0:03 This is The GPL Podcast, part of the Pulltab Sports family. 0:09 Oh, boy, Jup making mistakes. 0:12 I love it. 0:27 Is that when I get to pour another Old Fashioned? 0:30 I was told it's okay. 0:31 Oh, yes. 0:31 I tip this on the show. 0:36 7 bucks at Mich, I can put bottles every Thursday, Friday night at grandma's restaurant's loon, 18th party, 21 to drink, come on down. 0:44 Now, here's Jupiter and Vegoe. 0:51 Jûpe Good evening, and welcome to The GPL Podcast, episode number 299. 0:59 Jûpe Well, Veegs, not a great weekend at Penn State. 1:07 Vegoe Yeah, I think we're hoping for a split, maybe with, you know, maroon and gold colored glasses, but it just didn't come together for the Gophers last weekend. 1:18 Vegoe Happy Valley's has been a tough place for Minnesota, and it is again this year. 1:25 Jûpe Well, before we get too much into that, let's talk to somebody who's had a little experience with some Gopher Hockey and some, you know, down times and Gopher Hockey too. 1:33 Jûpe Let's bring them in. 1:36 Jûpe Nick Angell, how's it going, man? 1:38 Jûpe Welcome back to the podcast. 1:40 Nick Thank you for having me. 1:41 Nick Number 299. 1:42 Nick I'm so excited that you're going to have somebody really special for 300. 1:49 Jûpe We've had Pat on quite a few times. 1:50 Jûpe He's perfect for 300. 1:53 Jûpe It's going to be fun to have Pat on. 1:54 Jûpe And on at 7 o'clock at night, so long before he goes, well, a few minutes before he goes to bed. 1:59 Nick So right after that tater tot hot dish or meal. 2:05 Vegoe Strong overtime potential for show number 302. 2:11 Jûpe We might have to bring in some guests. 2:12 Jûpe Don't you think, Veegs? 2:14 Vegoe Throwing that out there to GPL Nation. 2:18 Jûpe You know, all right, Veegs, let's talk about it. 2:21 Jûpe That Friday night game was bad. 2:25 Jûpe It was just bad all around. 2:29 Vegoe I think one of the things that stood out to me about Friday night is a lot of the Gopher chances were one player all by themselves. 2:38 Vegoe A lot of times it was just one player with a decent scoring chance. 2:42 Vegoe But because there's no secondary puck support, there's no urgency to the game, there's no defensemen joining the rush. 2:50 Vegoe Everything was just quickly extinguished by Penn State. 2:53 Vegoe And I think we've learned last year and a half, Penn State hockey has gotten a little bit better. 2:58 Vegoe There's a little bit more structure and it's not going to come easy for teams when they play against Penn State. 3:04 Vegoe And the Gophers were just solo efforts, rush after rush, shift after shift. 3:09 Vegoe And it's really hard to be successful in College Hockey if that's what you got. 3:14 Jûpe Three, nothing lost, Nick. 3:16 Jûpe Yikes. 3:18 Nick I mean, I'm always impressed with Vegoe's takes. 3:22 Nick I've messaged him a couple of times and just say, hey, you are a great hockey mind. 3:27 Nick And I think he's dead right. 3:30 Nick It was some individual efforts, but if it's just a bunch of individual efforts, you're going to lose as a team. 3:36 Nick That's how it's going to happen. 3:37 Nick And that's what happened. 3:41 Jûpe Well, sometimes I would say Vegoe's, an individual effort could really lift a team, but there was just none of that. 3:48 Vegoe Well, I think sometimes an individual effort can help a team if the other team makes a mistake. 3:54 Vegoe But I think when the other team is in their structure, you can't play that kind of hockey. 3:58 Vegoe You're going to have to hold on to pucks. 4:00 Vegoe You're going to have to buy time because even if you do get a quality shot, the goalie is only focused on you. 4:06 Vegoe There's no threat for them to have to push across. 4:08 Vegoe There's no threat for them to get off their angle. 4:11 Vegoe Good goal tenders aren't scared of one shooter coming down one side of the ice with three defenders out there. 4:18 Vegoe It's when you have the threat of maybe a pass or shoot or you're able to change the angle. 4:22 Vegoe That's when you can threaten goal tenders. 4:24 Vegoe But if it's just an individual effort, one side of the ice out of nothing, goalies love that all day. 4:30 Vegoe I think we saw a couple goalies at Minnesota State put up some really good stats when they had that structure from them. 4:37 Jûpe Definitely. 4:37 Jûpe And then we've got a 5-2 loss Saturday. 4:40 Jûpe I was listening to part of the radio broadcast praising them all. 4:43 Jûpe They played much better. 4:44 Jûpe They really didn't play too bad. 4:45 Jûpe But Veegs's still a 5-2 loss. 4:49 Vegoe Well, the way the end of the game shook out, they did have a chance to maybe get in it on Saturdays, whereas I thought Friday there just weren't very many chances for them to get into it. 5:00 Vegoe Obviously, the goal tending for Minnesota this year has not been great. 5:04 Vegoe If you look at the advanced stats for the two games, they're not that far apart. 5:10 Vegoe But what you're seeing is the other teams are getting a little bit better goal tending and the Gophers are not. 5:16 Vegoe And we saw that as, you know, Moscow pulled Aerie on Saturday, giving up that critical goal at the end of the first. 5:24 Vegoe That's just a downer and too much for this team to overcome. 5:28 Vegoe They just can't outscore mistakes like that. 5:31 Vegoe And it's really one of the things holding them back. 5:34 Jûpe And that's kind of what I was going to say, Nick, is, you know, DePasquale came in, he's already down three nothing, hoping to inspire the team. 5:42 Jûpe He didn't do that bad the rest of the game. 5:44 Jûpe I think he played a pretty good game, but like Vegoe said, they just don't have the offense to come back. 5:49 Nick Yeah, it's tough. 5:50 Nick I mean, anytime, if we're just being honest, let's call this year, it's been a bit of a rebuilding year. 5:57 Nick You know, it's tough when, if you're in a rebuilding year and you're down three rip, two rip, it's tough to come back from that, right? 6:03 Nick You have to have a good start and they had to start on Saturday. 6:08 Nick Was it Zeamer that scored, I think, right off the bat and it's like, okay, we got a good start here. 6:14 Nick And when your team is lacking a little bit, you need a couple of big saves that are going to keep you in it and keep the team buzzing. 6:21 Nick And they just, they haven't gotten that. 6:23 Nick I don't think either of the goalies has played bad. 6:26 Nick They're doing well, but you need that big save that just keeps you in it. 6:31 Nick That one or two times a game where, hey, go pack a goalie on the shins or on the pads because he kept us in this one and now he's giving us a chance to win. 6:41 Nick And when you go down a few goals right off the bat, it's pretty tough. 6:45 Jûpe And Veegs, we've actually talked about that all this year. 6:48 Jûpe We're like, we just want to see that, let's say maybe they're not supposed to make just something to give them a push. 6:55 Jûpe And we just haven't seen it in the goal-tending area. 6:59 Vegoe Yeah, because this team has been chasing a lot this year. 7:02 Vegoe I'm sure Gopher Hockey stats could probably pin it out better than I could. 7:07 Vegoe But, you know, it just seems like they're playing from behind a lot and they're not getting that extra save early in the game that allows them to maybe get some momentum, maybe get a lead. 7:17 Vegoe It's just costing them quite a bit this year. 7:19 Vegoe And the other side of it is, you know, the defense isn't taking away enough from the other team. 7:25 Vegoe You know, if you looked at what Penn State did to the Gophers this weekend, you know, their defensemen were involved in a lot of scoring plays for them. 7:32 Vegoe It wasn't Gavin McKenna, you know, putting on a show. 7:35 Vegoe It wasn't Serato putting on a show. 7:37 Vegoe It was a lot of defensemen who were adding themselves to the rush and capitalizing as they could outman Minnesota at the net. 7:46 Jûpe So a rough weekend for the Gophers. 7:48 Jûpe And what about an hour and a half ago, we had a Gopher Hockey 365 was kind of going back and forth with me and you, Nick. 7:57 Jûpe And you're like, maybe I could write something up. 7:59 Jûpe But basically he was wondering, you know, what's it like to have a losing season? 8:06 Jûpe What's it like to recover? 8:07 Jûpe What does it take to come back? 8:10 Jûpe You experienced that, you know, the end of the Doug Woog error, moving into the Don Lucia error. 8:15 Jûpe What did it take to make the team and the program turn around? 8:20 Nick Yeah, it was, you know, we're texting or tweeting back and forth. 8:25 Nick Calling it these days. 8:27 Nick And, you know, I was trying to come up with like what it is exactly, right? 8:31 Nick Because when you're in the moment and you're a below 500 team, I forget the exact stat and I'm sure we'll see it in the comments. 8:39 Nick What, you know, 467 or something like that was the winning percentage my first year. 8:44 Nick It was tough, right? 8:45 Nick To be a sub 500 team, you're supposed to be the pride on ice. 8:49 Nick And there's a lot of weight on your shoulders. 8:51 Nick And at the time, you don't really know what to do, in all fairness. 8:57 Nick You know, you're 18 to 20 years old. 8:59 Nick You don't have this like 25 year, 30 year history of understanding the moments and how that changes and how it can make you or break you. 9:10 Nick You know, so I took that question to heart and I just started writing down the little changes that we made that made a big difference. 9:19 Nick And it kind of turned into a creative writing assignment for me because I wanted to make sure I answered it. 9:26 Nick And I answered it honestly and efficiently. 9:30 Nick And it turned into like two pages of notes where I just started writing. 9:37 Nick And I really enjoyed it because I think it was beneficial. 9:40 Nick And one of the things I do is I work with the Gopher Hockey alumni and I go in and I present to these young student athletes every single year and I talk about what the Gopher Hockey Alumni Association can do for them while they're playing, when they're done playing, how we can help them. 9:59 Nick And so I do these presentations and I just grabbed one of the slide decks that I've used and just started bullet pointing it out to try to explain all the little things that we did because there wasn't one thing. 10:15 Nick It was like nine or ten little things when you add them all up. 10:19 Nick But if I had to start, I would probably just say honesty. 10:23 Nick We were honest with ourselves, like this is what it is and we're going to have to do what we do. 10:28 Nick So here, like this is the first slide deck. 10:31 Nick And we always said in our locker room, what happens in this room matters. 10:36 Nick Right? 10:37 Nick And if you're honest with yourself, you know that turnarounds don't start in the standings, they start in the room, like one by one. 10:44 Nick Like my first year below 500. 10:47 Nick I didn't look at that as a failure at the time, I probably did. 10:51 Nick But that was our foundational year. 10:54 Nick That was the year we figured out who we were going to be. 10:57 Nick And we have that amazing vision now when we're looking back to say, yeah, now we know who we were. 11:05 Nick But vision is better after time. 11:08 Nick And then if you go to the next slide, I put on there progress isn't linear, but it has to be intentional. 11:17 Nick Like losing sucks. 11:18 Nick There's no way of getting around it. 11:21 Nick Losing absolutely sucks and you have to accept it for what it is. 11:25 Nick And we knew that that year didn't look good on paper, but it told us who we were and it told us who we weren't. 11:33 Nick And you can't skip that step and you have to identify the standards first, and then you can try to start living up to them. 11:41 Nick So before those wins come, you have to have accountability that has to show up, roles have to be clear, and there has to be real buy-in from the locker room, from the players. 11:54 Nick And then if you go to the next slide, it'll, so I'll just rip through all these slides. 11:59 Jûpe Yeah, let's just go through it. 12:00 Jûpe Veegs, jump in if you have any thoughts while we're kind of going through this. 12:04 Vegoe Well, I just do want to touch on one thing, like before Nick keeps going, is that, you know, he's talking about this from the alumni standpoint, what can we do for you? 12:14 Vegoe And it's not just like alumni connecting people with jobs because they're alums, it's because they're honest, it's because they're accountable, it's because they are tied to a culture that allows them to be confident. 12:27 Vegoe It's like these are things that apply to sport, but these are the things that apply to life, and successful people do these things. 12:34 Vegoe So I appreciate Nick adding his experience and history with this as part of this message, because like these things are so tied together, and if you want to be successful as an athlete or in life, these are crucial. 12:49 Nick Yeah, and it's, I mean, we have the collective mental horsepower and the collective experience of hundreds of alumni that we, that these young student athletes can leverage, you know, whether it's they're having trouble in school or they're having a personal issue with a girlfriend or their parents or their agent, there's no experience that these kids are going through right now that one of us has not went through personally, and they can lean on us, and that's one thing that we talk about. 13:20 Nick And this isn't the exact presentation I give, but it's pretty similar in that we're here for you guys. 13:27 Nick We all wore those numbers. 13:30 Nick Now, some of these younger guys have a lot higher numbers than we ever could have. 13:34 Nick But, you know, and I think it's in one of the later slides, I'll get to it, but I see you don't own that number. 13:41 Nick You just rent it, and you rent that stall, and you carry that tradition with you every every single time. 13:46 Nick And that goes to my point too, is culture before confidence. 13:50 Nick Like when you're losing, your confidence is fragile. 13:54 Nick But the culture isn't, right? 13:56 Nick So if you establish that culture, you can kind of lean back on that. 14:00 Nick And, you know, we didn't get better because we suddenly believed we were great. 14:04 Nick We just got better because guys started showing up early. 14:08 Nick Details started to matter. 14:10 Nick Your work ethic became non-negotiable. 14:13 Nick Guys would call you out if you weren't given 100%. 14:16 Nick And the room, most importantly, the room became player driven, not coach driven. 14:22 Nick The players established the bar and the level and the standard. 14:28 Nick And there was nothing less than above that standard that was acceptable there. 14:36 Nick Losing seasons expose leadership. 14:38 Nick The best thing about our tough year is it showed us really who our leaders were, right? 14:43 Nick And it's not always the guy that's just running around patting you on the shin pads. 14:47 Nick It's the guys that work even harder, that stay invested, that raise those standards. 14:54 Nick And then when you find out who those leaders are, that really forms that championship core. 15:02 Vegoe And I think, you know, I was talking to Bob Oskow today at availability. 15:06 Vegoe And one of the things that is coming up is that, you know, the confidence just isn't there for players right now as they're going through this. 15:14 Vegoe And they're kind of struggling through this, you know, crucible of leadership. 15:19 Vegoe You know, it's a tough time. 15:21 Vegoe It's a hard time to hold each other accountable. 15:22 Vegoe And it's a hard time to be a team. 15:25 Vegoe And I think they're going through that because this isn't a team that's got really, really super strong upperclassmen leaders. 15:31 Vegoe So right now they're having to develop and push through that at this season. 15:36 Nick Yeah, I see a lot of our 902 class in this team, right? 15:44 Nick When we came in in 1998, it was tough. 15:47 Nick The program was having some tough times. 15:50 Nick And it allowed us to move into some roles that probably a lot of younger underclassmen hadn't gotten right off the bat. 16:01 Nick And you look at like who it produced and you look at our very best players. 16:05 Nick I mean, hey, was Johnny Pole an amazing player? 16:07 Nick Absolutely. 16:08 Nick But given and same with Jordan Leopold, right? 16:11 Nick And you look at these guys and you say, well, these are guys that didn't just turn it on their senior year, right? 16:17 Nick They were given some amazing opportunities and they took the most of those opportunities. 16:21 Nick They established a core and a culture and really took it to the next level and set that standard for everybody else. 16:29 Nick One of the things we stopped is we stopped chasing outcomes and we started chasing habits, right? 16:34 Nick So what's that mean? 16:36 Nick Instead of, you know, we need to win, it became, we need to win the battles. 16:41 Nick We need to have good changes. 16:42 Nick We need to play defense first. 16:44 Nick We need to practice harder every single day because the scoreboard always follows those habits once you've established them and it just takes time and we knew that and, you know, it's easier to say that when you're a freshman or sophomore and just say, hey, you know, we're really, we're building something here, you know, well, how do you feel when you're a senior, right? 17:06 Nick Oh, we're really building. 17:07 Nick It's a rebuild year. 17:09 Nick Like, that's difficult to get through, but you understand that you're part of something bigger. 17:16 Vegoe And I think one of the things that's challenging with college athletics right now is that when you have upperclassmen who are in that situation where it's not going well, there is that pull to think about what's next. 17:30 Vegoe There is that pull to think about, talking to my agent, my player development person with my NHL team that has my rights. 17:36 Vegoe And it's a little bit of a distraction. 17:39 Vegoe And it's something I think a lot of college programs are struggling with right now, in how to get through that time period. 17:47 Vegoe Yeah, absolutely. 17:49 Nick And every year was something new for us. 17:53 Nick I can only speak to my experience there four years. 17:57 Nick Year one was kind of about identity. 17:59 Nick We figured out what it meant to be a gopher and be that gopher every single day. 18:04 Nick And it was tough, right? 18:06 Nick And then year two was more about the accountability side of things, whereas the standards became real. 18:11 Nick There was no more hiding. 18:13 Nick Everybody was going to be honest. 18:14 Nick And if you didn't do your job, guys are going to let you know in a real significant way. 18:18 Nick Year three was kind of about confidence, starting to feel good, knowing that, man, we should expect to win a little bit more here. 18:26 Nick And that's what happened. 18:27 Nick We weren't hoping to win, we were expecting to win. 18:30 Nick And then year four was all about belief, where we knew if we played our game, we'd done the foundational pieces, we'd worked our buns off in the summer. 18:40 Nick We had a great culture, and we knew if we went out and we played our hardest, we were going to be a damn tough team to beat. 18:50 Nick And then championship teams grow scars together. 18:54 Nick I mean, that first year was tough. 18:57 Nick And I'm so thankful that there was no social media. 19:02 Nick And I mean, these guys have to deal with... 19:05 Nick No, I mean, like, think about, like, what these guys deal with, with all the crap that they take, where people can send messages directly to them, slide into their DMs. 19:15 Nick We never had to deal with that. 19:16 Nick And I think Mike Tyson had, like, an amazing quote talking about, like, social media, just saying, you know, social media made you all way too comfortable with disrespecting somebody and not getting punched in the face. 19:27 Jûpe Yes. 19:28 Nick I, and, you know, I mean, what these kids have to go through, it's completely different. 19:33 Nick And, you know, are these, some of these kids taking some hits right now? 19:36 Nick Yeah, for sure. 19:37 Nick But, you know, those championship teams grow scars together and it builds resilience. 19:45 Nick It removes entitlement. 19:46 Nick It creates hunger and it forces honesty. 19:50 Nick Because sometimes when you read those comments and, hey, I mean, back in the day, GopherPuckLive, you guys had a lot of, you know, you had a lot of people that, you know, threw a little shade. 20:02 Nick And I'm just glad there was kind of just maybe that one primary source of smack talk that I only had to look at. 20:09 Nick But, you know, now these guys got Twitter and Instagram and whatever else. 20:14 Nick It's just a different vehicle. 20:16 Nick And if you use those scars, you're going to grow together. 20:19 Nick And you're going to find some honesty that maybe guys need. 20:25 Vegoe I do think that there's, you know, there's got to be the leather jacket, as PJ Fleck calls it. 20:31 Vegoe It's like you've got to be able to take that noise. 20:33 Vegoe And I think you also have to realize, you know, are you a lion that's going to listen to an ass? 20:38 Vegoe Or are you a lion that only listens to lions? 20:40 Vegoe And can you ignore the asses out there that are trying to take shots of you because it's fun for them? 20:45 Nick Yeah. 20:46 Vegoe You know, you don't want to go in the mud with the pig because you're both going to get muddy and the pig is going to enjoy it. 20:51 Vegoe You just have to rise above it. 20:53 Nick I think it was one of my first games. 20:56 Nick Well, it was at least my first season. 20:58 Nick But I know there was a fan or heckling me and somebody was yelling, Angel, you suck. 21:04 Nick Give back your scholarship. 21:05 Nick And I know my mom was ready to turn around and take a five minute major with the guys. 21:14 Jûpe But also, you know, the thing is by your senior season, that wouldn't have bothered you at all. 21:19 Jûpe It is about growing too and being able to handle that type of. 21:23 Nick Yeah. 21:24 Nick So the next side was just, hey, the ship isn't going to turn all at once, right? 21:28 Nick Even though you make that mental switch of like, okay, accountability, honesty, hard work, it doesn't happen right away. 21:35 Nick You have to, it just turns one degree at a time. 21:38 Nick And that just means better practice, tighter locker room, more consistent effort, cleaner details. 21:45 Nick And then once you do that, the outside world, and you start winning, people are going to start calling that like a turnaround. 21:50 Nick And that feels amazing because all that hard work, you start seeing that and start hearing it. 21:56 Nick Even if you're not listening to it, you'll start hearing it and that starts building that confidence. 22:04 Nick You don't flip the switch and start winning. 22:06 Nick I love Chad Roberg in there. 22:07 Nick I got to throw a little. 22:09 Nick My fellow Duluth East guy, Rudy Chad Roberg, amazing guy. 22:14 Nick But it turns degree by degree, and you have to just stack days, you have to stack habits, you have to stack accountability. 22:27 Nick And I know I've said accountability a couple of times because it's so important. 22:31 Nick And like I said, it just comes from that room. 22:33 Nick And when you wake up and you realize you've done all the work necessary, then that switch is just going to turn on for itself. 22:45 Jûpe I like that. 22:46 Nick And then the appreciation of what you've got, right? 22:51 Nick I've got a couple of guys. 22:53 Nick We get to fly private a lot of times, but it feels great. 22:58 Nick But when you look back and what I look back, and I wrote appreciation there because our worst year, that first year ended up being one of our most important years, because it taught us how to build something real. 23:13 Nick And everything that followed was a result of that work. 23:17 Nick And I always appreciated those guys that were sophomores, juniors, seniors, older guys, upperclassmen, that were part of it, and never got to really appreciate all that work that we'd all put in together. 23:38 Nick And I said, never forget, we all just rent that jersey. 23:41 Nick It's about the foundation, not the shingles, right? 23:48 Nick That's one of our favorite lines that we talk about right now, is just renting that jersey in the locker room. 23:56 Nick And I think it kind of speaks for itself, right? 23:59 Nick You know, your last year, our last year was all about the shingles, but you know, there was three other years where we're putting up the walls and doing the foundation and drywall and wallpaper and all that. 24:11 Nick And this one I think is really important, is championships have a roster, but they also have a lineage, right? 24:22 Nick Those guys that came before you, some will build that championship and others are going to lift the trophy. 24:29 Nick And both of those matter. 24:32 Nick So I'll say it again, champions have a roster, they also have a lineage, some are going to build it, some are going to lift it, both matter. 24:40 Nick So what I always tell the guys, and we say it in our Gopher Hockey alumni chats, is the work you're doing today is essential, even if somebody else is going to lift that trophy, you have an obligation to yourself, to this community, to this state, to this organization, to raise the bar every single day and be accountable. 25:03 Nick And then I kind of end where we started, what starts in this locker room matters. 25:08 Nick In the end, guys can say, well, the coach didn't do this, or the equipment manager didn't do that, or my skate. 25:14 Nick In the end, it starts and ends in the locker room, and it's up to the guys to hold each other accountable. 25:22 Jûpe Great stuff. 25:23 Jûpe That is a lot of great stuff. 25:25 Jûpe I hope it would go for 365. 25:32 Nick That's a long, long answer to a short tweet. 25:35 Jûpe No, but I like getting in depth in things like that, like how has it been done before? 25:43 Jûpe Then it gets people thinking, that's how it was done before? 25:46 Jûpe How could we do it now? 25:47 Jûpe How can we take this and adapt it to our situation? 25:51 Jûpe You just have to learn from people. 25:53 Jûpe You have to listen to people. 25:58 Jûpe It seems like you had a lot of personal accountability, but you also had a lot of team work, you know. 26:03 Jûpe I might be a great player, but I depend on that guy to back me up, my other guys. 26:07 Jûpe And you just, that's how the team becomes a team. 26:11 Nick You know, I'll tell you a story. 26:13 Nick The pregame skate before our national championship game, we had two guys get into a fight in the pregame skate before the national championship game. 26:24 Nick One guy was on the power play, and he didn't want to stand in front and get hit in the ankles. 26:32 Nick And one of the PK defensemen was pissed because that guy wasn't standing in the front, and that was his job. 26:40 Nick And, you know, in the end, I think the forward understood what the D meant after they dropped the gloves, and the D understood what the forward meant, right? 26:50 Nick They both understood both sides of it, but that guy that didn't want to stand in front, was Grant Petolny, who scored the game-winning goal in front of the net on the power play. 27:03 Nick Or not in the power play, but in overtime. 27:05 Nick So it... 27:08 Nick It was on the power play. 27:09 Nick Yeah, it was a power play. 27:11 Nick You know, so you think about, like, that's just... 27:12 Nick That's holding a guy accountable. 27:14 Nick That's not being an asshole. 27:15 Nick That's just saying, hey, little details matter, do the right things, do them in practice, even do them in the pre-game escape before the national championship game. 27:25 Jûpe And Veegs, who made a career out in front of the net? 27:28 Jûpe Grant Batoni at Minnesota. 27:33 Vegoe I mean, the details matter. 27:34 Vegoe And I really like Nick's part about the lineage and about the importance of guys, you know, who might not have the success in the present, but they're building something in the future. 27:46 Vegoe And also hearing the PK guy going after the power play guy, who's, you know, has the glory role, the other guy maybe doesn't. 27:54 Vegoe And, you know, every team that's successful, I think there are guys that the fans don't look at as key players, but they help practice run. 28:03 Vegoe They make players better. 28:04 Vegoe They add to the competitiveness of a roster and a program for ice time, for praise, for whatever. 28:12 Vegoe And there's no days off in practice for a team that's successful. 28:16 Vegoe And so you need everybody to get going. 28:18 Vegoe And I just think that's so critical for team success. 28:21 Nick Yeah, everybody brings something to the table, right? 28:24 Nick You know, some guys are more the meat and potatoes, other guys are bringing us, you know, bringing the salad. 28:30 Nick But you can't have anybody that just brings a fork, right? 28:34 Nick Everybody brings something to the table. 28:36 Nick And I think what made our team successful as we got better was that there was an honesty about it and an accountability to it. 28:44 Nick And I'll use an example of my good friend, Pat O'Leary. 28:50 Nick You know, Pat was 6'3, 210. 28:53 Nick I think he was a second or third round draft choice with Phoenix. 28:57 Nick So I probably dated myself a little bit. 29:01 Nick And, you know, on paper, he's the guy that should be first or second line. 29:05 Nick And he just, he never got that opportunity. 29:09 Nick But I'll tell you what he didn't do. 29:12 Nick He didn't poison the locker room. 29:14 Nick He didn't bitch and complain. 29:16 Nick He got the nickname, the Bus Captain. 29:18 Nick And it was a compliment. 29:21 Nick Because the guy showed up every single day when we were going to go on the road and made sure that, hey, did everybody bring their skates? 29:28 Nick Did you bring your extra pair of skates? 29:30 Nick Do you got your extra set of laundry in case we go on into overtime so you can change your shirt and have dry gear underneath? 29:36 Nick He made everybody better. 29:38 Nick He contributed every way he could. 29:40 Nick When he got out on the ice, he worked his ass off every single shift. 29:45 Nick But he earned the name the Bus Captain and it was a compliment. 29:48 Nick It wasn't anything to make fun of him and guys appreciated from him. 29:52 Nick He didn't show up on the score sheet, but he was one of the first guys out there. 29:56 Nick If you watch that goal when we score, he's one of the first guys off the bench, full speed running into that pile. 30:07 Nick I didn't have it on the slide deck, but with the presentation that I give to the guys, I say, hey, be the bus captain. 30:13 Nick Everybody needs the bus captain. 30:15 Nick Don't poison the locker room. 30:16 Nick Be the guy that's working hard. 30:17 Nick Be the guy that accepts her role and just does it 100 percent. 30:23 Jûpe Well said. 30:24 Jûpe Well said. 30:26 Jûpe Well, we got to keep moving forward here. 30:28 Jûpe As part of that, we need to talk about one of our new sponsors, VeegsS, Cascade CBX Sport. 30:35 Vegoe Yeah, I just got off the ice with my team and I had some aches and pains. 30:40 Vegoe So I turned to this little miracle that got the Cascade CBX Sport. 30:44 Vegoe The list of benefits using CBD is long. 30:46 Vegoe You can use it to knock out pain. 30:48 Vegoe You can use it to reduce inflammation. 30:50 Vegoe You can use it to sleep better. 30:53 Vegoe One of the things about CBX Sport is that it's NSF certified for sports. 30:58 Vegoe So if you have young athletes who need a little pain relief, you know, this is going to not show up as one of those 300 band substances. 31:06 Vegoe So visit cascadecbxsport.com or, you know, look for it around and trust the shield to stay on the field. 31:16 Jûpe All right. 31:16 Jûpe And of course, we thank CascadeCBX for being a sponsor of The GPL Podcast. 31:22 Jûpe Vego, let's take a quick look at your top 20 this week. 31:24 Jûpe Michigan still at the top. 31:27 Vegoe Yeah. 31:27 Vegoe And they're coming to town. 31:28 Vegoe I think the big thing with Michigan that everybody's working about now is their goalies hurt. 31:34 Vegoe But the one thing, you know, you get with Michigan is a lot of talent. 31:37 Vegoe They are just outscoring any mistakes that they seem to make. 31:41 Vegoe They've got four losses on the year, all the quality teams, and they split in all those series. 31:48 Vegoe So you look at Michigan, they are a tough team. 31:50 Vegoe They swept Providence. 31:52 Vegoe They have the biggest quality win bonus in the MPI because they have played a tough schedule and have come out shiny at the top of those rankings here. 32:01 Jûpe Yeah, we will definitely get more into them in a little bit here. 32:04 Jûpe Well, you probably do not like to see Michigan at the top there, huh, Nick? 32:09 Nick No, not at all. 32:11 Nick Okay. 32:12 Nick The last game I played against him, we beat him, so I don't really care. 32:15 Jûpe That's good. 32:16 Jûpe Did you like that College Hockey Showcase back then? 32:19 Jûpe That just seemed like one of the best tournaments. 32:22 Jûpe Yeah, I loved it. 32:24 Nick I mean, I love the WCHA. 32:29 Nick So that's probably the thing I'm the most nostalgically missing is the WCHA. 32:37 Nick That was pretty awesome. 32:39 Nick But yeah, the Michigan, Western Michigan, you like to see the Gophers. 32:47 Jûpe You would like to see the Gophers, but they're not there to get to be there anytime soon. 32:59 Vegoe And I think we're still wondering how the NPI is gonna shake out. 33:02 Vegoe It's different this year. 33:04 Vegoe If you look at past pairwise rankings, at the end of the year, they were pretty close. 33:11 Vegoe But I think as we're seeing throughout this year, it's kinda up and down. 33:14 Vegoe We're still seeing Dartmouth in the top 10 of the NPI. 33:17 Vegoe We're seeing a lot of ECAC teams that are in the top 10 of the NPI. 33:19 Vegoe We're seeing a lot of ECAC teams. 33:20 Vegoe I think there's probably a couple teams outside this 20 that are still threats as well. 33:24 Vegoe Augustana still getting stronger, Veegs, just a little bit each week. 33:28 Vegoe Yeah, they just keep getting stronger. 33:29 Vegoe They're still getting stronger. 33:32 Vegoe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:33 Vegoe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:34 Vegoe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:36 Vegoe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:37 Vegoe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:38 Vegoe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:39 Vegoe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:40 Vegoe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:41 Vegoe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:42 Vegoe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:43 Vegoe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:44 Jûpe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:46 Jûpe I think that's the biggest thing. 33:47 Jûpe They're getting stronger, Veegs, just a little bit each week. 33:50 Vegoe Yeah, they just swept Norler, Michigan. 33:52 Vegoe You know, that's probably not, you know, something that's going to help them, but, you know, they didn't fall in the trap, as some people say, when you play a weekend like that. 34:00 Vegoe So Garrett Boyne is doing some good things there. 34:05 Jûpe Any other thoughts on the rest of your list there, Veegs? 34:08 Vegoe I've got Arizona State back in here. 34:10 Vegoe They're looking to draw in the MPI. 34:12 Vegoe They've had a couple of good weekends here. 34:14 Vegoe You know, they had the overtime loss to Miami, and the MPI, overtime losses don't hurt you that much. 34:20 Vegoe It's, you know, it's.4 of a win. 34:22 Vegoe And then the win against Miami has had a surprising year so far. 34:26 Vegoe We got St. 34:27 Vegoe Thomas in Minnesota State kind of on the fringe of this top 20. 34:30 Vegoe You know, CCHA going to get two teams. 34:33 Vegoe They need those two teams to pull away from the pack. 34:36 Vegoe And they just played each other. 34:37 Vegoe So you can't pull away when you when you have that going on. 34:40 Vegoe Someone's got to lose. 34:42 Jûpe Well, this afternoon, Veegs, we had an announcement that the portal this year is going to start later. 34:49 Jûpe It's going to start the Monday after the National Championship game. 34:52 Jûpe So it's going to be April 13th. 34:55 Jûpe It's going to last 15 days, which is shorter than, I think, the 45 days, but we had before. 35:00 Jûpe It's going to run to the 28th of April. 35:02 Jûpe Well, one thing I like it that is after the National Championship game. 35:06 Jûpe So there's not this that whole two weeks, which is crazy. 35:09 Jûpe And, you know, some teams are going to the frozen four and other teams are picking up players. 35:14 Jûpe So I do like that it's after, but quite the decision today. 35:18 Vegoe Yeah, you know, I think one of the things with the NCAAs is they're trying to have more hockey people make hockey decisions. 35:24 Vegoe You know, no longer are these decisions being made by non-hockey folks. 35:28 Vegoe They have their own committee that's kind of putting these rules forth. 35:31 Vegoe And this one makes a lot of sense for college hockey. 35:34 Vegoe Now, don't, you know, don't be naïve. 35:37 Vegoe There are going to be players that are going to find homes before, you know, April 13th. 35:41 Vegoe You know, the agents are going to do their due diligence behind the scenes. 35:44 Vegoe I'm sure coaches talk to coaches and people will find homes. 35:48 Vegoe But I think, you know, nothing can be official until the 13th, which I think is good overall for most teams. 35:56 Jûpe Well, I see Richard Babbs from Facebook posting this. 36:00 Jûpe What about the Golden Helmet NIL program? 36:02 Jûpe What's going on with that? 36:04 Jûpe Well, with talking with you, Nick, and talk with Eric Brever, who's watching tonight as well, it has just become utter chaos. 36:13 Jûpe And just starting up and getting going now is really a lot more complex than it used to be. 36:21 Nick Yeah, it is. 36:22 Nick And in all fairness, the most important thing for any collective that, or any organization that works with a young student athlete with NIL is that you understand the rules and that you don't jeopardize these kids' eligibility. 36:40 Nick And right now, so much is up in the air. 36:43 Nick And, you know, this isn't Eric or I talking. 36:45 Nick You can read about it with the collectives. 36:49 Nick You know, it's more in the football and basketball area because that's really kind of where a lot of the big money is. 36:54 Nick And many of the collectives have kind of bypassed NIL GO, which is the NCAA's clearing house for all deals. 37:04 Nick So every student athlete that has an NIL deal, over $600 has to submit that to NIL GO, and that is run through, I believe, PWC. 37:19 Nick In any case, what we've heard and what we've seen and we have spoken to the University of Minnesota is that a lot of these collectives have taken in money and they're having a hard time getting their activations approved. 37:31 Nick They're not getting denied. 37:34 Nick They're just not getting approved. 37:36 Nick They do launch, they do show all of their approved deals and all of their denied deals. 37:42 Nick The approval has a big number. 37:44 Nick It's 127 million or something crazy the last time I looked. 37:48 Nick Then there was 20 million of deals that weren't approved. 37:51 Nick But they're not talking about the deals that just are sitting in limbo, and that's what we've heard through a lot of collectives, is the approval process is just not really happening, and there's some big money collectives out there that have just kind of bypassed it, and said, we're just going to pay the kids. 38:11 Nick So, you know, that can definitely be problematic. 38:15 Nick And that's, I don't think that's anything we would want to do. 38:18 Nick And so, as this year kind of went on, we made the decision to say, okay, let's just press pause right now. 38:25 Nick Let's let a lot of these football and basketball collectives work this out and see how it shakes out. 38:31 Nick And we're probably getting to a stage right now where we need to revisit and say, okay, what are we going to do? 38:36 Nick How is this going to work? 38:38 Nick How do we work with the university? 38:39 Nick How do we work with the student athletes? 38:41 Nick Because right now, the NCAA would much prefer these students to go out and get their own deals directly, right? 38:50 Nick Work with a car dealership, work with a grocery store. 38:52 Nick But these guys are student athletes. 38:55 Nick They have a full time job, which is school and an athletic career. 39:01 Nick They're not out there going to the Cub Foods and the Luther car dealerships, right? 39:07 Nick So it's kind of an interesting place right now. 39:12 Nick And if you look, even Dinkytown athletes, I know we've had some conversations with them. 39:20 Nick I think one of the last conversations Eric Brewer and I were on was with the legal counsel from the Athletic Department just talking about the different landscape and all the questions that we had. 39:31 Nick And I would rather be a day late and do it right than a day early and do it wrong. 39:38 Nick So that's kind of where we sit right now. 39:40 Nick We would love to launch it. 39:42 Nick And I think if we launched it tomorrow, we would collect significant amounts of money through memberships and sale of different opportunities and engagements. 39:52 Nick But if you can't fulfill those engagements, there's no point in taking in the money. 39:58 Nick Because we don't want to be in a place where we've made all these promises. 40:01 Nick Yes, A, you're going to get you X, Y and Z for your membership. 40:04 Nick But now we can't actually get those deals approved and we can't fulfill our obligation to the supporters and the fans. 40:13 Nick So right now we're still kind of just watching and letting it play out because we don't want to put anybody's athletic career in jeopardy. 40:22 Nick And I think most fans when they hear that say, yeah, let's just wait a second. 40:27 Nick And certainly there's some other programs out there that are, we'll just say a little more advanced right now, not through technology or willpower or anything like that, but especially in the football and basketball arena. 40:44 Nick Hockey is, everybody talks a lot about the $700,000 that's rumored from Penn State, from McKenna, right? 40:52 Nick I don't know if that's true. 40:53 Nick I've never seen it in writing. 40:55 Nick It's a lot of rumor and conjecture. 40:57 Nick But we'll see how it plays out. 41:00 Nick We're actively pursuing it. 41:04 Nick I get emails from Eric or texts at least a couple times a week, just with different updates about the landscape. 41:13 Nick And it's something we would love to do, but we want to make sure we do it right. 41:17 Nick And like I said, we don't want to jeopardize anybody's eligibility, especially with how flexible we could say things are moving. 41:29 Jûpe Veegs, one frustration I've just always had is I think the university could be doing so much more for themselves. 41:35 Jûpe Watching the games of Big Ten Network this weekend, they pan the crown, they go over to the side, you see the big Penn State hockey shop, and you see all these jerseys hanging up, and you can see players' names on jerseys they're selling. 41:49 Jûpe This is Minnesota. 41:51 Jûpe We should have figured that out ten years ago. 41:55 Vegoe You would think Minnesota would have figured that out. 41:57 Vegoe I do know that their deal with Fanatics is holding back a lot of apparel potential for Minnesota and they just kind of negotiated themselves into that for some stuff. 42:11 Vegoe I do think the authentic jerseys are out there as an option. 42:14 Vegoe I think the University is a little hesitant to invest in inventory. 42:19 Vegoe You know, you are able to order the $500 game authentic style of jersey. 42:24 Vegoe I think a lot of fans have sticker shock, but that is what the North Dakota fans are buying as well. 42:30 Vegoe You know, they are getting those expensive CCM jerseys, you know, in the NHL shops, those jerseys are expensive. 42:37 Vegoe That's what's out there. 42:38 Vegoe So, it's just something that's not going easy for Minnesota. 42:42 Vegoe What I'm interested in, Nick, a little bit about the NIL GO, is what kind of are the deals that are being approved? 42:51 Vegoe What kinds of activations are, you know, kosher right now and people could pursue? 42:57 Nick As far as like the dollar amounts or the just the type of deals that are being done as far as... 43:06 Vegoe Both if you're willing to share your experience and what the marketplace is like right now. 43:11 Nick Yeah, I mean, the marketplace, it's a little unique, right? 43:17 Nick That and what we've heard, because we're not currently active in the marketplace. 43:22 Nick So everything is a little conjecture. 43:23 Nick And what we've heard is that a deal that is proposed by a student athlete and let's say a car dealership or a bank or wherever, right? 43:33 Nick A private entity that does the deal directly with the student and submits it, that usually gets approved pretty quickly and with a fairly high degree of success. 43:43 Nick That same deal put through a collective from what we've heard is not getting approved, but it's also not getting declined. 43:54 Nick So that's kind of where we're at. 43:56 Nick It's different for different sports. 43:59 Nick I don't have any insight into, for example, what Dinkytown athletes might be doing with some of the student athletes. 44:05 Nick I know the last time I looked on Twitter, I think I saw Grubo was on there a month ago. 44:11 Nick I think that was the last time I'd seen a highlight from hockey there. 44:15 Nick Most of it was football, basketball, and I think volleyball. 44:19 Nick But I don't know how all the deals are structured because we haven't had anything approved and we haven't had anything declined, but we haven't had anything submitted either. 44:31 Jûpe Veegs, one thing I think is like you look at somebody like a Grubo, he came in already ready to go. 44:37 Jûpe Before he even started at Minnesota, he had some deals going. 44:40 Jûpe We had, you know, Dan Woog on right before the break and he had what a Grubo's hats. 44:47 Jûpe He had something going before he even came to Minnesota, but that's kind of that it's his own deal, though, too. 44:53 Jûpe He wasn't going through these big other areas. 44:56 Vegoe Yeah, it certainly feels like some of the athletes, you know, whether their advisors are helping them find this stuff, you know, there's apparel deals or local Dinkytown restaurants that have been partnering or other kind of brands that partner with players. 45:08 Vegoe You know, I've seen the PNC Bank assist the week for Minnesota Hockey. 45:13 Vegoe That's one thing I've seen, but I'm guessing that's more of a program partnership than, you know, Dinkytown athletes or, you know, NIL type partnership. 45:23 Vegoe But, you know, I'm just wondering what kinds of things are going to go out there. 45:26 Vegoe You know, Cub Foods has been pretty upfront about, you know, the NIL deals with some of the football players who are coming back. 45:35 Vegoe We'll see what that looks like and how that approval process goes. 45:38 Vegoe But that's one Minnesota company that's putting their name out there. 45:42 Nick But I would also add that our foray into NIL, I've spoken to a couple other college coaches that I've known and played with. 45:51 Nick And they have collectives that have significant amounts of money that they've raised. 45:57 Nick And they just can't get the activations. 45:59 Nick And they're kind of wondering, how do we get this money off the books? 46:06 Nick Are we able to donate it to the athletic department? 46:08 Nick And then they can use it as part of their 20.5 million, which probably wouldn't be an option for us because we've already had our 20.5 million allocated. 46:18 Nick But if you have a smaller school that doesn't have a robust football basketball program, let's say North Dakota or St. 46:26 Nick Claude State, Mankato, UMD, wherever. 46:31 Nick If a collective had, let's say, $400,000, is it okay? 46:35 Nick Well, we're not getting really much approved through NIL Go. 46:39 Nick Why don't we just give it to the Athletic Department, and then they can pay part of that almost more as salary without the activations. 46:47 Nick But then you're getting in some tax legalities as well, and I'm not a CPA, so I won't even venture down that role. 46:57 Nick But what we're experiencing is not unique, and especially within hockey, there are very, very few organizations that have this all figured out. 47:11 Nick As much as we would love to be that trendsetter, again, we just, eligibility is important, and that would be the worst thing ever if we cost some kid their eligibility. 47:26 Jûpe It definitely would. 47:28 Jûpe Well, we're going to have to keep moving here. 47:30 Jûpe One of those local companies you just spoke about, VEGES, Cub Foods, well, they sponsor this podcast. 47:37 Vegoe Yeah, Cub Foods, they've just got their hands in things. 47:40 Vegoe Gopher Athletics, they sponsor our podcasts. 47:42 Vegoe They're on PJ Flex headset. 47:44 Vegoe They've been a partner in these NIL deals that bring back guys like Jackson Howard and Javon Tracy and Darius Taylor. 47:52 Vegoe You know, they're involved and they support us and you should support them too. 47:56 Vegoe You know, if you're turning over the new year and you're going sober, they've got a bunch of NA things that you can get. 48:02 Vegoe If you're going Buffalo sober, you can get beer, wine and some of the lighter alcohols. 48:07 Vegoe If you're going California sober, you can get the THC things. 48:10 Vegoe Or if you're just looking for some food for your holiday parties, especially Super Bowl coming up, maybe you wanna start testing some recipes that you're gonna bring out for your group. 48:19 Vegoe Cub is gonna have everything you need. 48:22 Vegoe They're gonna have great inventory, great service, stores all over the metro. 48:26 Vegoe They deliver, you can order online and pick up. 48:29 Vegoe And I always enjoy going to my Quarry Cub. 48:31 Vegoe So shop happy, shop cub. 48:34 Jûpe All right, let's get into this weekend, guys. 48:37 Jûpe Big Bad Michigan coming to town, Veegs. 48:42 Jûpe The only good news is that Ivankovic, Ivankovic, how do we say Ivankovic? 48:50 Vegoe I think it's Ivankovic. 48:52 Vegoe He did very well for Canada. 48:54 Vegoe He's played pretty much every minute, except for the ones he didn't play this last weekend for Michigan. 49:00 Vegoe And a lot of people nationally have been talking about Michigan. 49:03 Vegoe It's like, wow, they have a goalie. 49:05 Vegoe This is a team that struggled at times. 49:08 Vegoe They didn't appreciate Jack LaFontaine when he was there. 49:10 Vegoe They've been looking for a goalie for a while. 49:12 Vegoe They finally have one. 49:13 Vegoe He gets run over, knee injury. 49:16 Vegoe Dane Nelson toe-picked into him. 49:18 Vegoe I don't think it was intentional. 49:19 Vegoe It wasn't like a run-the-goalie situation. 49:21 Vegoe But they have a goalie that hasn't played very much for them. 49:24 Vegoe And you have a coach who just signed an extension, who made that decision and has maybe put his team a little bit at risk here in the second half as they figure out what they have and if they need to go and add another goalie midseason. 49:38 Jûpe Well, then they were under the roster issues, don't they, Veegs? 49:41 Vegoe Every team seems to be able to get around that this year. 49:45 Vegoe You know, there's players who could be grandfathered in to that roster limit. 49:50 Vegoe So as much as people think there's a hard cap of 26, there have been ways for schools to get around that. 49:56 Vegoe Because if you remember when they put this cap in, they grandfathered in returning players because there are a lot of coaches who said, hey, I can't cut these kids, you know, if you put in this new cap. 50:08 Vegoe So there are some rules. 50:10 Vegoe As we've talked about with Nick and Dikketown Athletes and Golden Helmet Collective, Minnesota plays it by the books. 50:17 Vegoe Like they are rule fallers. 50:18 Vegoe They're not going to go on the edge and risk penalties from the NCAA. 50:23 Vegoe Other schools, Michigan, does not follow the rules, as we've seen in lots of NCAA legislation around them in the last couple of years with their football program and athletic department in general. 50:34 Vegoe So, I think, you know, if they were looking to add someone to compete with Steven Peck in the second half, we've seen teams go and grab goalies from the ECHL. 50:43 Vegoe You know, guys who played major junior, turned pro, ECHL maybe hasn't been very fun for them. 50:50 Vegoe They're not getting a lot of playing time. 50:52 Vegoe Maybe Michigan's a landing spot for them for the second half. 50:55 Vegoe You know, the second semester hasn't started yet, so they could add someone. 50:59 Jûpe Now, Nick, we're not going to feel sorry for Michigan losing their one goalie, but as a team who's number one in the nation, playing extremely well so far, outscoring their opponents, that's a scary prospect for them. 51:15 Jûpe I mean, imagine you guys losing Adam Hauser in January of 2002. 51:23 Nick Yeah, I mean, I'm an old school guy, so I say, hey, we got a guy that played one game and he's got an 85% save percentage. 51:31 Nick Run them over. 51:33 Nick I mean, I'm old school, right? 51:34 Nick You can't do that now. 51:35 Nick I totally get it. 51:39 Nick Nick, here's the deal. 51:40 Nick You got like six points all year and you're probably going to get suspended, but drive that guy through the Zamboni doors on your way through the net. 51:49 Nick That would be my, but I'm old school, you can't do it. 51:51 Nick I understand now. 51:53 Nick Random factoid. 51:55 Nick John Whipple's brother Alec, who is at Denver, I think he suited up last year for Denver in goal. 52:04 Nick They didn't have any goalies, so he was the backup out there. 52:09 Nick I didn't know if Veegs, I thought you might know that. 52:11 Jûpe I think we talked about it. 52:12 Vegoe I think I heard about that. 52:14 Vegoe I think I heard about that. 52:15 Vegoe Yeah, he was their e-bug. 52:17 Nick Yeah. 52:22 Nick If I'm Bob right now and we're talking about that, that, hey, they've got a really good goalie, might be injured. 52:27 Nick We're going to have a new kid in the net. 52:29 Nick I think you pepper that. 52:31 Nick You're shooting from everywhere. 52:32 Nick Lots of tips, lots of screens, lots of traffic in front. 52:39 Nick That's their Achilles heel, I guess right now until they prove that it isn't. 52:45 Vegoe Here's the thing, I think with a goalie like that, I think you tell your team, let's hold on to pucks. 52:51 Vegoe We don't need to take chances where we're not going to have traffic at net. 52:57 Vegoe Make sure we have pressure at the net when we put pucks there. 53:01 Vegoe Don't just give him easy touch where there's no traffic, he can see it. 53:05 Vegoe Don't let him get comfortable. 53:07 Vegoe Make him uncomfortable. 53:09 Vegoe Put him in those situations where there's pucks at his feet with traffic and having to worry about rebounds. 53:15 Nick Yeah, you need the old Eric Wendell. 53:16 Nick Eric loved to just drive wide and he would shoot that puck right at the guy's toes every single time and he scored, I'm going to say, half his goals from the side of the net. 53:24 Nick He loved to rifle that thing in there. 53:26 Nick I mean, talk about like a confidence killer for you. 53:31 Nick So I don't know if we got any Eric Wendell types on the team currently right now, but... 53:37 Jûpe I don't know if we have enough guys who should shoot low either, Nick. 53:40 Jûpe I mean, a lot of times these guys are going upper corner, it misses, it goes around, comes out the other side. 53:47 Jûpe I would really love to see a lot more dirty goals. 53:49 Jûpe You know, shots in the goalie skates, get the rebounds. 53:55 Jûpe It's when you're just completely missing the net and just taking opportunities away from yourself that's hurt them for quite a few years. 54:03 Nick Guys like the pretty goals. 54:05 Nick Actually, on that slide back, the one where I have Matt Kowalska jumping into the box after he scored the tying goal. 54:13 Nick That original slide is called Celebrate With Your Team, where I said, hey, listen, I understand everybody wants there like a couple minutes of fame. 54:22 Nick And I tell the story about Matt Kowalska. 54:26 Nick Scoring that goal, he's a tough kid from South St. 54:29 Nick Paul, Polish kid, had a big blue truck with dual exhaust and on the back it said Polish Pride. 54:35 Nick And Matt was out there to score that goal because we needed a kid that was gonna score a greasy goal. 54:41 Nick And when he did, he didn't go and celebrate with all his buddies. 54:43 Nick He didn't go top corner. 54:45 Nick He didn't go try to skate away to have his moment of fame. 54:49 Nick He went and went head first into his team because that's the way we celebrated. 54:55 Nick And so I think the game's changed, but I think these guys could still score some greasy goals. 55:01 Nick And if they do, I'd love to see them go head first into the box and celebrate with the team. 55:07 Vegoe Well, I do think we've seen Beckett Hendrickson, Javon Moore, make strides and being that player who drives the net, takes the center of the ice and really puts pressure on the other team. 55:18 Vegoe I think we've seen some of that from Tate Pritchard. 55:20 Vegoe I'm looking for a little bit more. 55:22 Vegoe I think if August Vellune is going to make an impact for this program, he's got to figure out how can I be a mean player out there and insert myself for the game. 55:33 Vegoe Because when you look at the Gopher roster, there are some big bodies. 55:37 Vegoe I think Hendrickson and Moore too that are starting to flash a little bit. 55:41 Vegoe I would like to see Brody Lamb get back to some roots of getting to the net and creating that traffic. 55:48 Vegoe Because as a Gopher player, I feel like he had some of his most success capitalizing on plays around the net off of chaos. 55:56 Vegoe I think that's a good game plan for him. 55:59 Jûpe Yeah. 56:01 Jûpe I was just going to say that we talked about it a little bit last week, Veegs and Nick, you can talk to this too. 56:06 Jûpe It's time for the freshmen to become sophomores in January. 56:11 Jûpe Yeah. 56:12 Nick One guy, and you just mentioned him, Javon Moore. 56:17 Nick First couple of games, I thought, okay, I've heard a lot about this kid. 56:20 Nick I wasn't really seeing it in the last couple of games. 56:23 Nick I feel like he has really started to not take over the game, but at least feel comfortable out there. 56:33 Nick You can see that he's looking to make plays versus just going out there and trying not to make mistakes. 56:40 Nick So he's 21 games in right now, and he's getting a lot of ice time, and he's starting to make plays, which is the right step you want to see. 56:49 Nick I've been very impressed with his progression over the last 10 or 15 games. 56:54 Nick It's been awesome to see, and we need more of that across the board. 56:58 Nick There's a lot of guys, but it's always hard to put a lot of pressure on the freshmen. 57:02 Nick Hey, freshmen guys, you got to do more. 57:04 Nick Hey, Brody Seamer, you're leading our team, but jeez, we need you more. 57:08 Nick It's tough, right? 57:09 Nick Especially for these young guys, but big players rise to the occasion. 57:13 Nick You look at Johnny Pole and Jordan Leopold, guys that led our team, they were put in big situations at a young age, and they rose to the occasion, and they stayed around long enough to really make it matter. 57:27 Vegoe And I do think more Mo Townsend looked impactful at times on Saturday. 57:33 Vegoe That's a group where I think they got put together so they could stop deferring to other players and start playing with each other and just playing what's in front of them. 57:42 Vegoe I think that was a smart move by the coaching staff, and I'll be interested to see if that group can stick together going forward against Michigan. 57:49 Nick Yeah, I'll be there on Friday night, so we're gonna see what happens. 57:55 Jûpe And that's what's interesting, Veegs, you know. 58:00 Jûpe This weekend could be a huge thing. 58:03 Jûpe It could be a devastating thing. 58:05 Jûpe You get swept. 58:07 Jûpe I mean, just think about it. 58:08 Jûpe The last time Michigan was at Mariucci, they got blanked out of the building, Veegs. 58:13 Jûpe They didn't score a goal all weekend. 58:17 Vegoe Yeah, this is gonna be an interesting weekend for Minnesota, big picture-wise, because one of the things I heard out of Motsuko today at Availability was saying, you know, we got to be patient with this team. 58:28 Vegoe I got to use the feather, not the two by four. 58:31 Vegoe You know, I feel good about this team. 58:32 Vegoe I like these guys. 58:34 Vegoe And he's saying, you know, if I didn't like these guys, I would be trying to hide it some other way. 58:38 Vegoe But I do. 58:39 Vegoe And he said, we got to stay positive. 58:41 Vegoe But I also hear him saying, we need to be a tough team to play against in the playoffs. 58:46 Vegoe And I think he means the Big Ten playoffs. 58:48 Vegoe So I think he's kind of seeing the picture here. 58:50 Vegoe It's like, you know, they're not going to be able to turn on a switch, like Nick was saying, and all of a sudden start winning. 58:56 Vegoe It's a progress with this group. 58:58 Vegoe And if the results come, the results come. 59:01 Vegoe But this weekend, you just hope to see those little details of their game start to come together. 59:07 Vegoe And I don't think this is a team that can outscore their mistakes. 59:11 Vegoe So it's going to be a learning process for them. 59:15 Jûpe All right, Nick, what is your prediction this weekend? 59:21 Jûpe How many points for Minnesota? 59:24 Nick I would love if they can take a game. 59:26 Nick I think it would be huge for the confidence. 59:30 Nick I mean, Eric, hey, I'd love if they take two games, right? 59:32 Nick But no, but I think you have to take those little steps, right? 59:36 Nick And I think spending enough time with some of the guys, talking with them, they give me a call every once in a while. 59:45 Nick I think they're starting to set that standard. 59:47 Nick And it's getting set by the players themselves. 59:50 Nick And yeah, last weekend was tough. 59:54 Nick But I think it's a pretty good team that, you know, I think most people probably wanted more out of this year. 1:00:03 Nick And there's probably more capacity to have a little bit of an upset. 1:00:07 Nick And I think this could be an interesting season or series that sets up the rest of the season. 1:00:12 Nick Is this going to be a team that can go and play really tough competition and take a game from them? 1:00:20 Nick Or is this going to be, hey, we've got 14 games left and 10 of them are against top 10, top 15 teams. 1:00:28 Nick And we're just looking to win two or three of those. 1:00:30 Nick So I would love to say, hey, let's take the first game. 1:00:35 Nick And once you take the first game, then the next game is up for grabs too, right? 1:00:39 Nick So I'm just hoping they take that first game, because it's a lot easier to go into that second game with one in the hand. 1:00:45 Jûpe Plus, you're there Friday night. 1:00:48 Nick Yeah, and I'm there Friday night. 1:00:49 Nick And I will say, actually, I remember this when we had our goals from our 0-2 team. 1:00:54 Nick One of the goals that we said is we will never lose two games in a row. 1:00:57 Nick And I think we fulfilled that goal, that we never lost two games in a row throughout the whole year. 1:01:05 Nick And being mentally, not just physically tough, but mentally tough and saying, all right, we lost one, let's go. 1:01:13 Nick And hopefully, the boys are in the locker room tonight or after the last weekend's game saying, hey, we lost two, we probably got a little left in the tank. 1:01:22 Nick Let's empty the tank on Friday, so we can look ourselves in the mirror and say, hey, we left everything out on the ice this weekend. 1:01:28 Nick We got nothing to hang our head about, and we're building every single day. 1:01:33 Jûpe All right, Veegs, give me your thoughts. 1:01:37 Vegoe This is a tough one. 1:01:38 Vegoe Like this weekend, like the way offense has gone for the Gophers this season, it's been a challenge. 1:01:46 Vegoe And I think they just have to commit to a little bit different style of play this year. 1:01:51 Vegoe They don't have a team that's going to be able to score on the rush all the time because they just have a hard time really getting in transition where they can outnumber the opponent. 1:02:01 Vegoe That's when you're going to have success on the rush, so they're not getting those chances. 1:02:04 Vegoe And I see a lack of puck protection time, you know, riding time, as you say. 1:02:11 Vegoe You know, when you're in the offensive zone and you're holding on to the puck and you're creating space for your teammates and you have defensemen coming down from the line to join the play and create two-on-one type situations. 1:02:22 Vegoe I'm not seeing that this year. 1:02:24 Vegoe So I worry that this is going to be a zero point weekend for Minnesota. 1:02:27 Vegoe And that's what I have coming. 1:02:31 Jûpe Actually, that's what I was thinking too. 1:02:33 Jûpe I was so positive last week with what, four? 1:02:37 Jûpe Oh man, that Friday effort, Veegs, it really brought me down. 1:02:45 Nick I mean, I get it, zero, but I'm kind of there too, but I, you know, there's a big, you know, gopher high. 1:02:51 Nick I mean, hey, if they don't win Friday night. 1:02:53 Jûpe There's Gopher in you that says, come on, let's go. 1:02:55 Jûpe Yeah. 1:02:55 Nick I mean, you know what? 1:02:56 Nick And if they don't win Friday night, it's not like I'm going to have to call my doctor and say, hey, put me on some Zoloft here. 1:03:03 Nick Like, you know, let's get some more Xanax for Nick here. 1:03:08 Nick That's not what I'm going to do. 1:03:09 Nick But I do think that this team does have the capacity to throw an upset out there. 1:03:14 Nick And if they do upset one of these top teams, I think it can be a catalyst for something really interesting. 1:03:22 Jûpe I'll have to see. 1:03:23 Vegoe I just need this team to prove me wrong and play a little bit different because I don't think they're going to get enough chances against Michigan where they're just going to be out scoring them. 1:03:35 Vegoe And I think Michigan is a team that's going to put up three or four. 1:03:38 Vegoe So is this a Gopher team that can, you know, steal a game with goaltending? 1:03:43 Vegoe I haven't seen that yet. 1:03:44 Vegoe Is this a team that's going to be able to score five or six? 1:03:49 Vegoe We haven't seen that very much this year either. 1:03:52 Vegoe I know that the penalty kill has been an issue. 1:03:54 Vegoe They killed off four against Penn State and kept McKennah off the special team's scoreboard. 1:04:00 Vegoe They're going to have a bigger challenge this week against Michigan. 1:04:03 Vegoe So I just think this is a tough matchup for them. 1:04:05 Vegoe The silver lining is they are playing a green goalie, but they have to have the discipline to their game to make that a factor. 1:04:14 Vegoe And I just haven't seen that kind of style play from them yet. 1:04:16 Vegoe And I'm hoping I do. 1:04:17 Vegoe I'm hoping I do get to see it. 1:04:19 Nick Did you see the pass that McKennah made between his legs to send the guy on a breakaway? 1:04:25 Nick I don't think they really highlighted it on TV. 1:04:28 Nick It was disgusting. 1:04:30 Vegoe He's got some disgusting to his game, which is good. 1:04:33 Vegoe That's why he's a potential topic. 1:04:36 Nick I didn't even watch the breakaway. 1:04:38 Nick That was the... 1:04:39 Nick Look at this pass. 1:04:40 Nick It's great. 1:04:41 Nick I wouldn't even do that in boot hockey. 1:04:45 Jûpe Well, as we're going through making our picks, all I was thinking about was Mote is going to give us a hard time, Veegs. 1:04:49 Jûpe And of course, this is a Gopher podcast. 1:04:51 Jûpe Delusional homertakes are accepted. 1:04:54 Vegoe You know who we're going to get that from? 1:04:56 Vegoe Pat McAulaty. 1:04:57 Vegoe So if you're listening to the radio call this weekend, you will get the homertakes. 1:05:01 Vegoe You know, he gave three stars of the game all to Gophers. 1:05:04 Jûpe He'll be on TV all weekend, actually. 1:05:06 Jûpe Yeah. 1:05:06 Jûpe It's Channel 9, so... 1:05:08 Vegoe That's right. 1:05:09 Jûpe So it's going to be one of... 1:05:11 Jûpe Maybe they should have you on the radio broadcast there, Veegs or Nick. 1:05:17 Vegoe Nick can swing by from his suite. 1:05:21 Nick Oh, no. 1:05:21 Jûpe He was in a suite a while ago. 1:05:23 Jûpe I don't think you're in a suite this weekend. 1:05:26 Nick I kind of want to get one now just to prove you're wrong. 1:05:32 Nick I'll take a picture of you from way up down. 1:05:34 Nick Yeah. 1:05:35 Nick No, I mean, I've got great seats. 1:05:37 Nick I've said this before. 1:05:38 Nick I said, listen, I used to have to run those stairs, so I will never go down those damn stairs again. 1:05:45 Nick So I am top row right on the red line. 1:05:49 Nick So I actually sit, I've got six seats, four are mine, two are for Brody Zemers' grandparents, who know my parents pretty well, and the parents don't always get the best seats in the corner, and they wanted to make sure they got some good seats, and they didn't have any seniority. 1:06:08 Nick So I said, hey, I can probably add two tickets to mine. 1:06:12 Jûpe Look at that. 1:06:14 Nick But I'm keeping the Gopher points for sure, and the parking passes. 1:06:20 Jûpe Well, hopefully the team proves us wrong. 1:06:22 Jûpe We want them to prove us wrong, Veegs. 1:06:25 Vegoe So it's an opportunity for growth. 1:06:28 Vegoe I'm looking for D who can walk the blue line and get pucks to the net, especially this week. 1:06:33 Vegoe Luke Middlestad is one of those D who's shown the ability to do that. 1:06:36 Vegoe He needs help. 1:06:37 Vegoe They need more guys who can create those shooting lanes and get pucks into dangerous spots so those big bodies can make an impact on this game. 1:06:46 Vegoe You've seen a couple of weekends now where the Gopher defensemen are putting them off the end boards because that's the only way they're able to get pucks down from the point. 1:06:54 Vegoe They need a little bit more than that this weekend. 1:06:57 Jûpe Well thanks for coming on Nick. 1:06:59 Jûpe It's great to have you on again. 1:07:01 Nick I was happy to come on. 1:07:03 Nick It's always fun to relive the past and look forward to the future here. 1:07:09 Jûpe Yeah, it definitely is. 1:07:10 Jûpe So maybe look for them at the arena this weekend. 1:07:13 Jûpe Say hi to Nick. 1:07:14 Jûpe He'll say hi to you. 1:07:16 Nick I'll be there with my twin seven year olds. 1:07:17 Nick There you go. 1:07:19 Nick We've almost got to make it through a whole game right now. 1:07:22 Nick I just give them as much candy as whatever they want. 1:07:25 Nick It's like, here, sugar yourself. 1:07:26 Vegoe Dad's gonna watch the game. 1:07:29 Jûpe I've caught you going to the candy area. 1:07:34 Nick You know, their favorite part of the game is actually going to the alumni room, which is right next to the shooting area. 1:07:40 Nick So we go into the shooting area and those kids shoot pucks. 1:07:43 Nick They think that's like the best part. 1:07:44 Nick It's the most expensive shooting training I've ever paid for. 1:07:52 Jûpe Well, definitely thanks for coming on. 1:07:53 Jûpe I hope you're ready for some overtime here. 1:07:55 Jûpe So we're going to move right to that. 1:07:57 Jûpe Veegs, do you have any last words? 1:08:00 Vegoe Drew been there already. 1:08:01 Jûpe All right. 1:08:03 Jûpe I think we're good. 1:08:03 Jûpe That's going to do it for this episode of The GPL Podcast. 1:08:07 Jûpe We don't want to have Veegs up on the screen. 1:08:09 Jûpe We're going to have me up on the screen. 1:08:10 Jûpe There we go. 1:08:11 Jûpe We'll be back next week for our 300th episode of The GPL Podcast with none other than Pat McCullough. 1:08:19 Jûpe For those of you watching live, stay tuned for overtime on YouTube and X. 1:08:26 Jûpe For the rest, you will catch you next week on The GPL Podcast. 1:08:41 Jûpe If you are watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and get notified each time we go live or post a video. 1:08:48 Jûpe If you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please rate our show and leave a review. 1:08:58 Jûpe For those of you watching live, you know what's next. 1:09:02 Jûpe It's Vegoes, Beverage of the Week. 1:09:06 Jûpe It's time for Overtime.