0:04 This is The Gopher Puck Live Podcast, episode number two, recorded October 18th, 2011. 0:18 Thanks for joining us here on The GPL Podcast. 0:21 I'm Craig Cotner, and as usual, I'm joined by Hammeh and Cardinal. 0:26 Guys, what's going on? 0:28 Good weekend, Docs. 0:30 Oh, yeah, you can't get any better than that. 0:32 Yeah, all good so far. 0:34 A gopher sweep in Duluth. 0:39 As a rube last week, I said sweep. 0:41 Obviously, I was more kidding around, so I didn't really think it was going to happen, but I'll just take the credit. 0:50 Yeah, you might as well, right? 0:51 Might as well. 0:52 I don't care what anybody thinks. 0:54 Well, like I said last week, it was scary that I was the only one giving them a little bit of credit saying the split, and I ended up being the one that was too conservative. 1:03 So little egg in my face from last week. 1:06 Well, what do you have to do though? 1:07 I mean, we saw them play against Sacred Heart, which was completely inferior team. 1:13 And I know in the last few years, we've all just kind of waited for something to happen. 1:22 And it's hard to believe that something is going to happen, but it seems like things are changing. 1:27 The effort is getting a lot better than it used to be. 1:32 The physicality of the team was noticeable all weekend. 1:35 So maybe this team is starting to turn around then. 1:38 Who knows? 1:39 What do you guys think? 1:40 Well, I have to admit, I mean, and this is probably something that a lot of people felt. 1:46 When they scored that goal in the final minutes on Friday to take the lead, I was like, same old, same old. 1:53 You know, we're going to lose it. 1:55 We choked on the lead, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. 1:59 And lo and behold, you know, they come back and tie it and win it in overtime. 2:02 So, you know, that kind of that kind of effort and that, you know, not quitting and it just kind of falls in line with what we saw the prior week as far as just effort throughout the game. 2:14 Of course, it wasn't a close game, but the point being is that they played 60 minutes. 2:19 And that's something that we couldn't exactly count on in past few years. 2:23 So that was a nice sign. 2:25 Yeah. 2:25 And I think, you know, the one thing that a lot of people kind of thought going into the year is kind of already showing in that, you know, they have a lot of depth up front. 2:32 The defense is going to have great moments, and it's going to have moments where, you know, Ben Marshall gets turned inside out or Nate Schmidt kind of coughs up in front like what happened on Friday night. 2:40 But, you know, those guys are making up for that with, you know, things in the offensive zone. 2:43 I mean, Nate Schmidt's been awesome on the power play. 2:45 And in net, Patterson has been as good as advertised. 2:48 So I think it's nice that, you know, going into the year, Gopher teams always look really good on paper. 2:53 And, you know, last few years, you know, last year getting swept by Omaha at the start. 2:57 And it's just been, you know, bad things happening early in the year. 2:59 But, you know, so far this year, and granted, one weekend's kind of a wash. 3:02 But I think at Duluth is, you know, pretty much as good of a test as you're going to see to this point. 3:06 You know, the team's kind of lived up to the hype and expectations across the board. 3:10 So I think that's definitely good to see. 3:12 Patterson, 92 saves. 3:16 Being at the game, I felt some of the statisticians or the official score was a bit generous on the North Dakota, or not North Dakota, but Duluth side. 3:29 I mean, I distinctly recall seeing, you know, when Bukestead scored his beautiful goal at the beginning of the second period of the Saturday game, the shot stayed at six. 3:43 And it was that way for some time. 3:45 So I think they took some liberties here and there, but I thought a lot of his shots were from way out, especially on Saturday. 3:54 There was a lot of them that were up high. 3:56 He would stand up, catch it in his chest, and that was it. 3:59 So I don't think there was a ton more opportunities that Duluth had. 4:05 I just thought that a lot of the shots were from way out, easy for him to save. 4:11 Well, it seemed like Duluth's strategy was to throw anything on net from any angle, from any part of the ice almost. 4:21 You saw shots being dumped in on Patterson from outside of the blue line. 4:25 I do agree that it seemed like the scorekeeper, whoever had a little bit of an itchy trigger finger when it came to marking up shots for Duluth. 4:38 I don't want to take away anything from Patterson because he obviously played well. 4:43 Definitely, he definitely played well. 4:45 I just thought the shots were a little inflated. 4:47 I agree. 4:49 I remember watching the Friday game back, I was there on Friday, but then watching the DVR back, just cruising through that. 4:55 I know FSN put up the stat where last year, Patterson, the four games where he made the most saves, where the Gophers, four games against Duluth. 5:02 So even though it's a different team this year on both sides, I think that's obviously a trend where Duluth puts a lot of shots on the Gophers, and whether it's the way the Gophers are playing them, or like Hammey said, if it's just a loose strategy, where they just want to pepper the net and try to get rebounds or whatever. 5:16 But yeah, like Hammey said, I mean, it's quality over quantity, it depends if you want to look at it. 5:20 But no, I mean, when a guy like Patterson back there as a team, it's nice to be able to rely on that. 5:25 We talked about that a few weeks ago where, yeah, the D-Core is young and they're going to make some mistakes. 5:29 But when a strength of your team is your goalie, which is supposed to be on paper, I don't think that's the worst thing in the world. 5:34 I mean, it's not like the goal for goaltending is supposed to be average this year. 5:38 And whoever the goalie was just stood on its head for one weekend, and you don't expect them to do that moving forward. 5:42 I mean, most nights, Kent Patterson is probably going to be their best player. 5:46 So there's going to be a lot of times where he puts up awesome numbers and it's not a fluke. 5:49 He's just really, really good. 5:51 Well, Frank Mazocco, that was his key to the weekend when we were talking with him last week. 5:56 He says, Kent Patterson has got to be the man and he turned out to be pretty correct on that. 6:04 The other thing that I would touch on that I found, I mean, the other key to the weekend obviously was our power play performance and the great thing that I noticed was both power play units were pretty effective. 6:17 I mean, a lot of times you see during, you know, even teams with good power plays, it's like they have one very good power play unit and then they get the second unit out there for 30 seconds or so and it's kind of just a throw in. 6:29 You don't really expect them to do much, but our second power play unit was, you know, very good. 6:35 I kind of like having Marshall out there on the point rather than Hull, but, you know, Budish and Ambrose, those are some big guys to have out there to try to move away from the net. 6:45 You got Condon out there and I just really liked how those guys plays. 6:49 And of course, you know, the first unit with Rao and Bukestad and Hanson and Schmidt and Hull, you know, those guys did a very good job. 6:57 So, I mean, I think moving forward, that's probably the biggest thing that I took out of the weekend was just how effective both units looked out there. 7:05 Yeah, I agree. 7:05 And I think, you know, I touched on this last weekend. 7:07 It's kind of been, I don't know if you want to call it a pet peeve of mine over the years, but it just seems like when the team gets on the Olympic size sheet that, you know, things tend to slow down a lot. 7:14 And I think with, you know, the skill that they have now upfront, where maybe it's been a little bit lacking in the last few years, when you get on that small ice sheet and you don't have as much time to think. 7:22 And it's just, you know, tick-tack-toe and whipping the puck around. 7:25 I think you really saw that this weekend and, you know, the results bore that out. 7:28 So hopefully they can keep it going this weekend. 7:30 Obviously get home on the big sheet. 7:31 But yeah, I mean, if the power play can be, obviously it's not going to be like it was last weekend all year. 7:36 But I mean, you saw what it did for a team like Duluth last year, where five on five, they were just OK. 7:40 But if you've got a lethal power play these days in college hockey, and that can make all the difference in the world. 7:47 Kyle Rowe, WCHA Rookie of the Week, and obviously he was one of the key cogs on that power play this weekend. 7:55 Well, yeah, I mean, the kid, I mentioned somewhere on the internet, the kid just has that it factor. 8:00 He just knows how to make plays. 8:02 He knows the smart head he plays. 8:05 He back checks. 8:06 He made a nice play on the back check on the Friday game. 8:11 The kid just knows how to play hockey. 8:13 I mean, he's one of those rare kids that come out of high school hockey, directly from high school hockey, and you just feel like he could actually make an impact. 8:22 And I think there are some people that doubted that, probably based on what we've seen from some other recent Gopher recruits that really are coming out of high school and didn't do anything. 8:32 And I think it's automatically assumed with everyone that that's going to be the case for any kid that comes right out of high school. 8:39 And he's one of the exceptions to the rule, I guess. 8:43 Yeah, and even not just the goalscoring with him, but I know like on Friday night, there was a lot of instances where he's along the wall and the team is trying to clear the puck out of their own end and he makes the right play, whether it's going for the puck and then shipping it out or tying up the defenseman. 8:55 So doing a lot of the little things like that. 8:57 And obviously, as a freshman, you're just going to have up and down nights and weekends. 9:00 But just seeing a guy so young, but doing the little things like that, he really speaks high to his hockey IQ and acumen. 9:08 I mean, that's where you know the right spot to go on the power plane. 9:10 Just the little things like that, where if you already seen that out of a kid in a big time spot on the road against the defending national champions, I think that really speaks highly of him and for his future as a gopher. 9:21 How about Eric Kaula? 9:23 I mean, the guy's got five goals already on the year. 9:27 He's lighting it up and he's doing exactly what we wanted to do. 9:30 But I know, Ryan, you talked about Eric, and when we were at a game recently, you're like, he hasn't really done much. 9:37 And then all of a sudden, boom, he scores. 9:39 And ever since then, he's been having a pretty good sophomore year so far. 9:44 Yeah, that was the Friday Sacred Heart game. 9:46 I believe so, yes. 9:47 Yeah, since then. 9:49 And he obviously started off great last year. 9:51 I mean, he was like a point per game player the first half of the year. 9:54 And then he had some injuries. 9:55 And he's not the biggest guy. 9:57 So as a freshman, being an 18-year-old freshman, as the season wears on, he might be worn down a little bit last year. 10:02 So you couple that with the injuries. 10:04 But yeah, I mean, he's been awesome. 10:06 And then he's kind of taken on that Phil Kessel, Jordan Schrader role on the power play, where he's kind of the forward that plays up high on the half wall and distributes the puck. 10:14 And I don't expect him to keep scoring at the rate he is, just because he's more of a playmaking type. 10:18 But no, he's definitely been a huge part of the power play, and he's been solid five on five as well. 10:24 But he's shooting as well. 10:26 That's one thing Lucio has said. 10:28 We want him to shoot more. 10:29 We want him to shoot more. 10:30 That first goal Friday night against the Luth, he just took a shot on that. 10:35 The screen went right over his shoulder, so he's shooting. 10:39 Yeah. 10:39 I mean, that's the key for him. 10:42 I mean, if you have that kind of ability, and teams have to play honest. 10:47 If they think that you're always going to be passing the puck, they're not going to be playing off of you. 10:54 So you kind of have to, for his sake, shoot the puck a little bit more just to keep him honest. 10:59 So it's nice to see that he's putting the puck in the back of the net, and as opposed to just deferring to other guys that's shooting the puck. 11:08 Of course, we got two wins this weekend, but all was not great. 11:13 Quite a few defensive breakdowns. 11:15 Marshall getting his jock left right at the circle by Herbert of Duluth. 11:21 And then you've got that by that, what was it? 11:24 Who turned it over late in that Saturday game? 11:28 That was Helgeson. 11:30 Helgeson to Brown to make it five to four, that was a brutal turnover. 11:35 The turnover for their first goal, I think, might have been Marshall again. 11:38 Or is it either Marshall or maybe it was Schmidt. 11:41 Coming into the blue end of the offensive zone and turned it right over and all of a sudden it was the other way and they scored on their first shot. 11:46 So there's still quite a bit of growing up that needs to be done back there. 11:52 Well, for me, the disappointing aspect of the weekend was how our top defensive pair played. 11:58 Helgeson and Hull did not play well at all. 12:01 They were each minus three on the weekend. 12:04 Turnovers and just, both of them looked to me just shaky handling the puck in the defensive zone. 12:14 And Lucia always talks about that low panic point with defensemen and wanting to make sure that they handle the puck and distribute it effectively. 12:23 And I'm a little concerned about how those guys are handling some of the pressure. 12:28 Hopefully, as time goes along, things will settle down. 12:31 But yeah, I mean, you kind of expect that thing out of a freshman like Marshall. 12:36 You know that there's going to be some growing pains. 12:38 And he played, I think, improved on Saturday. 12:41 But when you have some guys, especially a Helgeson, you really expect a little bit more out of them. 12:46 And so that was a little disappointing. 12:49 Yeah, and I think that could be, I mean, obviously the group as a whole is very young, but almost a byproduct of one weekend, you're against Sacred Heart, who didn't forecheck at all on the big ice. 12:57 And then you go up to Duluth and they were pressuring a lot on the small ice. 13:01 So as much as anything, I think it might have been just a byproduct of not having played in such a high intensity environment for so long. 13:08 And but yeah, I mean, I think and then, unlike past years where the defense has kind of been what it is with Gensel back now, I think there's reason to think that, you know, along with the mistakes, there's going to come improvement, whereas in the past, obviously, that's been kind of a knock on things. 13:22 So and then, like I said earlier, too, you're getting the, you know, like Nate Schmidt, maybe he turns over a little bit, but he's got what, six assists, so you're starting to get that production out of the back end. 13:30 I mean, not everybody is going to be a, you know, Paul Martin type where they put up, you know, 30 points in a season and hardly ever turn it over in a rock in their own end. 13:37 So, you know, I think with time, you know, hopefully at least because, you know, obviously the team can't, you know, cough it up as much as they did this weekend long term, but I don't think that'll be a long term issue for the club. 13:49 Any other thoughts on the weekend? 13:53 You know, I have to give Duluth some props on some of their young guys. 13:57 I mean, we talked about Herbert, you know, he was... 14:00 I like him. 14:01 He's a Jefferson kid, so... 14:02 Yeah, you know, yeah, I'm not surprised by that. 14:05 No, honest, you know, quite frankly, when I saw him in high school, I was not overly impressed and I thought that, you know, well, I don't know that that one's going to work out for Duluth, but he definitely played well last year in the USHL, and, you know, he certainly had a nice weekend against us, so I have to give him some props for that. 14:24 And, you know, I think that they'll have a good year. 14:28 I'll be interested to see how, if they break up JT Brown and Connelly. 14:31 I don't think that those guys are a real good match. 14:33 I think Brown's kind of a shoot-first guy, and I think Connelly needs line mates that are willing to distribute the puck around. 14:41 So I think that Duluth will have a good year, and I'm sure that they'll be in the hunt at the end. 14:47 Yeah, I mean, I think the obvious take away, and this was an issue for them pretty much all of last season, except for the end when it counted, it was the goaltending, and obviously the Ryder and Crandall combo, it didn't form last year, but even the truest Duluth fans, like drunk hockey guys of the world, were scared to death going into the NCAA tournament with those guys a year ago, and their decor obviously isn't as good as it was last year, and they're not going to score as much either. 15:10 So I think Duluth will be fine up front. 15:12 Obviously, Connelly and Aleksik and Brown, those guys will get it going, and their decor is okay, but I just really worry long term if those goaltenders can do it again this year. 15:21 I mean, neither one of them had the best pedigree coming in, not that that always means everything, and especially with goalies, you can find them out of nowhere. 15:28 I mean, you look at Michigan with Hogan the last couple years, and the guy who was his brother played there and whatever. 15:33 But yeah, so I just think that could be an issue for them, but hopefully for their case, that's not the deal. 15:40 Come on, man. 15:40 Ryder's poor man's Adam Houser. 15:45 Well, they both have a ring to their credits, so. 15:46 Yeah, exactly. 15:48 So how was your trip to Duluth Rhine? 15:50 You were up there one day, I was up there the whole weekend, then you had to go do your Vikings duty, but any Toga, anything like that? 15:59 Yeah, we pregame and postgame at Club Saratoga trying to help the local economy. 16:04 It's good to see a lot of Gopher fans in there. 16:06 So, yeah, I mean, most of the road trips the last few years have been, obviously you can kind of only control what happens pregame and postgame, but the centerpiece of the trip is obviously the game. 16:17 There's been a lot of down nights in recent years, but to tie the game with only 40 seconds left or whatever, and then to win an overtime at Duluth, that was an awesome deal. 16:27 And yeah, I don't know if I've heard rumors that the team is not up there next year on the WCHA schedule, and then we're kind of off into the great unknown in terms of what the non-conference schedule will be moving forward and how many times we'll travel to the St. 16:39 Claus in Duluth and on down the list. 16:41 So it was a good way to maybe the team's last trip for Duluth for a while to get a couple wins. 16:47 I hope not. 16:48 I always enjoy that trip. 16:50 That's the trip where we leave the kids at home and nothing to worry about, no driving, plenty of drinking. 16:58 It was a good time, as usual, definitely a good time. 17:01 Was drunk hockey guy okay on Saturday night? 17:03 I thought he might commit Harry Carrey based on his Twitter posts. 17:11 There was a point during the game, he sat a couple sections over, but he walked over to one section, just to the edge of ours. 17:20 He's got his boy in his hand and it's really quiet in the arena. 17:23 He just starts yelling at one of the Duluth players, start hitting somebody, something along those lines, just screaming. 17:30 I told him that he was a bad influence on his son, and well, he stopped talking then, but he could be heard throughout the whole arena when he started screaming. 17:38 Later I met him, we were heading back from Grandma's, because Grandma's was actually pretty decent Saturday night compared to Neil Diamond Night on Friday night. 17:48 I ran into him about midnight and he seemed fine with it. 17:52 He wanted to talk hockey. 17:53 He talked about what you talked about, about getting Brown off that line. 17:58 He didn't seem too broken up about it. 18:01 I have to give him credit. 18:02 He came on GPL and manned up his big talk the prior week and everything. 18:07 So give him credit for showing his face around there. 18:10 It's just a bit with him. 18:11 He's fishing, he's just waiting for some sucker to fall for it. 18:16 A lot of people do. 18:18 I usually just let it go because eventually he hangs himself. 18:22 He either hangs himself or comes back and he's nice, which he did this week. 18:26 That's good. 18:28 I can't speak to obviously, I was in Chicago on Saturday, but I know on Friday night it was good to wake up to the picture text from him at about 3.30 in the morning at Perkins as he was trying to get his picture with one of the nice female lady clientele, whatever you want to call it, from Club Saratoga who happened to make a way there too. 18:44 So as down as he might have been at about 9.30, 9.45 both nights, I think by the end of each evening slash morning he was doing okay. 18:53 I have one thing. 18:55 Friday night's game was at least 30 minutes longer than a normal game. 19:01 I thought the refs making decisions, it took them forever. 19:07 It seems like they were making mistakes. 19:09 I remember Minnesota had a penalty and after there was multiple guys in the box. 19:14 We started playing 45 seconds after stoppage, they noticed that they forgot to put a guy in the box. 19:21 It was just a lot of weird things this weekend. 19:23 Obviously, we're not going to go into who got the better of what, and obviously the Buddhist call was bogus, but it just seems like just simple things. 19:31 It was taking them forever just to get the game going. 19:36 Do we have to question anything about WCHA refereeing? 19:40 Of course, they all say, fans of other teams, that we're the ones who get all the breaks, which is a load, but nonetheless, I think that we would all agree that there's some quality lacking there. 19:53 Yeah, wasn't that the NCHC, wasn't that one of their main gripes has been? 19:58 Obviously, with Papa Shepherd, but just in general, and you look to me and the Gopher, I think this weekend it was what, Hunt and Shepherd, but you look around the league and there's a lot of, I know part of this is a byproduct of adding two teams, so you obviously have some extra games, but there's been a lot of turnover the last couple of years in terms of some of the familiar names that you're used to seeing and some of those guys, it was good to get out of there, but they're pulling from the amateur ranks or whatever in terms of referees. 20:22 So part of it might be an adjustment period for some of these guys, but it's just unfortunate they have to cut their teeth at a pretty high level. 20:30 Well, some of those reps are going to end up in the national. 20:33 You just know it. 20:33 Exactly. 20:34 You got somebody like a Don Adam who lives in Denver. 20:39 I don't think he's going to be in the WCH or Big Ten. 20:41 He's going to be, logically, he's going to be in the national. 20:45 I know Les Sue fans just love Don Adam. 20:48 Who doesn't? 20:52 Well, we had a couple of other series this weekend, and obviously we had Bucky Badger going up to Michigan Tech and getting swept. 21:02 I don't recall the last time Bucky's been swept by Tech, but maybe, actually, maybe the WCH playoffs maybe about five or six years ago. 21:11 I thought it maybe happened with one of their Wisconsin's somewhat good teams in recent years that they've had some issues up there. 21:19 You guys can chat, I can dig it up here. 21:20 But yeah, that's, maybe we'll lose one of the two. 21:23 Was it a couple of overtime games? 21:25 Yeah, I don't know if you guys saw the highlight of the Friday loss. 21:29 I did not, I heard there was a little controversy about somebody getting, saw a player checking a defensive player and that kind of took out the goalie. 21:37 The puck comes out in front and they score. 21:39 I haven't seen it, but that's what I was told. 21:41 Yeah, that's a pretty good description of it. 21:44 I mean, from the angle of the camera, you could see that there was some contact between the defenseman and the forward from Michigan Tech. 21:53 Yeah, he clipped the goalie a bit. 21:56 It's one of those things that if it happens to your team, you're going to be up in arms about it, and you're going to be like, yeah, we got screwed. 22:02 But it's the Badgers. 22:04 Well, yeah. 22:05 So I can see why they would be upset about that. 22:08 And it's kind of borderline. 22:10 I think most refs would probably call that, apparently. 22:13 But, you know, Tech's had some rough spots over the year, so I guess they deserve a break, especially at the Wisconsin's, you know, at their expense. 22:23 Yeah, it was February 23rd and 24th of 06, 07. 22:28 Wisconsin went up there and lost 2-zip on Friday and then 4-2 on Saturday. 22:33 But, I mean, for Wisconsin this year, I mean, you know, only a couple of weekends in, but, you know, that was kind of the big deal with them, is that they lost so many guys from last year. 22:41 I mean, juniors and seniors have scored a lot, both from, you know, the back end and up front. 22:45 And it's just, you know, they're, you know, freshmen and sophomores up and down the lineup. 22:49 And they have, you know, especially last year's class, I don't think it was quite, you know, obviously Eaves has done very well there recruiting wise, but it hasn't been at the same level. 22:56 And so they have a lot of, you know, some decent young guys, but they're just not, you know, experienced enough yet. 23:00 And so you combine that with the general, you know, rule of thumb with Wisconsin is that it's a defense first thing. 23:05 And, you know, they're going to be playing a lot of two, one, three, two type games. 23:09 And when you don't have that firepower that they've had the last few years, especially from the back end, you know, there's, I think that could be in the cards a lot for them this year, where they lose low scoring games, just a byproduct of their current roster and how they typically play with these as head coach. 23:23 Yeah, I know that we're going to be talking about, you know, some of the games this upcoming weekend and definitely offensively challenged. 23:31 I think that you're going to be seeing, probably because of their goalies as well, you know, maybe a little bit more of a conservative approach there. 23:38 And I guess we'll see how it works out for them. 23:40 But so far the returns haven't been great. 23:43 And we've got Bemidji getting swept at Colorado College, the Schwartz. 23:48 So they get a hat-trick in one of those games. 23:51 Nothing really surprising there, I guess. 23:54 No, I mean, that's pretty much what you would expect. 23:57 Although, you know, Bemidji did play solid the week before against Miami. 24:03 And it looked like they gave them a little bit of a fight, at least in the Friday game. 24:07 And, you know, it'll be interesting to watch some of these teams that are usually lower rung teams and how they do this year, because, you know, we get on Michigan Tech, for instance. 24:18 Obviously, it's only one series and Wisconsin is down this year. 24:22 But it'll be interesting to see how some of these teams do. 24:26 Yeah, and I think for CC, that top line with the Schwartz brothers, and then I think Scott Wrinkler is the other guy in that line. 24:31 And they had 10 points this weekend. 24:33 And, you know, that's going to be the bit with CC all year. 24:35 I mean, yeah, Joe Hall is pretty solid in that. 24:36 But I think, you know, they're going to sink or swim based on that top line. 24:40 And, you know, based on who they have on it and what they've done so far. 24:42 I mean, it's, you know, you don't know. 24:44 Obviously, it's way too early to know if they're going to be the second, third, fourth place team in the WCHA like a lot of people pegged them to be. 24:50 But if that top line is, you know, putting up three, four points a game, it's going to be a, you know, pretty dangerous team. 24:56 Okay, we got Maine splitting with North Dakota. 25:00 Winning a tie, right, for the Sioux? 25:01 Yeah, three points. 25:02 Yeah. 25:03 Oh, sorry. 25:03 Well, points, whatever. 25:05 You're just trying to rip on the Sioux, Craig. 25:07 Come on. 25:07 You're so anti-North Dakota. 25:09 You're part of the conspiracy. 25:11 I don't know what you're talking about. 25:13 I will admit to nothing. 25:16 All right, let's skip that series because nobody cares. 25:20 Let's go to this week. 25:22 This week, North Dakota goes to Wisconsin, and right off the bat, I think North Dakota is going to take care of Wisconsin. 25:29 If Wisconsin can't handle tech, they're not going to be able to handle North Dakota. 25:36 Well, I mean, I think, I was thinking about this series today, and I was going back and forth on what I thought about it. 25:45 Of course, I expect kind of a low scoring series. 25:47 I mean, Wisconsin is only averaging two goals a game so far, and UND is not scoring at a much better clip, and they've got a good defense, and I expect Wisconsin usually plays pretty solid defense, so I think it's likely going to be a low scoring affair. 26:04 And both games, Wisconsin is going to be desperate, and they're on home ice. 26:09 I think North Dakota is the better team, so for me, I'm going to call this one a split. 26:14 Yeah, I think that, you know, like Hammeh said, with Wisconsin coming home, and the Coles Center is a pretty tough place to play, and you combine that with the fact that North Dakota has got a lot of young guys, and this will be their first road test in a pretty difficult environment, so I think that could even play in field a little bit, but I think North Dakota is pretty well equipped right now to go in there and win just because they are so strong on the back end, and they might be able to withstand a little bit of a first period charge type thing, get to the first intermission 0-0, and their top two lines have been decent this year, and obviously their back end is really good. 26:46 So if I had to pick a point total, I'd say maybe three points for the Sioux, but a split certainly wouldn't surprise me. 26:53 Okay, let's quickly go through some of the others. 26:55 We've got Anchorage at Nebraska-Omaha. 26:58 I'll say three for Omaha on that. 27:00 Any quick thoughts on that? 27:01 Yeah, I'll take a split. 27:02 Anchorage has been pretty frisky. 27:04 They beat Omaha last weekend up in one of the Alaska tournaments. 27:07 So a rematch from last weekend, which you don't often see very often. 27:12 But Anchorage is, what, 3-0-1, and they beat St. 27:14 Cloud. 27:15 And granted, all the games have been up in Alaska, so not a prohibitive advantage for them. 27:19 But obviously, you see good teams go up there and struggle at times just due to the travel and time change and the whole deal. 27:26 But Omaha has not been very good. 27:28 They beat Colgate their first game, and then they haven't won since, and they haven't played any world beaters since then. 27:33 So I don't know if they're clicking in all cylinders yet. 27:35 So I think the COOs can come down and get a couple of points from them. 27:38 They lost Gansel. 27:39 It's the end. 27:40 Yeah, exactly. 27:41 They lost their key cog. 27:43 Actually, I tend to agree with Ryan. 27:45 I was looking at this series today, and, you know, UNO has started out slowly. 27:50 The goaltending situation is a little bit up in the air, I guess. 27:54 They changed goalies last weekend. 27:58 They haven't played particularly well. 28:01 So, you know, it's a little bit different this year. 28:04 I think they didn't start out quite as good this year. 28:07 So I'm probably going to go with the split as well. 28:10 Tech visits Bemidji. 28:14 Well, I mean, it's kind of like I talked about earlier. 28:17 It will be interesting to see how some of these, you know, typically bottom half of the league teams are going to be doing. 28:25 And, you know, how, you know, how real are they? 28:29 I mean, Bemidji's had probably the toughest schedule so far. 28:32 I mean, they've been on the road at Miami and then, of course, at CC. 28:35 So they're certainly going to be, you know, happy to be home and they've been challenged already. 28:40 So in tech, you know, they come off a nice sweep, but they took them to overtime at, you know, two games at home. 28:48 I think I'm going to go with Bemidji, at least getting three out of four points. 28:53 Yeah, it's, you know, with tech, they've played all their games at home. 28:55 And obviously, one series against American International, I think it was super easy. 28:59 And then, you know, challenging team, you know, playing Wisconsin. 29:02 But so yeah, first road trip with a new coach, you know, Bemidji has been tested, like Hameed said. 29:07 So yeah, I'll think Bemidji will take three or four points this weekend. 29:13 All right. 29:14 Mankato at Denver. 29:16 I, Mankato is awful. 29:18 I'm sorry. 29:19 They're going to get killed. 29:22 I don't have it in front of me, but just anecdotally, no matter how bad Mankato has been, and obviously over the last 10 years, let's say they've been pretty bad in Denver, his most years have been pretty good. 29:33 But for whatever reason, it seems like they go out there and give Denver some games. 29:36 I don't know if they're going to take any points out of it, but I don't know if I could see them hanging around one night and giving the Pioneers a little bit of an issue. 29:44 Yeah. 29:44 I just want to know if I can go back to the preseason picks and flip my last place pick to Mankato because they're looking horrible. 29:53 Plus they're dinged up and they got some injuries. 29:57 I was just saying to myself, why am I even, I shouldn't even say two sentences on this series because it's going to be a Denver sweep. 30:03 If it's not, it's going to be a miracle. 30:07 And Mr. 30:08 Dependable, Mike Doar, he's got no points in four games, so he's obviously doing well in the leadership and scoring department for Mankato. 30:17 The Vermont Catamounts heading to Mariucci. 30:21 They could play Minnesota for the first time. 30:24 The team's been around forever, but they've never played. 30:26 Yeah, I saw that in the release. 30:27 I thought that was crazy with the old, I don't know when Vermont came into hockey, but obviously back before my time with the interlocking schedule and everything, so I'm assuming they came in after that. 30:37 But you'd think with the Gophers being the NCAA tournament nearly every year and all the Christmas tournament and everything else, I was shocked to see that they hadn't played yet. 30:48 Well, it will be interesting because Vermont only had the one exhibition against the USA team and they lost to them two to one. 30:54 And it's one of those things where the Gophers just need to take care of their own business if they show up and play hard. 31:03 And we've talked about this last week about the Stacrit Heart Series, about playing down to the competition a bit in the past and maybe kind of going through the motions a bit, making some games closer than they needed to be. 31:16 And you kind of hope that this team is a little different. 31:20 I heard Lucia is on a show yesterday and he talked about how sometimes when you've had some good success, you can be a little bit harder on the team because they're mentally capable of taking a little bit more heat from the coaches. 31:33 So, I'm sure that the coaches will be on them this week. 31:36 And hopefully it will keep their head on straight and they'll come out with a sweep. 31:40 You know, I think Don has changed a little bit this year. 31:44 In previous years, when I'm taking photos between the benches, he's fairly quiet. 31:49 Unless something's really wrong, he's pretty quiet. 31:52 But I noticed in the Sacred Heart Series, they're up by five goals and he's like, keep it going guys, keep the pressure on. 32:02 Stay aggressive, especially him and Gensel. 32:05 Gensel is quite vocal too, but it seems like maybe he's picking up from what Gensel is doing and encouraging him. 32:12 Because he remembers these last few years and how they would play to the competition. 32:16 But it was clear to me against Sacred Heart that he was really pushing them even though they were killing him. 32:21 You're using the encouraging word. 32:24 Oh, jeez, here we go. 32:26 I wonder too with him being a little bit more vocal and how much of that plays into his health. 32:31 Obviously, the last couple of years have been a little bit tough and he's spoke publicly about not having the energy. 32:38 Obviously, it got better as maybe last season went on. 32:41 The year before is when he missed the series up in North Dakota and the illness really hit him hard. 32:46 But just having a little bit more balance in his step maybe because of that. 32:49 I mean, who knows how much that played into the last few years. 32:53 Nobody is ever going to be able to quantify that. 32:54 But I just wonder how much of him being more into it now has to do with just personally and health-wise being at 100 percent or really close to it. 33:04 Well, I'm sure that the fact that apparently he's got this new deal. 33:09 Granted, it might be one of those university friendly contracts like Brewster's was, but nonetheless, having that new deal and getting that anchor of John Hill situation off of his back, I'm sure that having Genselbeck, that probably helps a lot with being able to kind of just be driven about what we have in front of us and not having to deal with some of the other issues that maybe he's been dealing with the prior few years. 33:37 Yeah. 33:37 And one thing too that just from looking at it, playing devil's advocate, one thing that worries me a little bit about Friday night is, it's a six o'clock start against a nondescript team, and the Gophers' young team come sky high, sweeping the national champions, and I just worry that the place is going to be a quarter full at six o'clock. 33:56 And if they kind of, again, I don't think this will happen, but just looking at, you've seen it happen before and with really good Gopher teams or anyone else where there's that natural letdown and you hope that doesn't happen. 34:07 But with the young team and the atmosphere is going to be weird. 34:10 It's even on Sunday, it's going to be weird with a Sunday game at one o'clock. 34:12 Mariucci is always dead for those no matter who they're playing. 34:15 So, hopefully that doesn't play into it at all. 34:17 But just something to, it wouldn't shock me if they got off to a little bit of a slow start this Friday. 34:23 So, sweep? 34:26 Yes. 34:30 Yeah, having said all that, I mean, again, Vermont won what, eight games last year. 34:35 They have a handful of guys NHL drafted. 34:37 They lost a good deal. 34:38 They're leading scorers. 34:39 I just don't, and plus, like Hammy said, they haven't even played a game yet. 34:42 They played an exhibition game and lost to the US. 34:44 Under 18 team. 34:45 Now, we've seen decent college teams lose to them before, but generally, if you're losing to that team, especially with that team early in the year, where it's a lot of kids haven't played together forever. 34:54 And so it's not a good time to lose to an all-star team of sorts with the under 18 team. 34:59 So, coming out here on the big ice, I'm guessing Vermont's not geared towards to play on high up-tempo kind of game. 35:06 So, yeah, I think the Gopher Sweep, and long term this could be a good thing too, with the Parawise rankings come the end of the year. 35:12 I mean, I think they could play Northeastern during the holiday tournament if things break right. 35:16 But if you can get a couple of wins this weekend, it guarantees yourself a winning record against Hockey East. 35:20 And who knows at the end of the year with Parawise if the Gophers will be in the mix or out. 35:24 But it always is good these days to win your non-conference games from that standpoint. 35:30 Well, I'm going with Sweep as well. 35:32 I'm just trying to stay positive like I did last week. 35:34 So, Sweep. 35:37 Well, and they got what? 35:37 We have Duluth at Providence and New Hampshire at St. 35:40 Cloud as non-conference tilts as well. 35:43 So, yeah. 35:46 I think I think Duluth might struggle. 35:49 What's their first road series, right? 35:51 Yeah, yeah. 35:53 And I'm just being negative on them. 35:54 That's all. 35:56 Well, if you go over to St. 35:57 Cloud message board, those guys are all over their team. 36:00 So does that thing even exist? 36:03 I guess. 36:04 It's pretty quiet these days. 36:07 It's pretty quiet. 36:08 They're bitching amongst themselves. 36:10 Well, we've talked about the current recruits. 36:14 Now it's time to talk about some future recruits, right in your alley, Hammy. 36:19 Yeah, you know. 36:20 So where do you want to start? 36:21 I mean, you know, we've got about around ten kids who have committed, you know, to the program in the next, you know, I guess, two, three years. 36:35 Correct. 36:35 Who do you want to talk about? 36:37 Who's the biggest, who's the biggest get so far? 36:40 Yeah, boy. 36:41 You know, that's a tough one because there's some really good players coming, you know, down the pipeline. 36:46 And it really depends upon what you're looking at. 36:49 I mean, you got guys like Michelson who, you know, are, and Brady Shea was going to be, you know, those guys are going to be probably top couple round draft picks this next year. 37:00 You have guys like that who should make, you know, a nice impact, you know, at the U for, you know, at least a few years. 37:07 Then you got guys, you know, like Justin Clues. 37:10 I mean, that kid's just lighting it up in the elite league. 37:13 He's, I heard from a guy this week who has a relative that refs in that league and his relative raves about Clues being the best player in the league. 37:22 And I heard another WCHA assistant say that Clues is the best player in the league. 37:27 He's already has nine more points this year than what the leading score of all of last year had for the whole season in the elite league. 37:37 He's little, looks like about 5'9, 170, so he's not too big. 37:41 Yeah, he's one of those water bug types of guys who can dart around the ice, very elusive. 37:46 But he's very talented. 37:47 He's one of those guys that you say, if he keeps it up, he'll be one of those three to four year players that can do a lot of offensive damage in college. 37:56 So hopefully, that's the case. 37:59 So, Hammey, real quick. 38:00 So do you see him being here next year? 38:02 Is he more of a tweener guy that depending on, you know, who leaves early and things like that, or do you think he's a lot to be here next year? 38:09 You know, I was thinking about that, you know, looking at recruiting. 38:15 And I don't know factually if it's just a given that he's coming in next year, but it wouldn't surprise me just because I know that when I look at the depth chart, it looks like we're going to have needs to fill. 38:29 And I'm sure we'll have, you know, a guy like Bukestad, of course, will be gone more than likely. 38:34 And so I don't know. 38:35 I can't say for sure on that one, but I think that it's a pretty good chance that he'll be in. 38:39 And I think he's sort of like a Raoul. 38:42 I mean, they're one of those guys that they're so elusive and skilled that maybe they're one of those types of guys that can just, you know, bypass, you know, juniors for the most part. 38:51 I mean, he's played a little bit of juniors already, but I'm sure he will after this high school season. 38:56 But I honestly haven't heard for sure what the plan is with him. 39:01 So tell me about these Riley brothers. 39:05 Well, you know, it really depends upon, you know, some people think that it's a little bit of a package deal where you get the... 39:15 You got Mike Riley, Connor Riley and Ryan Riley. 39:18 And what is it? 39:20 That Ryan and Connor are twins, well, fraternal twins, but they're twins and then they've got younger brother Mike. 39:28 Yeah, I think most people probably think that, well, Mike's going to be the best player. 39:33 He's a defenseman and he's very talented and he's already been drafted. 39:38 Six foot, 165, I see. 39:40 Yeah, he's... 39:41 Well, K size, not huge, but he's probably still growing too. 39:46 He's probably like... 39:47 I mean, I don't want to compare him to really anybody, but I mean, I guess if I had to think about stature and what they kind of look like going into college, maybe like a Goligoski type of guy. 39:59 I mean, not real big and physical or anything like that, but very skilled and left-handed shot and good shooter. 40:07 So I mean, I think that he's the most talented of them. 40:10 I think Connors will probably play a good amount when he comes to the U. 40:15 I think the question mark is Ryan. 40:16 He's the smallest guy and he's not doing too badly. 40:22 I mean, you have to take those BCHL statistics with the grain of salt because it's kind of a depth challenge league and it's a very offensively driven league. 40:31 So you have to look at those numbers and say, well, at least they're doing all right compared to the rest of the players up there. 40:38 So I guess that's the best thing you can say about that. 40:40 So again, in terms of looking at next year, I mean, do you think, because on the current team, there's what, eight defensemen and there's nobody that on the surface is even close to being a flight risk, I wouldn't assume. 40:51 And you look at, you know, obviously Shay with being a likely first round pick, it seems like he's going to be here for sure, but that would put them even at nine. 40:59 So how do you see the kind of the defensive, you know, recruiting aspect and slots going into next season? 41:05 Yeah, that's the thing, you know, and that's the funny thing about the recruiting in general. 41:09 I've heard, you know, I know that they've looked at some guys, some other guys, for recruiting on defense, but I think they're going to be, from what I hear, a little more patient with the next defensive recruit, mainly because of what you're talking about there. 41:23 Pretty loaded as far as, you know, the guys that they have. 41:27 We don't have anybody that technically, you know, that we know is going to be gone next year. 41:31 And then you have, you know, two recruits already that are pretty talented. 41:35 So that brings you up to 10 defensemen potentially for next year. 41:38 I think that you're right on the money as far as what the pecking order would be. 41:42 I mean, Riley's, you know, a little bit more undersized and probably could use, you know, another year. 41:47 Whereas Shea, he's a little bit, he's physically, you know, probably going to be more ready. 41:52 And certainly he'll be prepared from the USA program. 41:55 I don't know, you know, we kind of have to see if we got any departures. 41:59 I mean, like in all, it's so early in the season, we don't know who's going to break out if anybody is going to. 42:05 So we'll have to see on that one. 42:07 I don't know what the plan is. 42:11 Well, further out, we've got Lou Nanny, a couple of Lou Nanny grandsons and Vinny Leterri and Louie Nanny, Louie from Edina and Vinny from Minnetonka. 42:21 Any thoughts on that? 42:22 That's a couple of years out, though. 42:24 Yeah. 42:26 I suppose a lot of people would probably say they were givens for The Gophers, given their grandpa. 42:32 Leterri was not quite that much of a given. 42:35 I mean, he was very much debating between North Dakota and The Gophers. 42:40 So that, you know, it's not quite the given that some people were thinking of. 42:45 To me, from a recruiting standpoint, he's very valuable because he has some very good relationships with some of his peers that were in the hunt for. 42:55 And he helped us bring Gabe Gertler in, and that kid is potentially going to be a lights out college player. 43:03 He's lit it up the last two. 43:05 Yeah, he's lit it up the last two years at the USA Selecs both in his 15s and 16s. 43:12 He's been one of the top scorers. 43:14 Florida kid. 43:15 Yeah, he's from Florida, although his father is from Minnesota, and so I'm sure that that didn't hurt matters. 43:22 But yeah, he definitely helped with that. 43:24 I heard that he's a, for sure, 2013 recruit, Vinnie. 43:30 He's going to apparently be playing high school hockey, of course, this year, and then next year he's going to the USHL, I guess, and coming into the U the year after that. 43:40 Louis apparently is more up in the air. 43:43 I don't know when he's coming in. 43:44 He's more of a, I think, you know, all these kids probably want to be top line guys, so on and so forth, but as we know, that's not how it necessarily pans out in college. 43:55 And I think Louis probably projects to be more one of those John Weibel types of guys, you know, a lower line guy that's hustles and fast skater, can chip in a few goals here or there, you know, and play a little bit physically. 44:08 So, I mean, they're probably going to have different roles. 44:10 Vinny is going to be probably more of a, you know, first, second line type of guy as he matures. 44:16 So they're definitely good catches. 44:18 I think that some people maybe look at Louis, you know, as why do they recruit him? 44:23 But I think that sometimes you can't overlook some of the intangibles. 44:26 And I hear a lot of good things about him as far as leadership and things of that nature. 44:31 And finally, in goal, we got Adam Wilcox. 44:34 We've kind of known he's been coming for a while, but he was drafted this year. 44:39 Heir apparent to Mr. 44:40 Patterson? 44:43 Well, I mean, he's been splitting time in Green Bay. 44:45 He's had some success. 44:46 You know, I've always been pathetic when talking about goalies. 44:50 I think that's one of those things where you kind of have to be a goalie to really fairly judge a goalie. 44:55 I don't really look at all that other kinds of, you know, oh, he's quick or he's got this method or whatever. 44:59 I just, you know, does he stop the puck? 45:00 I guess is the key. 45:02 And so that's the big thing there. 45:04 And, you know, I don't know anything, you know, a lot about the, what is it? 45:09 Shabrowski or whatever, you know, it's, we'll have to see how that pans out when he gets some opportunities here at the U. 45:16 So I would guess right now that he would be the next guy in line, you know, Wilcox, but who knows? 45:22 He's not going to be a veteran, obviously, so. 45:25 Yeah, I think if, oh, sorry, I was gonna say, if there's one area of concern, I mean, in the immediate future, it probably wouldn't be in goal, because no matter who is in net next year, it's more than likely gonna be a pretty big drop off. 45:35 And, you know, the flip side to that is that the D-Core, in theory, assuming nobody leaves early, should be, you know, fairly stacked next year. 45:42 So, you know, what you may lose in net, you might gain in, you know, having a little bit of a, you know, bigger, improved blue line. 45:48 But yeah, I mean, it's gonna be, you know, the last two years having Patterson as one of the best goalies in the league, it's definitely gonna be an adjustment for the team next year, it would appear. 45:57 Yeah, you don't want to forget AJ. 45:58 Michelson, too. 45:59 I mean, he's very fast, you know, skilled. 46:02 He's actually, I mean, well, he started a little bit slow in the regular season here in USHL, but he had a very good preseason, which kind of surprised me a little bit. 46:11 You know, kind of have high hopes that he's going to be a scorer. 46:15 I think some people kind of question it yet, maybe have a little bit of hopeful in them or whatever. 46:21 So, you know, he's a faster skater, but I'm just saying that there's a little bit of a question mark, how much of a contributor he's going to be. 46:28 But, you know, he's definitely a talented player, and I'm sure he'll be a couple, you know, top two or three round type of guy. 46:35 So who else is out there that hasn't committed yet that Minnesota's keeping their eye on, and probably North Dakota and Wisconsin as well? 46:43 Well, you know, the two that people talk about the most are Taylor Comerata and Hudson Fashing. 46:50 I mean, those are the two big-name local, you know, players that everybody asks about. 46:57 Ironically enough, I hear basically the same three schools for both, although I think Fashing might be looking a little bit more out East as well, I mean, as far as being open about some Eastern schools. 47:13 I heard that for Comerata, it's essentially The Gophers, Notre Dame and North Dakota. 47:21 In general, I felt very positive about the likelihood of him ending up with The Gophers, but I have heard lately that Notre Dame might be gaining a little bit of steam in terms of his interest. 47:37 So I'm not quite to the confidence level that I was in the past, but I still feel relatively comfortable, especially he's one of those guys that's friends with Lattery, and hopefully that kind of peer influence will help the cause. 47:51 So we'll see what happens with him. 47:53 And Fashing, I think that he'll take a little longer to decide. 47:57 I just get that vibe that that's going to take a little while yet. 48:00 I don't think that there's anything too impending there. 48:05 Do you want me to keep going? 48:07 I think we got the main guys. 48:09 We've looked at the guys who are out there. 48:12 We've seen the guys who have committed. 48:14 I think that's pretty much all we need to talk about. 48:17 Let me throw a couple more names out, OK? 48:19 We talked about Jake Gensel on GPL before. 48:23 He's got some offers and he's getting a lot of attention. 48:27 It's going to be one of those situations, similar to Lucia and his son Mario. 48:31 Is he going to have that opportunity to play for dad? 48:36 I think that is a decision he'll probably have to think about. 48:39 I'm sure that that's going to be something to be considered. 48:44 Whether he will or not, I don't know. 48:45 I know that Duluth has got a lot of interest in him, and I'm pretty sure St. 48:50 Cloud's offered it. 48:50 There hasn't been other schools, I'm sure. 48:53 So that's something to keep an eye on. 48:56 One player that has not been mentioned on GPL at all, that I kind of heard through the grapevine in the last month, there's a kid up in Penticton playing with the Ryleys and Mario Lucci and a company named Cody, I think his last name is Depork. 49:11 I don't know how to say it exactly. 49:12 It's kind of a weird spelling. 49:13 I think that's how you say it. 49:14 But I've heard that the Gophers might be watching him a little carefully. 49:20 He's a 1995 birth year, so he's a young kid, right-handed shot, kind of smaller, you know, one of those smaller quick kids. 49:30 He's playing on a line with Steven Fogarty, who's the Edina grad going to Notre Dame. 49:35 So that's the kid to keep an eye on as well. 49:38 I know there's some other schools interested in him as well, so we'll see how that goes. 49:42 I think that the Gophers will probably go, you know, defensively, I think, like we talked about, a little bit patient. 49:48 I've heard some names, Parker Reno is one. 49:51 We've talked about Eddie Wichow on the GPL. 49:56 So, I mean, there's some names to keep an eye on, but we'll see how it goes. 50:00 The one thing, too, with Gensel, obviously, is a point of reference with his brother out at CC having played for, you know, it's kind of similar with Mario and Tony, where, you know, the younger brother can refer to the older brother in terms of what it was like, and maybe have some different conversations than they would with their dad slash coach. 50:15 So, with Gabe having played for Mike, I think it was just one season out in CC, but still, to have that point of reference, I'm sure that's gonna be helpful for the younger brothers. 50:23 He makes up his mind here in the coming months or whatever. 50:27 Yeah, that's definitely a good point. 50:29 So, any other thoughts, guys, to wrap this thing up for this week? 50:34 No, hopefully, we are talking about another sweep next week. 50:38 I think, like I talked about earlier, that if we put the effort in, I mean, the talent advantage should be for us. 50:44 And, of course, the home ice advantage is there for us, granted in odd times, but nonetheless, it should be a sweep, but we'll have to see how they handle success after a couple of weekends of, you know, winning. 50:57 Yeah, and I guess, you know, big picture this weekend, and then you look, you know, up at Anchorage, and again, like we spoke about earlier, that's never easy, but I'd really like for this team to be undefeated with North Dakota coming to town and a chance to maybe pound those guys after taking some draw beans up in Grand Forks the last few years. 51:13 So not to look too far ahead, but as a Rube, I would really, really like to be undefeated and have that series be even bigger than what it might already be. 51:21 And for these guys to lay the hammer to them, that's my three week outlook. 51:25 So, hopefully, that comes to fruition. 51:27 Well, it would be nice to have a big series with North Dakota coming in a few weeks. 51:34 What do they play after? 51:36 Alaska? 51:37 Yeah, it's Vermont at home and then up at Alaska. 51:39 And then North Dakota at Mariucci. 51:42 Is that it? 51:45 Well, I think that does about wrap it up for this week. 51:48 You can always follow Hammy and Cardinal on Twitter at Hammy Hockey and at Ryan Cardinal. 51:54 You can also catch Ryan on KFEN, usually on Thursdays, right Ryan? 51:57 Wednesdays, Thursdays? 51:59 Yeah, it's a little bit hit and miss during the football season with a lot of Viking related guests, but those are going to start to fade very soon hopefully, or probably. 52:06 So I believe unless things change and ponders the quarterback, who knows, but Thursday at 9.55 this week is where we're penciled in. 52:15 So we'll keep an eye on my Twitter and GPL's too if that's going to change. 52:20 But a podcast will be available after and everything else. 52:22 So yeah. 52:23 Yeah. 52:23 We always try to make sure everyone knows that when you're going to be on. 52:26 So next week, you know, we'll recap Vermont and look ahead to Anchorage, the series that no one ever sees. 52:33 So that's about it. 52:35 Until then, thanks for joining us.