how you pronounce his name? 40:10 Yeah, Begley is one of those hardworking guys. 40:13 He's the landscaping guy from Hill Murray from the state hockey tournament. 40:17 Okay. 40:18 Promoting his business for intros. 40:20 As soon as you said that, I remembered it. 40:23 Yeah, he's a hard worker. 40:24 I think he's being brought in to support the fancy pants players as Bob often refers them as. 40:32 So he's going to do the hard work. 40:34 And I don't think the expectations are huge for him right away. 40:37 It's just to come in and support your teammates, be tough to play against, play physical when you need to do, and, you know, get acclimated. 40:47 Blue collar worker. 40:49 Yeah, I think him and Rudd are guys who are kind of just going to slip in here and there and not play big minutes, but just get acclimated to college hockey because they're both kind of similar players. 40:59 I think Rudd maybe had a higher skill level than Meggley, but both seem to move pretty well. 41:07 So, is it Rudd or Rude? 41:08 I thought it was... 41:10 I thought it was Rudd, but we'll see. 41:13 Someone will probably correct me at some point. 41:15 That's fine. 41:16 We'll talk about him a little bit more. 41:18 Obviously, we've heard of his father, I'll tell you that. 41:21 I remember that name. 41:23 Isn't his dad who played at CC? 41:27 Yeah, I think so. 41:28 For Luchia? 41:29 Yeah, so connection there. 41:31 But he was a good player in the USHL. 41:35 I don't think he's being thought of as a high skill player. 41:39 And he's going to be a supporting role this year. 41:42 It's really hard to tell in practice so far what we're going to have in these guys. 41:48 That's the thing you're looking for early against Bemidji and St. 41:51 Thomas is, can these guys handle for checks and pressure and make good decisions? 41:56 I think that's a big question mark for me right now. 41:58 Are they ready to do that? 42:00 Or are they going to lean heavier on guys like Middlestadt and Chesley and Rinzel and Fish? 42:07 I think Fish is going to get a chance to play this year as well. 42:10 So I think these younger guys are going to be able to develop a little bit better. 42:16 I've always been a fan of Fish's game. 42:21 The times he's just come in to fill in a little bit this year or last year, I should say, I liked it. 42:28 Big guy moves well. 42:34 Jimmy Clark, freshman forward, Dinah Kidd, I believe, isn't he? 42:38 Dinah Kidd, this is the late ad because Logan Cooley didn't come to Minnesota. 42:44 Jimmy Clark was the one who kind of stepped up to fill the spot on the roster. 42:50 And that normally makes me nervous. 42:53 You know, when you have a guy slotted for another year of junior and then he has to come in early, it means that everyone was kind of expecting another year of development. 43:05 And so now he's going to be coming into the program. 43:07 And I've seen him get some opportunities on the power play and practice, but he's not probably going to be a regular there. 43:15 It's kind of like the situation with Brody Lamb last year who came in and you saw flashes. 43:22 Of the ability there, but it just wasn't going to be there every night. 43:26 And so a player like that has to find their B game when they're not finding the game coming to them, which isn't always great for development, but it's a sacrifice that everyone's making to make this year work. 43:42 So he's a he's a talented player. 43:43 He got drafted, I think, by the wild. 43:47 And, you know, he had a good junior career, but I think he could have used that extra year. 43:52 He didn't play on a very good junior team last year, the Green Bay, like they weren't good. 43:57 And so you have to wonder, you know, their habits that you pick out of that and carry with you in their first year in college when you're going to have to fight for ice time. 44:05 You know, he's not a lock to be in the lineup every single night. 44:10 So we have a tricky situation with Clowes coming back because didn't anticipate that at the end of the season that Clowes would be back. 44:20 So we were going to bring in Nathan Airy to kind of compete with Bartoszkiewicz in goal. 44:28 Airy's coming, Clowes coming back. 44:30 Bartoszkiewicz decides to go play a year of juniors and commits to coming back next season. 44:38 So does that give freshman Nathan Airy a chance to see some ice time? 44:42 Maybe 10%? 44:45 I think that was the plan coming in. 44:47 If he came in healthy, I think he probably would have seen some starts right away. 44:52 I think he would have saw a game against St. 44:54 Thomas. 44:54 I think he would have played in the Bemidji game. 44:58 I think he gets some action maybe. 45:00 Probably doesn't play in North Dakota, but gets sprinkled into the games earlier in the season. 45:06 And now does he not play until Robert Morris in Colorado College? 45:11 And you try to play closer as much as you can. 45:13 U18 maybe? 45:16 So it's going to be a tough start for Aerie. 45:18 Aerie is a big kid. 45:21 He's at 6'2, 6'3, good size. 45:23 He's got a lot of games under his belt. 45:26 And I think that's important for goaltenders. 45:29 I had a fun discussion with a couple of NCHC coaches at their Media Day talking about goalie development. 45:36 And he's like, pro teams like these big 6'4, 6'5, goalies for the professional game. 45:44 But they like them to be 25, 26 years old when they get them. 45:48 So when you've got high school kids, junior kids who are 18, 19, who are 6'4, 6'5, yes, they are good prospects for five or six years down the line. 45:59 But they are going to go through some struggles when they first get to school. 46:05 And so I think what you're seeing with the Gophers is they're looking for guys who already are playing 100, 120 junior games. 46:12 And so when they come to college, they're ready to play and do that workload. 46:16 That development's happened. 46:19 So hopefully Aries injury situation isn't like Boynton's from our guy Tim Hapke there. 46:26 Tim, I'm not concerned about Aries and Boynton being the same kind of issue. 46:31 I think Aries is going to just work himself back into the rotation here. 46:35 Once he gets clearance from the medical team and everything's healed up, and I think he'll be an option. 46:42 Just like Justin Close had that long track record of experience, Nathan Aries got that same track record of experience against even better teams. 46:51 And props to Tim and his avatar with the Wuger. 46:55 Love the avatar and bringing in the Wuger there, Tim. 46:58 That's some great stuff. 47:00 Well, I know we want to get to some league and team predictions, players to watch. 47:08 VEG's fundraising on the college level is a lot easier than fundraising at the kids level or at the high school level. 47:19 But people out there have different options these days. 47:23 And one of our new sponsors, FURTA Fundraisers, does things a little differently, don't they? 47:32 Association Hockey is underway, and that means fundraising season coming right around the quarter. 47:37 FURTA Fundraisers is here to put the fun back in fundraising with staff to plan around your needs, support you from start to finish. 47:45 They put together websites for you and everything to help you plan events, and they plan to maximize your return while staying close to retail prices. 47:53 It's always frustrating when you buy something from the fundraiser kid, and it's $10, and you can go to the store and you can buy it for $5. 48:00 That's not how it works. 48:01 They pride themselves on showcasing local premium products like Joe Mama Salsa, Bon Hanson's Pretzel Snacks, and Croy Valley Barbecue Rub & Sausage. 48:10 Visit furtafundraisers.com to ignite your fundraising. 48:14 FURTA boys, FURTA girls, FURTA community, FURTA fundraisers. 48:20 You mentioned Joe Mama's in there. 48:24 That's some good stuff. 48:26 I've used it in some of my cooking gigs. 48:28 It's not just a regular salsa. 48:32 It's pretty good. 48:33 And I love that FURTA has that type of option because you've been through fundraising. 48:39 You're given a plant sale. 48:41 You're given whatever it may be, cookies or candy. 48:45 There's a lot of things. 48:46 They kind of give you more options, don't they? 48:48 Yeah, they give you options and things are shelf stable. 48:51 So you're not worried about picking up the frozen pizzas and trying to get them to somewhere before they thaw. 48:57 It's kind of a whole back end system. 48:58 Yeah, it's a whole back end system. 49:00 It just kind of controls everything for you. 49:03 And that's what people need when they just need to get out there and start fundraising for their team or for their foundation, isn't it? 49:11 So I'm glad they're on board with us, along with all of our other sponsors. 49:17 And this is all of course, thanks to our guys, you know, Pulltab Sports. 49:21 They brought us on board this year. 49:22 They liked what we were doing, Biggs. 49:25 Like I said, I love that flyover state of mind. 49:29 We're going to get Kinger on here at some point during this season. 49:34 We talked to Kinger at the Frozen Four. 49:37 He's like, nobody wants to watch me. 49:40 He was our most popular show last year. 49:44 The most viewers, the most listeners. 49:46 People love the Kinger, don't they? 49:48 They do love the Kinger. 49:51 He knows hockey with the hockey hair. 49:53 He knows it with beer league hockey. 49:55 Pulltab Sports is a fun little thing going on. 49:58 I've been enjoying the Make Love Not War with Stansel. 50:02 Talk about the twins. 50:04 It's been a fun run. 50:05 It'll be fun to follow along with them as the twins. 50:07 Hopefully, keep going this year. 50:12 Yesterday was really fun. 50:13 It was fun today, but it was just something about Royce Lewis. 50:18 Two big home runs. 50:20 It literally brings me back to the old days. 50:22 Kirby Puckett putting you on my back. 50:27 We haven't seen that so long, Veegs. 50:30 You've got your twin shirt in full support right now. 50:33 It was just fun. 50:35 Seeing all the videos from Pulltab and Kinger, baseball and football and everything, I'm glad we're part of the family. 50:42 It's going to be fun. 50:44 It's going to be great. 50:46 Looking forward to it. 50:49 I am Jones for some salsa sponsorship. 50:53 I've had Joe Momma's. 50:58 Roasted garlic, I highly recommend roasted garlic. 51:01 There you go. 51:03 Veegs, Gophers picked to finish first in the Big Ten by the coaches. 51:09 Michigan State makes quite the jump. 51:13 The schedulers put Minnesota and Michigan at Mariucci right last game of the season or last series of the season. 51:23 Very smart. 51:24 There's so much to look forward to here. 51:27 Just league wide. 51:29 Well, I was looking at maybe doing a prediction with the Big Ten, and it's tricky because I think one to seven could all make the NCAA tournament. 51:41 They all have enough on their roster to get there. 51:47 It's just going to have to be who comes out in the top three in the Big Ten this year. 51:52 Those are probably the teams that are going to get bids, and the fourth team is going to be on the border, and it's going to depend on what kind of non-conference games they have because I think this league is also going to do well non-conference again. 52:06 Last year, they were the best conference in the country for record, and it really set them up well for pairwise, and the Big Ten teams did pretty well in the NCAA Tournament, and a lot of these teams have young talent coming back, even despite some of the losses to the NHL. 52:22 So it's going to be a tough league. 52:25 I like Minnesota, obviously, to finish first in the Big Ten. 52:28 I'm probably not as high in Michigan as everybody else. 52:33 I think they leaned pretty heavily on Hughes and Fantilly last year. 52:37 And I just wonder what their team will look like without them in another year under Nerado. 52:44 You know, are they going to progress? 52:48 I don't know about their recruits being as talented as some of the ones that were coming before for him. 52:54 You know, Veegs, I think, yeah, I don't think they have the high end talent, but I think they might have more consistency overall. 53:04 They were really kind of all over the place, even when Fadden Hill was in and out last year at the beginning of the season. 53:09 It was kind of feast or famine. 53:12 I think it will be more consistent for them. 53:16 I don't know. 53:19 We'll see. 53:20 They took a lot of bad penalties last year. 53:22 Their penalty kill was terrible, and they leaned heavily on Fadden Hill and Hughes. 53:26 I remember talking to Chris Peters at the Frozen Four as we were talking about Hobie candidates. 53:32 He's like, I don't think Michigan even makes the tournament if they don't have Fantilly, because he drives everything for them. 53:39 He drives their five-on-five play. 53:41 He drives their power play. 53:43 He draws penalty. 53:44 He scores big goals. 53:45 Without him, they'd probably miss the tournament. 53:49 We'll see what happens with them. 53:51 I don't think they finish second, but I think they're on the bubble for making the tournament. 53:56 I think Notre Dame is going to be tough this year. 53:59 They got Slager back for a fifth year. 54:01 They've got Bischel back for another year. 54:03 Bischel for like a tenth year, I swear. 54:06 Right. 54:06 Jeff Jackson, I thought had kind of a tough year last year. 54:10 He was expecting to have Logan Cooley in his lineup, and he did not. 54:14 Oh darn. 54:15 That impacted their team a lot. 54:17 I think they struggled to score goals, and they weren't probably as consistent as they would like to be. 54:24 So, I think Norah Dame will bounce back, and I always like Steve Roelich at Ohio State. 54:29 I think he does a great job. 54:30 He'll figure out that team, and they're a more veteran group this year. 54:34 Michigan State. 54:37 Michigan State, I think, will be more talented, but I think they might have some growing pains. 54:44 Yeah, I think they'll have some growing pains. 54:46 Nightingale is about development, and I think they're probably a year away from being able to compete with the top teams of the Big Ten. 54:54 I know that the coaches voted him up high. 54:57 They had that great start last year, but then they just kind of petered out. 55:02 We'll see what happens with them. 55:04 I'd be surprised if they finished top three. 55:07 There's our guy, Mote. 55:08 Hey, GPL Nation. 55:09 Are we really doing this already? 55:11 Where does the time go? 55:12 Yes, we're back, Mote. 55:14 We're glad to have you back listening and watching the show. 55:19 Here's one from Phil Veegs. 55:20 Have you guys seen the new sweaters yet? 55:24 I have not. 55:26 They've been under wraps, yeah. 55:27 All we've seen is the tees. 55:29 When we went there for media day, the jerseys were only there. 55:33 The only thing was there was a couple boxes of sticks that we thought about taking, but we didn't, Veegs. 55:40 Dugger had put in a late order for his stick, so they showed up a little late. 55:45 But the rumor is for New Jersey's this year, Veegs. 55:55 We have no idea what they look like. 55:57 We've heard rumors we can't substantiate anything, but I got to say, Veegs, those maroon jerseys for the women's team are smoking. 56:10 It's just a nice color and wow, those are nice jerseys. 56:16 Women's hockey program knocks it out of the park with their jerseys. 56:21 They do a great job with those. 56:22 Whoever is doing those, earning their paycheck. 56:27 The Gopher men's jerseys have been a little underwhelming other than I think the Wuger jerseys were great. 56:37 I like the outdoor game jerseys that they've done. 56:42 But I think the regular jerseys have been a little underwhelming. 56:46 These glimpses we've seen maybe echo back to when I thought the jerseys were a little more consistent. 57:00 I kind of like those road, Kessel, Wheeler years where they had a little more gold in the shoulders. 57:07 And obviously, instead of mostly all maroon, a couple of straights, they had some nice good gold on the shoulders. 57:13 I like those. 57:16 We'll just have to wait and see. 57:18 I wonder if we see them on Sunday or if they wait. 57:23 If they wait a week to show them off. 57:27 Well, we've had rumors from everything from retro goldie to new goldie to black jerseys or whatever. 57:36 There's so many things. 57:39 I just want to see what the regular home jersey looks like. 57:42 The regular road jersey is the standard stuff. 57:44 I mean, the special stuff is, you know, whatever. 57:48 And I swear people are going to complain no matter what, Vs. 57:53 I've gotten to the point where I just don't care anymore. 57:56 If school, I just, I can't fight it. 57:59 I just can't fight it. 58:00 I'm just too old. 58:02 Just remember, it's whatever the kids like. 58:06 The kids are happy. 58:07 Fans should be relatively happy. 58:09 Yeah, but you do have tradition. 58:12 And I know Brock Faber wasn't happy with me last year when I complained to them about doing a stick salute when they lost a game, didn't get a sweep against whoever it was. 58:23 I would get back in Brock's face on that. 58:26 I think you're right. 58:28 I think you can salute the fan. 58:30 Because I heard him, like, who the hell is this guy? 58:34 This guy right here. 58:38 I heard Faber was a little pissed, you know, because I complained and said, what the hell is this crap? 58:46 Whatever. 58:47 You could do something else, but you can't do the salute at center ice. 58:50 You can go to your students, or you could go to your fans and salute them that way, but you got to reserve the battle him. 58:57 Yeah. 58:59 I don't know. 59:01 What do you do? 59:02 Okay, these players to watch, Matsuko has been really liking, Kurth, Lam, guys like that, Pitlick, Huglen, Brodzinski. 59:16 I really think he wants his freshman guys, like I said, Kurth, Lam, Pianimi. 59:22 They got to take a step up this year. 59:26 But, boy, Huglen and Pitlick, I think there was a comment earlier about those two. 59:32 I'm looking forward to those teaming up. 59:35 Hopefully they're on the same line, because I like those two. 59:38 Yeah. 59:39 I don't know what we're going to see as a ceiling for Aaron Huglen. 59:43 We've seen him generate a lot of possession, win a lot of board battles, but he just seems like a step behind or a second slow on the scoring decisions to really capitalize on it. 1:00:00 So I don't know what we're going to see there that we haven't seen. 1:00:04 I'm not expecting to be surprised, and all of a sudden we've got a 60-point center in Huglen. 1:00:10 I don't think that's going to be his game. 1:00:13 Now, Pitlick, on the other hand, we have seen lots of flashes of him making really high-skilled plays. 1:00:20 It's just every once in a while, he'll get into Bob's doghouse. 1:00:24 We'll see what happens this year. 1:00:26 Like throwing a stick out at the guy. 1:00:30 Yeah, you know, he might have regretted that, but I thought at the time I was like, oh, that's great, that's great. 1:00:36 The fans are going to love this. 1:00:38 It would have been totally different because he almost scored, but he finally made it back to the ice, like his first shift. 1:00:44 His first shift back, he almost scored. 1:00:47 That would have been a game. 1:00:47 And then we got him after the game when we could have talked about it, but it didn't happen. 1:00:52 But I do think Pitlick has the skill and the ability to really impact the game and be like a 40, 50 point player for them. 1:01:02 I'd like to see him get a chance on that top power play a little bit because I think that's where his skill could really shine. 1:01:09 If you put him with a guy like Snuggeroot and a guy like Moore, I think that skill would jump off the charts a little bit more. 1:01:17 So I wonder if he can work his way into that kind of situation, because he's definitely got the skill to do it. 1:01:25 Yes. 1:01:28 It's a long season, Veegs. 1:01:32 We know the team is going to be like one step at a time just getting to the tournament. 1:01:36 Frozen Fours in St. 1:01:37 Paul this year. 1:01:41 Off the top of the head, you think they make it to the Frozen Four. 1:01:44 Come on. 1:01:51 I think they do. 1:01:54 It's gonna be a harder road. 1:01:56 It's gonna be a harder road than I thought coming to the year when they had Cooley coming back. 1:02:00 But they need that, though. 1:02:02 You need that. 1:02:02 You need that to get better. 1:02:06 But I think this team has enough coming back where they're gonna be a favorite in the Big Ten. 1:02:10 They have a good opportunity to be a one seed in a regional, and the carrot of playing at home in the Frozen Four will be right there for them. 1:02:19 It should be a good year for this program. 1:02:21 Let's do it, man. 1:02:22 Let's do it. 1:02:24 Though the one fear is Snuggeroots health. 1:02:26 So everybody, if they wanna see this happen, think good thoughts there. 1:02:34 Well, yeah. 1:02:36 It's everyone's health. 1:02:37 Kester being out for however long he's gonna be. 1:02:41 Not having Kester when you go up to North Dakota, which is... 1:02:47 That's right at the fringe of when he's gonna be back, would be North Dakota weekend based on the timing of his injury, if it is what I think it is. 1:02:57 That's right on that border. 1:03:00 Moate, is Jupe in a construction zone? 1:03:02 Is he kidnapped? 1:03:02 Jupe, you're in trouble. 1:03:08 Well, if you would have been here for the beginning of the show, Moate. 1:03:13 He can listen back later. 1:03:16 Yeah, well, the beauty of this. 1:03:17 Tell you more in overtime. 1:03:20 So stay on, Moate. 1:03:21 There we go. 1:03:26 Anything else out there, Veegs? 1:03:27 I mean, I'm kind of excited to see Kurth. 1:03:30 I really think he was pretty, he was better than advertised last year. 1:03:37 Well, he was the USA top player. 1:03:38 We need more players to make that jump and make it a good jump. 1:03:45 We ripped on Sammy Walker for years here because he was kind of Sammy Walker the same for four years here. 1:03:55 And people rip on us for ripping on him. 1:03:57 But it's just the numbers don't lie. 1:04:00 So we just need more players to step up and contribute more. 1:04:05 And we haven't seen as much of that these last couple years. 1:04:11 Yeah, it's true. 1:04:12 We've seen some players come to the U and get complacent and not continue to push themselves and develop from year to year. 1:04:19 And I think this team, for them to achieve the goals that they want to achieve, all those freshmen have to make big jumps. 1:04:27 And coaches often say the biggest jump of a player is that freshman to sophomore year. 1:04:33 Well, this is a team that's got a bunch of freshmen forwards and a couple of freshmen defensemen who have that opportunity. 1:04:40 We haven't talked about Chesley a lot today. 1:04:43 He's a player that's going to be counted on to fill a lot of minutes and be a heavy player to play against. 1:04:49 He's going to have to fill that role. 1:04:51 I think he's going to be a stud this year. 1:04:56 I am on the Chesley bandwagon. 1:04:58 Yep, he should be one of the most impactful defensemen on the Gophers roster. 1:05:04 Renzell is going to put up some points and he's going to take his lumps. 1:05:08 But in terms of consistency and playing the hard matchups, Chesley is going to be that player. 1:05:13 He's going to draw all the tough matchups for the Gophers if they line match like they might have to this year. 1:05:19 Middleset is a great offensive talent, great on the breakout, but his foot speed is the thing that holds him back from being an elite player. 1:05:27 I don't think you have that problem, Chesley. 1:05:30 Quickly, I want to get into the TV situation. 1:05:33 I've just been hearing rumors for people who work behind the scenes stuff from TV saying we've got 10 games this year, home games that will be televised. 1:05:45 Rush Media is going to be producing it. 1:05:48 They're also going to pick up four road games. 1:05:50 I'm not sure what games those are going to be. 1:05:53 Nothing has been released. 1:05:54 Right now, we're all just kind of guessing that these games will be on Fox 9 Plus. 1:06:01 We do have confirmation that next Friday, the game at the X will be on Fox 9, the regular Fox station, and then the Saturday game at Marriott should be on Fox 9 Plus. 1:06:15 Who's calling the games? 1:06:17 Anything like that? 1:06:18 We have no idea. 1:06:21 But the game this Sunday, BTN Plus, probably a student crew. 1:06:27 If you have the BTN Plus streaming service, you can watch it. 1:06:32 And the Saturday game at Mariucci so far is going to be on BTN Plus. 1:06:37 You put me on to BTN Plus a couple of years ago, Veegs. 1:06:41 That's still the best thing out there. 1:06:43 So right now, it looks like those Rush Media games that might be on Fox 9 Plus will be on BTN Plus as well. 1:06:55 We'll hear something eventually, but we're hearing a little bit. 1:06:59 TV is never as bad as we think it's going to be. 1:07:04 This university will find a way. 1:07:06 Yes, they know it's a huge advantage for them to continue to get their games on TV, and they will do all the legwork possible to make it happen for the fans. 1:07:18 So there are going to be games, folks, and all we can tell you are the little things that we hear behind the scenes. 1:07:27 Because we can talk to all the you people we want. 1:07:30 They're not going to say anything until they're ready to say something. 1:07:34 So we have to use them. 1:07:36 Back, back, sneaky places. 1:07:43 So 14 games that are not BTN games, but we'll just have to wait and see, folks. 1:07:50 TV, it's always tricky. 1:07:53 You got anything else for us this week, Veegs? 1:07:55 It's going to be a fun season. 1:07:57 Let's get to the season. 1:07:58 Let's get to overtime. 1:07:59 And thanks for everybody who's coming back to listen to us this year. 1:08:03 It was so much fun to be in Tampa and meet so many listeners. 1:08:07 I've had a couple of run ins this summer with people who are podcast listeners. 1:08:12 And it brings a smile to my face. 1:08:15 It may be a short grin to my wife's face when she hears people come up and say, do you do the podcast? 1:08:20 I went to like a community theater thing this summer and someone came up. 1:08:24 I was like, are you Eric Vegoe from the GPL Podcast? 1:08:26 I was like, we're big in community theater. 1:08:29 We got that market down. 1:08:31 So let's go. 1:08:32 When I was selling my house earlier this year, I reached out on Twitter and the guy who fixed my front garage had some rotting wood. 1:08:41 He fixed it. 1:08:42 He goes, love watching the show. 1:08:43 Watch every once in a night. 1:08:46 So that's all fun stuff. 1:08:48 Well, it's going to be a fun season, Veegs. 1:08:50 I'm looking forward to it. 1:08:52 It's going to be, I'm Jack. 1:08:53 We're going to have some new guests on this year on the podcast as well. 1:08:56 So stay tuned for that. 1:08:58 But that's going to do it for this GPL Podcast. 1:09:02 You know, we'll be back next week. 1:09:04 And like I said earlier, we're going to have Derek Burns on from the Dinky Town Athletics to talk about some NAL stuff. 1:09:09 And of course, we're also going to preview the series with St. 1:09:12 Thomas. 1:09:12 You know, the game at the X, the game at the RHE. 1:09:15 For those of you watching live, stay tuned for some overtime. 1:09:19 But for the rest of you, we'll see you next week on The GPL Podcast.