0:04 This is the Gopher Puck Live Podcast, part of the Pulltab Sports family. 0:10 Oh boy. 0:12 Jup making mistakes. 0:14 I love it. 0:18 Wait, did you drink the entire bottle? 0:21 Almost. 0:22 Oh, okay. 0:22 Never mind. 0:23 There we go. 0:26 I don't want to talk about it. 0:29 Not until, not until. 0:35 Nick put bottles on Thursday, Friday night at Grandma's Restaurant, Saloon 18, party 21, drink, come on down. 0:43 Leo, how was your recruiting? 0:45 I mean, you, I mean. 0:47 My recruiting, I probably had 76 D1 offers. 0:55 Now, here's Jupiter and Vegoe. 1:02 Jûpe Good evening and welcome to the GPL podcast. 1:05 Jûpe Episode number 308. 1:10 Jûpe Well, a lot's happened in the last week, Veegs, a lot's happened. 1:14 Vegoe Yeah, I tried to get away for a little bit of a weekend up north. 1:17 Vegoe And I was thinking I'd just unplug a little bit, you know, take some time to relax. 1:21 Vegoe I think I was probably on my phone more this last week than I've been in quite some time. 1:27 Vegoe It was fun reaching out with all of our sources out there trying to pin this coach higher down. 1:33 Vegoe But they finally got their guy. 1:34 Vegoe Like I said, Mark Coyle likes to act quickly. 1:37 Vegoe And, you know, Tuesday, here we go. 1:41 Jûpe Too bad it wasn't Monday when they had the other announcement at the same time. 1:45 Jûpe We were there back to back days, weren't we? 1:47 Vegoe Probably a little bit. 1:48 Vegoe You know, they didn't want to take the shine off of Greg May's hiring Monday. 1:53 Vegoe Or maybe there were some loose ends to wrap up for, you know, there probably was some loose ends. 1:57 Jûpe I'm guessing there was some loose ends. 1:59 Jûpe Let me do something real quick here. 2:01 Jûpe Let me see right there, Veegs. 2:03 Jûpe There he is. 2:04 Jûpe Our new coach. 2:06 Jûpe Brett Larson. 2:08 Jûpe Initial thoughts? 2:11 Vegoe Well, I do think of all the candidates out there. 2:13 Vegoe Brett Larson was probably the safest hire that they could have made. 2:17 Jûpe Okay. 2:17 Vegoe He's a guy who gets it, how to be part of a program is like a CEO. 2:22 Vegoe You know, we've talked about how important that is with college hockey these days, is you can't just be a coach, can't just be a recruiter. 2:29 Vegoe You've got to be a marketer. 2:30 Vegoe You've got to be a media personality. 2:32 Vegoe You've got to be able to do the GM part of it and manage your roster. 2:36 Vegoe I think Brett Larson checks a lot of those boxes that Mark Coil is looking to hire in a head coach. 2:43 Vegoe And I, you know, all the people I've talked to in the last week have spoken very highly of Brett. 2:48 Vegoe And they are excited for him to get out of St. 2:50 Vegoe Cloud, because that is an institution that's going to be a challenge for anybody to bring back to the success that they were used to before Brett got there. 3:00 Vegoe And Minnesota got the guy. 3:03 Jûpe I will be honest, at first, when I started hearing his name last week, I was getting a little nervous. 3:07 Jûpe I'm like, guy, St. 3:09 Jûpe Cloud hasn't been doing good. 3:12 Jûpe A lot of Gopher fans. 3:15 Jûpe Oh, no, don't pick him. 3:16 Jûpe Oh, I'm ticked now. 3:18 Jûpe I can't believe you picked him. 3:20 Jûpe And then I started, you know, actually looking at his resume. 3:24 Jûpe You know, you look at he's been under quite a few guys. 3:28 Jûpe He's been at the World's Juniors. 3:29 Jûpe He's won a couple of national championships as an assistant coach. 3:33 Jûpe He's at the Olympics. 3:40 Jûpe But the St. 3:40 Jûpe Cloud record doesn't look great. 3:42 Jûpe But boy, it certainly coincides with the beginning of NIL when things started going downhill at St. 3:49 Jûpe Cloud. 3:50 Jûpe And now the last year or two, it's changed quite a bit. 3:55 Jûpe And maybe he got out of Dodge at the right time. 4:00 Vegoe Yeah, you can always say that he's leaving with a program on the decline. 4:05 Vegoe But when he was there, he got them to a frozen four. 4:07 Jûpe That's just it. 4:08 Vegoe You know, he got them into the NCAA tournament in a very tough league, then CHC, and he held on to some good players who came back to play for him extra years. 4:17 Vegoe I think the last two years, probably not the best for St. 4:20 Vegoe Cloud. 4:21 Vegoe But I think there's a lot of circumstances surrounding that situation that is going to make it hard to be successful there. 4:28 Vegoe But when you look at Brett, you know, he was a guy who recruited key players for UMD's championships. 4:34 Vegoe He was a guy that was picked by David Karl to help out at World Juniors, and they had a lot of success there. 4:41 Jûpe He helped Ohio State too. 4:43 Vegoe He helped Ohio State too. 4:44 Vegoe That's right. 4:44 Vegoe Steve Roelich and him were together, and you know, he did good things there as well. 4:49 Vegoe And all these people speak highly of him. 4:52 Vegoe None of them were upset when he left for other jobs because they appreciated the character that he has. 4:58 Vegoe And I think that's a key thing to consider going forward. 5:01 Jûpe And it basically falls into the thing we've been fearing for quite a few years now. 5:08 Jûpe St. 5:08 Jûpe Cloud is a city not thriving. 5:10 Jûpe St. 5:10 Jûpe Cloud is a university declining enrollment. 5:16 Jûpe Something, you know, we're supposed to hate on St. 5:19 Jûpe Cloud. 5:19 Jûpe Yes, you hate on your rivalries. 5:21 Jûpe But only to a point, Veegs, and I am genuinely concerned about this program. 5:27 Jûpe And it probably definitely affected Brett Larson because he knows, like, gosh, I'm not getting this kind of support. 5:34 Jûpe I need to run the kind of program that St. 5:37 Jûpe Cloud needs. 5:39 Vegoe Yeah. 5:39 Vegoe And like their ice rink has gained some renovations underway this summer. 5:42 Vegoe But a lot of that's state funded. 5:44 Vegoe You know, it's not like the donors came through with a bunch of money to do the renovations there. 5:48 Vegoe So I just think that the college landscape is changing quite a bit right now. 5:53 Vegoe And it's moving under our feet. 5:55 Vegoe And Minnesota gives him an opportunity to be really aggressive there. 5:59 Vegoe And I think Gopher fans probably are going to have to be patient and see what he does this summer. 6:06 Vegoe Because I think as soon as the Frozen Four is over, this staff is going to be very aggressive going out and getting players in the portal, getting players in the CHL and, you know, maybe shaking up the recruiting pipeline just a little bit. 6:21 Jûpe So Brett Larson, he's 53 years old. 6:24 Jûpe He's my age, turns 54, I believe, in August. 6:30 Jûpe Nice, I love a Gen Xer. 6:31 Jûpe Now we got a Gen Xer in there finally. 6:33 Jûpe My generation. 6:36 Jûpe Yes, he's had some yes, he's had a lot of success. 6:39 Jûpe From Duluth, a Denfeld kid, a Northern kid. 6:44 Jûpe What's the intangibles he brings? 6:47 Vegoe I think just his ability to connect and the ability to be a little bit more of a. 6:53 Vegoe Coach who's engaged with his players like you could even see it in his team meeting. 6:58 Vegoe You know he's not standing up. 6:59 Vegoe No, I wish traces he was taking a stall. 7:03 Vegoe Yeah, I was in a stall and he's looking everybody in the eye at the same level and he just wants to connect with players that way. 7:08 Vegoe You know you heard about Brock Faber, his public comments to Mike Russo, you know, touting how good of a guy he is at coaching and connecting. 7:16 Vegoe And I think that's a key. 7:17 Vegoe You know, I think you heard from a couple former players as well that were impressed with Brett's ability to connect. 7:23 Jûpe Yeah, I was just thinking the exact same thing. 7:27 Jûpe Him sitting there just kind of almost like BSing with the guys. 7:33 Jûpe It's quite interesting and poor V. 7:34 Jûpe He's a little under the weather. 7:35 Jûpe He's got some tea going tonight. 7:37 Jûpe What kind of tea is it? 7:38 Jûpe What do you get a little? 7:39 Vegoe We'll throw a code going. 7:40 Jûpe There you go. 7:41 Jûpe Now it's a little honey in there. 7:43 Jûpe Not yet. 7:44 Vegoe Not yet. 7:45 Vegoe Oh, I keep the sweeteners out of there. 7:46 Jûpe It's that northern trip you took. 7:48 Jûpe It took a little audio. 7:49 Jûpe You know, that that temperature off the lake maybe was affecting you. 7:52 Vegoe Something. 7:53 Vegoe We'll see. 7:53 Vegoe Hopefully a rally out really quick. 7:55 Jûpe So it was it's interesting. 7:59 Jûpe So when Matsuko is let go, the rest of the staff is not let go at the same time. 8:03 Jûpe They kept running basically the program, just the day to day operations. 8:08 Jûpe All the coaches were there during the first meeting we had on Monday for boom. 8:15 Jûpe And they were all there yesterday. 8:17 Jûpe So it's not like the whole thing just disappears right away. 8:19 Jûpe It was just Bob let go. 8:22 Jûpe But now comes their evaluation. 8:24 Jûpe So we've heard a lot of rumors, blah, blah, blah. 8:26 Jûpe But he's going to take the next couple of days, probably the rest of this week and evaluate the current staff. 8:33 Vegoe Yeah, I believe the staff contracts run through the end of April for these coaches. 8:38 Vegoe So there is a little bit of a time there where they're, you know, they're still under contract here. 8:41 Vegoe They're still doing the work. 8:42 Vegoe They're still going to be transitioning guys to the next staff. 8:46 Vegoe I remember Scott Bell and Motzko was hired, didn't really have any conversations about whether he's going to be retained or not. 8:52 Vegoe And then Motzko was on the radio with Paul Allen. 8:54 Vegoe I think he said, oh yeah, Scott Bell, he'll be back. 8:56 Vegoe He's a good recruiter. 8:58 Vegoe And Scott was just like, well, I guess I'm going to be back. 9:00 Vegoe You know, he didn't know up until that moment. 9:04 Vegoe But we'll see. 9:04 Vegoe You know, I'm sure Brett Larson has some of his own guys. 9:07 Vegoe You know, Corey Leyland's been rumored to be one of the guys who might be on staff. 9:11 Vegoe Matt Cullen could be a part of the staff somehow. 9:15 Vegoe You know, he's probably, you know, clued in to be like a GM type role, player development role. 9:20 Vegoe He's been involved with Fargo. 9:22 Vegoe He's been involved with Moorhead. 9:23 Vegoe And of course, his family has done very well developing some young hockey players. 9:27 Vegoe So he's very familiar with these age groups. 9:30 Vegoe And then Paul Martin might be a member of the staff. 9:33 Vegoe You know, we've often wondered, you know, does he want to take that next step and be a full-time coach? 9:39 Vegoe Or is he happy in his role that he currently has? 9:42 Vegoe So I think, you know, that stuff will play out probably over the next two weeks and see what actually does work for the staff. 9:49 Vegoe And if anybody does get retained from the current staff, we'll see. 9:54 Jûpe Because ideally, you need to be kind of set before, really the Frozen Four, before the Hubbub gets going and everyone's going out to Vegas. 10:01 Jûpe They're meeting each other. 10:02 Jûpe And definitely before the portal opens on, I believe, the 13th, the Monday after Frozen Four. 10:09 Vegoe Yeah, especially if you have someone who's in that jam role that's trying to set up that kind of philosophy and format and engagement with, you know, the hockey community. 10:17 Vegoe You would like that in place as quickly as possible. 10:20 Vegoe And I think that's one of the reasons why Mark Coyle wanted to move quickly. 10:23 Vegoe He's done this before. 10:25 Vegoe You know, Nico Medved, Don Plawisky, Keegan Cook. 10:29 Vegoe These are all hires that were made during the men's basketball tournament, where he's traveling, he's trying to fit in Zooms as much as he can. 10:36 Vegoe And he's talking to people at these, you know, tournaments and things and trying to get the best, you know, inside intel that he can get. 10:44 Vegoe And, you know, it's worked out pretty well for women's basketball this year. 10:47 Vegoe They're going to the Sweet 16. 10:48 Vegoe And, you know, I think Nico Medved's doing some good things with men's basketball and Keegan Cook and volleyball as well. 10:54 Vegoe So, you know, Mark, you know, he's taking a lot of flack right now from the community. 11:00 Vegoe But these hires have been pretty good. 11:03 Jûpe And that's, but here's the thing, you're going to hear flack everywhere. 11:07 Jûpe You're going to have, you're going to have people say, oh, this is the worst hire I've I can't look at his record over the last three years. 11:12 Jûpe He's terrible. 11:13 Jûpe I'm like, there's just people need to have their little vision, a little wider scope of weeks instead of just looking at one little thing, don't they? 11:24 Vegoe Well, I think the thing you look at with Brett is the championships he's been a part of. 11:29 Vegoe He's he's been a key player in these. 11:31 Vegoe And it's not like these coaches have said, no, you know, he was along for the ride. 11:36 Vegoe You know, he was a major component of those programs that had success. 11:40 Vegoe And we asked him a little bit about what makes him a difference maker on a staff when it comes to winning championships. 11:46 Vegoe And he talked a little bit about his attention to detail, you know, putting his thumb on players and getting the grit out of them that he needs and just putting together a roster that's confident going into these tournaments is a big part of it. 11:59 Jûpe You know, that was the first time I'd act, you know, I never really got to meet Bob like you did. 12:04 Jûpe I'm always just the kind of the guy in the background. 12:06 Jûpe So this time I made sure I went up and introduced myself to Brett Larson. 12:10 Jûpe Seemed like a very personable guy. 12:12 Jûpe So I enjoyed my time with him. 12:14 Jûpe I also took some time and met Peyton Owens, who was on the committee. 12:18 Jûpe And he's, you know, he's a new member of the athletic director's staff. 12:24 Jûpe Boy, he's a he's a positive guy. 12:26 Jûpe Just like you said, that was a joy speaking with Peyton. 12:30 Vegoe Yeah, I think he's going to be good for the program. 12:32 Vegoe You know, one of the things that we're kind of coming out on Mary G the last couple of weeks has been just the concern over the athlete experience. 12:41 Vegoe You know, this was a team that at the end of the way had a lot of issues that they were dealing with a lot of negativity. 12:49 Vegoe You know, it wasn't a great environment. 12:51 Vegoe You know, they kind of put a brave face on it and competed to get through. 12:55 Vegoe But you could just tell that when things went down a little bit this season, it was hard for them to rally back. 13:01 Vegoe You know, they had some moments where they got off to good starts and they were able to persevere. 13:05 Vegoe But this team just kind of struggled. 13:07 Vegoe And I think Peyton is one of those guys. 13:08 Vegoe He's looking to remove roadblocks for people. 13:11 Vegoe He's looking to improve that communication. 13:13 Vegoe And I think he's going to be a good attribute to the program. 13:18 Jûpe Now is the waiting time. 13:22 Jûpe It's going to be an interesting two weeks because... 13:24 Vegoe Waiting. 13:26 Vegoe Waiting time. 13:26 Jûpe Yeah. 13:27 Vegoe You know that there's going to be stuff going on behind the scenes. 13:30 Jûpe Correct. 13:31 Jûpe There is. 13:31 Vegoe It's the way this is working. 13:33 Vegoe But for us, following it, we're not going to know much for another two weeks. 13:38 Jûpe All I know is that we're going to be busy probably on Monday when the portal opens in just over two weeks or actually a little more than that. 13:49 Jûpe But we've been revamping our portal this year, Veegs. 13:54 Jûpe We're trying to help out our guy from up north who gets all that data for us. 14:00 Jûpe It loads instantly now. 14:01 Jûpe In fact, now I've talked with Tim Bruhle. 14:04 Jûpe We're sharing our data with Tim Bruhle now, just like he shares data with us. 14:09 Jûpe So it's a little give and take there. 14:12 Jûpe The portal is a big deal. 14:13 Jûpe And you know what? 14:14 Jûpe GPL is a big deal with the portal, especially the women's portal. 14:18 Jûpe Boom, first day, 60s plus ladies jumped into the portal and they're getting it from us. 14:25 Jûpe Veegs, we're proud of that. 14:28 Vegoe Yeah, that's good. 14:28 Vegoe We're one of the few people that put out a women's transfer portal. 14:31 Vegoe And I think Brad Frost left the program in good shape with players. 14:36 Vegoe But Boomer is going to be in there looking to revamp the bottom of his roster. 14:40 Vegoe You know, in his introductory press conference, he was talking about adding grit to his team. 14:45 Vegoe I thought that was an interesting commonality between the two hires. 14:49 Vegoe Both convinced he coiled it. 14:50 Vegoe You know, they needed programs that, you know, put a little more bite into their roster and a little bit more intention there. 14:57 Vegoe And so I think it's interesting. 14:58 Vegoe Both teams are going to be active in the portal, you'd think. 15:01 Jûpe Yeah. 15:01 Jûpe And like you said, we didn't really mention, but Greg Boom May, he got that boom name when he was a kid, according to the story he told us on Monday. 15:11 Jûpe Replacing Brad Frost, who had been there. 15:13 Jûpe I mean, this is only the third coach the women's teams ever had since they started in the late 90s or mid to late 90s. 15:20 Vegoe Yeah. 15:20 Vegoe And it's no easy task for no boomer either. 15:23 Vegoe You know, it's pretty obvious that all the questions were revolving around. 15:26 Vegoe How do you get better than Ohio State and Wisconsin? 15:30 Vegoe So pretty, pretty simple. 15:32 Vegoe The top two programs in the country you got to beat. 15:34 Vegoe So that's the task put out to him. 15:36 Vegoe And, you know, he's got a lot of talent on his roster, but he's trying to figure out how to make that talent play a little grittier and have a dedicated style. 15:45 Vegoe He talked about how Wisconsin just outskills you and Ohio State's going to suffocate you. 15:50 Vegoe You know, they got to blend that and form their own identity. 15:53 Vegoe And he kind of talked about how this year's team had a hard time finding an identity. 15:58 Vegoe And so I think that's an important part of a new coach. 16:00 Vegoe And we know when Bob Motzko came and took the job about eight years ago, he said, you know, he wanted his players to get 45 seconds of hell to the other team. 16:08 Vegoe And I don't know if we saw that throughout the end of that tenure. 16:13 Vegoe But you know, that's the intention. 16:15 Vegoe And you know, as much as people can say, you know, this coach can do this or this coach can do that. 16:21 Vegoe It's like we got to see it on the ice. 16:23 Vegoe You know, these hires, you know, coach their teams and build their rosters. 16:28 Jûpe When Brett was talking yesterday, that was the first thing I thought was the 45 seconds of hell, like you just mentioned. 16:35 Jûpe I think it's funny, we're kind of thinking the same thing. 16:40 Jûpe I'm kind of with you. 16:41 Jûpe I'm not sure we ever saw that. 16:43 Vegoe We saw it at times. 16:45 Jûpe And that's just no consistency, yeah. 16:48 Vegoe I think especially, you know, the team that went to Tampa, you know, that was a very deep team that had shifts that were connected and guys at the bottom line up who were okay providing that role for their team. 16:58 Vegoe And I think as we've gone, you know, into the years that haven't gone as well, we don't have players that play like that. 17:04 Vegoe We have every player trying to test the waters and figure out, you know, how hot the stove is and try to get away with their skill. 17:12 Vegoe And sometimes you just got to swallow that pride and deliver that. 17:15 Vegoe And it's a big part of a coach is how do you communicate that to your players and get that out of your players? 17:21 Jûpe So there's just a lot of talk and we can't verify anything really. 17:26 Jûpe It's just a lot of people say, hey, with this or that. 17:28 Jûpe But the rumor is, you know, like Zeamer might not be happy. 17:31 Jûpe Mooney might not be happy. 17:32 Jûpe Other guys might not be happy. 17:34 Jûpe And we don't know if they're happy now. 17:36 Jûpe And they and you know, a new coach is making everything change. 17:39 Jûpe But you know, we've heard those rumors. 17:42 Jûpe You know, some other schools are might be throwing some money at these guys. 17:48 Jûpe And somebody asked, I think it might have been Mike Mack saying, hey, you know, are you willing to spend $750,000? 17:55 Jûpe He's using McKenna as an example to be able to do that. 17:59 Jûpe And Coyle was kind of like, yeah, they'll kind of bring it to me. 18:03 Jûpe I mean, I think this is something they need to seriously look at because they could get left behind as a premier program if they don't put their money where their mouth is. 18:15 Vegoe Yeah, it's definitely a challenge for Brett Larson to figure out how to best use the resources he can gather and how much time he wants to spend gathering those resources to spend on NIL. 18:26 Vegoe We've talked to other people. 18:28 Vegoe It can be a little bit tricky to get that money to come in to dig it out on athletes or get it in the Golden Helmet group and then get it into the players hands. 18:36 Vegoe It's complicated. 18:37 Vegoe There's this NIL go thing that has to check all the money and make sure it's for something that's legit. 18:44 Vegoe It can't just be handy over money. 18:47 Vegoe So it's a challenge that hockey is going to have to face. 18:50 Vegoe And I think the model at Minnesota isn't going to be spend that big amount on one player because Minnesota is going to have deep rosters. 19:00 Vegoe There's going to be lots of talent. 19:01 Vegoe And I've often said, I think the better money spent is getting Mooney and Zemer to come back. 19:07 Vegoe Once they've shown that they can play at the college level, if you come back for that third year, if you come back for that fourth year, there's going to be some name image likeness opportunities for you. 19:18 Vegoe One, you're a more marketable player because everybody has seen you in that rune and gold jersey and they know what you can do on the ice. 19:25 Vegoe And they've seen the highlights. 19:26 Vegoe You know, you look at LJ. 19:27 Vegoe Mooney in the Xcel Energy ad that's out there. 19:30 Vegoe People know who he is and they connect with that. 19:34 Vegoe So I think that's something that Minnesota is going to have to find their niche to manage. 19:37 Vegoe You hear David Karl talk about NIL. 19:40 Vegoe He's like, I don't think we're going to be in that space where we're paying one player big bucks. 19:44 Vegoe We're going to be a little more distributed with it because we just think that's the way it should go at hockey. 19:51 Jûpe So and that's the interesting thing. 19:52 Jûpe And that's kind of like that was sort of Bob's way of to like we're not going to give a freshman or somebody just coming in a bunch of money. 19:59 Jûpe It's not what they wanted to do. 20:00 Jûpe But but like you said, LJ. 20:02 Jûpe Mooney, he's he's been out there now. 20:04 Jûpe He's had a season. 20:05 Jûpe People know who he is. 20:06 Jûpe Xcel Energy commercial. 20:09 Jûpe But right now, I could tell the fans are nervous. 20:12 Jûpe You see a Zemur or Mooney leave. 20:14 Jûpe Does you know Humphries go with them because they're kind of his their buddies from back in the you know, the USA team. 20:22 Jûpe So there's a lot of nervous people out there, Veegs. 20:26 Vegoe Well, I think that's why you hire Coach Fats is so Brett Larson can talk to these guys and figure it out early. 20:31 Vegoe You know, when Bob was hired, Casey Middlestad was already out the door. 20:34 Vegoe You know, it didn't even really have a chance to attain him. 20:36 Jûpe You know, so I think that's one season too. 20:39 Vegoe So I think that's why you move faster and you give Brett a chance to form a relationship with those guys. 20:44 Vegoe Maybe explore what the NL opportunities are to keep them happy. 20:49 Vegoe Because you know, Michigan State and Penn State are chasing these guys. 20:53 Vegoe You know, they've got the money in their bankroll that they would like to spend. 20:57 Vegoe And you know, sometimes it's a two way thing you can add to your roster and you can take away from someone else's if you go in conference like that. 21:06 Jûpe Speaking of the roster, we kind of talked about a little bit. 21:09 Jûpe You know, they've got a lot of players coming in. 21:12 Jûpe We don't know if that's all going to stay static. 21:15 Jûpe We don't know if things will change because the coaches, kids are analyzing it, parents are analyzing it, coaches are analyzing it. 21:22 Jûpe But if things were to stay pat, it appears that they're going to have to either cut one, two, three or four players at least without even making any of those other kind of changes of or not. 21:39 Vegoe I think there's going to be hard conversations as they try to rework this roster. 21:44 Vegoe You know, we saw this year that they weren't deep enough and they had players that weren't, you know, holding up their end of the bargain here. 21:51 Vegoe And I'm sure Brett's got some guys from St. 21:54 Vegoe Cloud who would be interested in trading the red and black for the red and gold. 21:59 Vegoe And he'll have to figure out where that fits, you know. 22:01 Vegoe Minnesota definitely could use help at center. 22:04 Vegoe There's some center options at St. 22:06 Vegoe Cloud that would fit. 22:08 Vegoe They could also use some defensemen. 22:10 Vegoe I think there's one or two from St. 22:12 Vegoe Cloud that might fit in Minnesota as well. 22:15 Vegoe And then you just have to really start finding out what other players can you add? 22:19 Vegoe Because I think if you look two years down the road, Minnesota's got a lot of really strong recruits coming in. 22:26 Vegoe But, you know, you got to bridge that gap and you got to have the right fit of upperclassmen and underclassmen to make your roster work. 22:34 Vegoe So Brett's got his work cut out for him here to figure this out in the next two weeks. 22:39 Jûpe To say the least, he does. 22:43 Vegoe Well, the other thing I think is like what recruits might flip that we didn't think before. 22:49 Vegoe Are we thinking Mason West, who plays for Cullen's Fargo team, who would be interested in changing his commitment from Michigan State to Minnesota? 22:57 Vegoe He was a player that the current staff didn't really want to go after. 23:02 Vegoe Those late, blooming big guys sometimes are challenging. 23:04 Vegoe You can't have too many of those, it seems like, on your roster. 23:08 Jûpe But was there a Zeemer family member or brother that was at St. 23:13 Jûpe Cloud or something like that? 23:15 Jûpe There was some kind of connection with Larson and Zeemer's family. 23:21 Jûpe And I wish I could remember what I was told. 23:24 Vegoe Did not hear that narrative, but I had, man, I think the two biggest players are Mooney and Zeemer. 23:31 Vegoe Yes, sure that they're coming back in. 23:33 Vegoe You know, if you want to do other things, they want to do other things. 23:36 Vegoe And it's never been easier to leave a team in college hockey than it is today. 23:40 Vegoe So it's they have they have a lot of power. 23:45 Jûpe Very true. 23:46 Jûpe Oh, jeez. 23:48 Jûpe Oh, it's just going to be a crazy couple of weeks, isn't it? 23:52 Vegoe But I think things to look for are centers and defensemen, you know, who are some of these players in the CCHA, maybe players on lower NCHC teams that maybe could flip. 24:04 Jûpe All right. 24:04 Jûpe Well, Brett Larson is aboard. 24:07 Jûpe We'll see what happens in the next week when it comes to the rest of the staff. 24:10 Jûpe Like you said, the room was referred maybe a little bit of a we've heard Corey Leland. 24:15 Jûpe We've heard Paul Martin maybe taking over the defensive role. 24:19 Jûpe And we've heard Matt Cullen maybe take it over Paul's role, Paul Martin's role, and maybe getting more into the recruiting. 24:26 Jûpe And we've heard a lot of different things. 24:29 Jûpe It's going to be a wait and see VIGS and that's just what we're going to have to do. 24:33 Jûpe Just be patient. 24:34 Vegoe The one the one thing about Matt Cullen moving on Paul Martin's former role is if you do that, you can't recruit off campus. 24:42 Vegoe So I think if you do have a GM, you are going to want them to be one of the four paid staff. 24:48 Jûpe Okay, okay. 24:50 Vegoe Because then they're able to go on the road and not just watch but they're able to actually recruit on the road. 24:54 Vegoe And that's something that Chizek has been doing for North Dakota. 24:58 Vegoe I talked to Brad Schlossman. 24:59 Vegoe I was like, how does that work when you have that GM who's out there? 25:01 Vegoe And he's like, yeah, I mean, they've got the three coaches who run practice. 25:05 Vegoe And even when Chizek's around, he's like, you guys don't need me on the ice. 25:08 Vegoe I'll just chill on the bench and talk to the guys and do that. 25:11 Vegoe And so you can get your puck movers out there to help a practice run, but there are limits. 25:18 Jûpe So you're saying that he would need to take over that exact role or not exact role, but a name like that or something like that. 25:25 Jûpe So you wouldn't want to replace Paul's position if he were to move up to like the defensive coach with another person. 25:32 Jûpe You need to really keep it to those four paid coaches, correct? 25:36 Vegoe Just just that if you have a GM person, they've got to be one of those four. 25:41 Jûpe Understood, because, yeah, because then and most likely be a hockey guy anyway, it's going to be somebody you probably want out there. 25:47 Jûpe You're helping out with practice like we've seen Ball-Martin every time we go to practice. 25:53 Vegoe But he can't coach during practice. 25:56 Jûpe No, he just helps with Pucks. 25:59 Vegoe He just helps with Pucks. 26:00 Vegoe He can coach a little bit one on one after practice. 26:02 Vegoe It's a weird thing in CAA. 26:04 Jûpe It is weird. 26:05 Vegoe All these drafted players you think, See, I didn't know that. 26:07 Jûpe I'm sitting there watching going, what's he doing? 26:10 Vegoe Yeah, like Jacob Leroy, like he's out there to help move Pucks and get drills going and stuff, but he's not out there running them or coaching. 26:18 Jûpe Okay, that's probably why I can't see practice like you do, because I didn't even know that. 26:22 Vegoe So like you've got Miller, you've got Gordon, you've got Potter, you've got Motsgo, those are the four guys who could coach during practice. 26:29 Jûpe Okay. 26:30 Vegoe Anybody else out there would not be able to. 26:34 Jûpe So many weird rules. 26:35 Jûpe And then you look at something like football and they got like 50 coaches. 26:40 Vegoe It's weird. 26:42 Jûpe It is weird. 26:44 Jûpe All right. 26:44 Jûpe Well, we need to actually get to the tournament. 26:46 Jûpe What the show was going to be about before all this coaching stuff happened. 26:50 Jûpe But first, let's talk about Cascade CBX Sport Vigs. 26:55 Jûpe Claim your $5 sample free shipping. 26:58 Vegoe Yeah. 26:58 Vegoe Help us out. 26:59 Vegoe Go to cascadecbxsport.com/team and get your $5 sample. 27:03 Vegoe The shipping included that at 300 milligrams. 27:06 Vegoe You can try it out. 27:07 Vegoe And I think anyone that's tried Cascade CBX Sport becomes a believer, you know, me when I'm coaching, when I'm playing, when I'm doing my weekend warrior stuff and I'm sore, you know, I want this Cascade CBX Sport. 27:19 Vegoe It's one of those things that reduces inflammation, reduces stress, and it's just an all around nice product. 27:25 Vegoe So try it out. 27:26 Vegoe $5. 27:27 Vegoe Get a sample jar. 27:29 Vegoe Try it for yourself. 27:30 Vegoe Trust the shield. 27:30 Vegoe Stay on the field. 27:34 Jûpe All right. 27:37 Jûpe This is the first regional we're going to talk about, but let's first go and take out the whole thing here, Veegs. 27:44 Jûpe The tournament field. 27:45 Jûpe What are your initial thoughts here? 27:47 Jûpe We got Michigan won. 27:49 Jûpe North Dakota is the two overall seed. 27:52 Jûpe Michigan State is the three and of course back up at the top. 27:55 Jûpe Western Michigan is the four. 27:57 Jûpe Really no surprises there. 27:59 Jûpe Yep. 27:59 Vegoe No surprises. 28:00 Vegoe I do think that Loveland is one of those really difficult regionals when you start to compare the matchups to the other ones. 28:08 Vegoe I think we get that rematch of Western Michigan, Minnesota State. 28:11 Vegoe That's going to be one to watch. 28:14 Vegoe Denver getting their home ice advantage in Loveland against an Eastern team. 28:19 Vegoe Cornell will be very interesting as well. 28:21 Vegoe David Carl seems to have his team playing well at the right time of year. 28:25 Vegoe Seems like they found a goalie. 28:27 Vegoe They probably have the best defenseman in college hockey. 28:30 Vegoe That historically has been a recipe for success in the NCAA tournament. 28:35 Jûpe And you know, kind of while we're talking about here, we got our Bracket Challenge first time ever. 28:39 Jûpe We had over 150 people playing in it. 28:40 Jûpe Let's get more VEGs. 28:42 Jûpe It's a fun little thing we're doing here. 28:43 Jûpe So finally, I figured out how to have it built in to GPL. 28:48 Vegoe We're working on a prize package. 28:49 Vegoe It could include some Cascade CBX Sport, maybe some Swag. 28:53 Vegoe We're still putting it together, though. 28:55 Vegoe So get your get your bracket in as quickly as you can. 28:57 Vegoe We do have to protect scores in here. 29:00 Vegoe So if you're trying to do it last minute, make sure you take time for that. 29:04 Jûpe Yeah, you predict scores. 29:06 Jûpe Obviously, pick the winners. 29:07 Jûpe There's, you know, I'm just showing. 29:08 Jûpe I'm not showing the actual bracket challenge right now. 29:10 Jûpe This is just the main bracket, but we could look at that later. 29:14 Jûpe But let's look at the games that start tomorrow. 29:15 Jûpe Starting off Michigan State, hosting Connecticut at Worcester. 29:23 Vegoe I feel like Michigan State got a really good bracket here. 29:26 Vegoe You know, they haven't made it to a frozen for in a long time. 29:29 Vegoe You know, they've had three Big Ten titles here in a row now and just haven't been able to get over the hump of the tournament. 29:35 Vegoe I think this is a great region for them. 29:38 Vegoe UConn has been a really inconsistent team in Hockey East. 29:41 Vegoe They just barely squeaked in. 29:43 Vegoe You know, if Ohio State would have won the Big Ten Championship tournament, they would have been out. 29:49 Vegoe So good matchup, I think, for Sparty. 29:51 Vegoe And the next game, probably two of the more confusing teams in the tournament. 29:57 Vegoe Dartmouth, I just don't believe their strength of schedule. 30:01 Vegoe You know, those Ivy League schools that don't play as many games, don't really get non-conference tests. 30:09 Jûpe But can you trust the Badgers either? 30:12 Vegoe Well, I think the Badgers are one of the most inconsistent teams in the tournament as well. 30:15 Vegoe Like they've shown the peaks and the valleys. 30:18 Vegoe So you don't know what you're going to get there. 30:20 Vegoe But I definitely have Michigan State getting out of this region. 30:23 Jûpe Okay. 30:24 Vegoe Nice little gift there for Adam Nightingale and his team. 30:27 Vegoe They've got some strong players. 30:29 Vegoe Porter Malone, I think, has been the best freshman in college hockey this year. 30:33 Vegoe Charlie Stramel has been really good for them. 30:35 Vegoe Gives them some big heavy forwards to play with. 30:38 Vegoe And then Trey Augustine has really done really well in his career. 30:42 Vegoe Maybe it pays off here in the NCAA tournament. 30:45 Jûpe So it's going to be interesting because, you know, Michigan State kind of needs to prove after the last two years of kind of being a high seed and not performing. 30:56 Jûpe It's interesting. 30:58 Jûpe We do not know the times yet for the finals. 31:00 Jûpe It's kind of been weird that ESPN is like waiting till the games are played. 31:05 Jûpe I a little shocked by this. 31:08 Jûpe It's kind of weird. 31:09 Jûpe I mean, things they don't even know. 31:10 Jûpe The people who have tickets don't even know when their games are going to be. 31:13 Jûpe That has never been the case. 31:15 Vegoe Has not been the case before. 31:17 Vegoe Very interesting. 31:18 Vegoe But, you know, if you're in Worcester for a Saturday, I guess you just get impatient for this game. 31:24 Vegoe Once again, these games should be played at Michigan State at Dartmouth. 31:32 Vegoe Just saying. 31:34 Jûpe I kind of like Dartmouth out of that one first one, just because of the inconsistency. 31:38 Jûpe And they do it. 31:39 Jûpe They've got something to prove, Veegs. 31:40 Jûpe Like, hey, we've scheduled, we've been at least winning. 31:43 Jûpe So this is their chance, their chance to shine this whole Worcester region. 31:49 Vegoe This is their chance. 31:51 Vegoe I agree. 31:52 Vegoe I will, I'll be watching this one to see what the big green looks like. 31:56 Jûpe Sioux Falls, of course, North Dakota is taking on Merrimack, who took care of Hockey East, winning the tournament as an eight seed. 32:08 Jûpe Should North Dakota be sleeping on Merrimack here? 32:12 Vegoe Probably not sleeping on Merrimack. 32:13 Vegoe They've been one of the hottest teams in college hockey since Christmas. 32:17 Vegoe You know, they've done really well. 32:18 Vegoe I think they have the most wins since Christmas in college hockey. 32:21 Vegoe So, they're going to be a dangerous team. 32:23 Vegoe But I do think North Dakota, Dane Jackson did a great job reloading that program. 32:28 Vegoe He took some chances on some young CHL guys. 32:31 Vegoe They've developed over the year and have been key players for them. 32:36 Vegoe And you know, they do get the somewhat home ice advantage in Sioux Falls. 32:40 Vegoe I don't think it's as good an advantage as Nate Lehman is talking about in the press conferences leading up to this tournament, saying it's like a youth tournament where two teams fly in from, you know, long as away and have to play each other. 32:53 Vegoe It's like then vote for home ice in the regionals, Nate, and then you'd be having the Bobcats at your rink, like you usually do in the NCAA tournament. 33:01 Jûpe Providence and Quinnipiac, that might be the game of the day tomorrow. 33:06 Vegoe Probably the closest game. 33:08 Vegoe You know, Providence has has found their goalie the second half as well. 33:13 Vegoe McQueen has been a good goal scorer for them. 33:15 Vegoe Quinnipiac's done very well in the tournament the last couple of years. 33:20 Vegoe Again, I don't think Quinnipiac's strictest schedule has been as good this year as maybe it could have been. 33:25 Vegoe So I give a lot of weight here seeing Providence and North Dakota in the final. 33:29 Jûpe Providence, North Dakota. 33:31 Jûpe All right. 33:33 Vegoe Can I like the Fighting Hawks coming out? 33:35 Jûpe Have you made your picks yet, by the way? 33:37 Vegoe I have. 33:37 Vegoe I got them in this evening. 33:39 Jûpe Okay. 33:39 Jûpe Okay. 33:40 Jûpe I just I was like looking down the list earlier today and I noticed you hadn't yet. 33:43 Jûpe So make sure you get those picks in, folks. 33:46 Vegoe Yeah. 33:46 Vegoe And of course, the Providence Quinnipiac game is streaming only. 33:49 Jûpe So. 33:50 Jûpe Yeah, there it is. 33:51 Jûpe ESPN Plus. 33:53 Jûpe I might have to get that log in from you. 33:57 Vegoe Hey, we're all about sharing at GPL, right? 33:59 Jûpe I can't share with all of you, but I, I, I only used it for those a couple of games last year. 34:05 Jûpe I'm like, that's all I want to watch it for. 34:09 Jûpe I didn't dare try to log in. 34:10 Jûpe I'm like, what if he gets a message? 34:11 Jûpe I can get some message. 34:11 Jûpe Somebody logged in. 34:12 Vegoe I'm like, all right, I'll just log back in and kick you out. 34:19 Vegoe All right. 34:19 Jûpe Well, before we get to the second half of our picks here, Veegs Cub Foods. 34:25 Jûpe Hey, this is a big weekend for college hockey. 34:28 Jûpe The weekend of the year. 34:30 Jûpe What a better place to get all your food needs for this weekend. 34:34 Vegoe Yeah, you should definitely be stocking up at Cub. 34:37 Vegoe You know, there's a local Cub by most of you. 34:39 Vegoe I'm sure they're always stocked with great inventory. 34:42 Vegoe They've got great specials, great deals, great produce. 34:45 Vegoe I went down there. 34:45 Vegoe I got some avocados, some red onion. 34:47 Vegoe I'm going to have some guac on hand. 34:49 Vegoe You know, I know it's green, which might be the wrong color if you're cheering against North Dakota, but guacamole is delicious and I get it at Cub. 34:56 Vegoe If I'm looking for a couple of beverages to help get me through, a lot of your Cubs are going to have liquor stores attached. 35:01 Vegoe You can get some of that THC stuff if you're looking for that too. 35:04 Vegoe If you don't have time, you can order online. 35:07 Vegoe You can get it picked up. 35:08 Vegoe You can get it delivered. 35:10 Vegoe I mean, Cub's great. 35:11 Vegoe They're one of us. 35:12 Vegoe They sponsor this podcast. 35:13 Vegoe Our PJ Flux headset. 35:15 Vegoe When Dickey Town Athletes is making announcements about players coming back, Cub is behind that. 35:19 Vegoe So shop happy, shop Cub. 35:24 Jûpe All right. 35:25 Jûpe We head to Loveland in what could be the overall best and toughest region. 35:32 Vegoe Region of death in Loveland. 35:34 Vegoe I think Minnesota State is that one CCHA team that was on the bubble. 35:39 Vegoe They had about four teams that were all right there. 35:42 Vegoe 14 to 20. 35:44 Vegoe Very fine margins for those teams getting the tournament. 35:47 Vegoe Minnesota State won their league tournament. 35:49 Vegoe So they're in. 35:51 Vegoe Of course, they play Western. 35:52 Vegoe They played a great game against last year. 35:55 Vegoe Great goaltending match up in that one. 35:57 Vegoe I'm looking forward to it. 35:58 Vegoe It should make Friday afternoon extra special. 36:01 Vegoe And then Denver Cornell ESPN plus really. 36:05 Vegoe Yeah, just to make David Carl happy, right? 36:09 Vegoe He's the one who said, let's make this tournament as big a spectacle as we can. 36:13 Vegoe So let's put it on the plus. 36:16 Jûpe Are they punishing him? 36:18 Jûpe Are they just mocking him now? 36:19 Vegoe I don't think they're mocking him, but you know, an ESPNU for the other game as well. 36:24 Vegoe It was much as we talk about how it's great to have all these games televised and stuff. 36:28 Vegoe You know, the numbers haven't been great for the regionals because of the way that they do it. 36:33 Vegoe So challenging there. 36:35 Jûpe It is, it is challenging. 36:37 Jûpe So who do you like coming out of here? 36:39 Vegoe I like Denver coming out of this region. 36:41 Vegoe I think DU has really turned it on the second half of the year. 36:44 Vegoe I think it was hard for them to move up into the polls, into a one seed, just the way things started to shake out. 36:49 Vegoe We saw the MPI at the end of the year going to those last games one through four were locked, which was interesting in this new environment that we're in with the MPI. 36:59 Vegoe But I just do think Eric Pulltab is a great defenseman. 37:03 Vegoe Man, what would the Gopher season have looked like if Bob Monsko had gotten him into maroon and gold instead of red and gold? 37:11 Jûpe Yeah, because he was up at Bemidji, wasn't he? 37:14 Vegoe He was at Bemidji. 37:15 Vegoe He played on the World Junior Team. 37:17 Vegoe You know, clearly there was an opportunity there. 37:20 Vegoe But oh, well, he's at Denver. 37:22 Vegoe He's had a great year. 37:22 Vegoe And now Denver's they've got their CHL goalie who's really been hot, a little undersized He was the NCAA tournament most outstanding player. 37:31 Vegoe He's playing well. 37:33 Vegoe So and you get the Loveland advantage, of course, for Denver, which some people say doesn't mean anything, but we'll see. 37:40 Jûpe Yeah, I guess we will see. 37:41 Jûpe Let's go up to Albany. 37:45 Jûpe That's where Michigan headed leagues. 37:47 Jûpe They've earned it. 37:48 Jûpe They won their tournament. 37:51 Jûpe They get Bentley. 37:53 Vegoe This Michigan team does seem built different. 37:56 Vegoe You know, when we've seen them play the Gophers, their high end talent is very, very good. 38:01 Vegoe When they handle the puck on the power play, it almost looks like a NHL power play at times, how easily they're able to escape pressure, make tape to tape passes, get seam passes through without any challenge from the penalty kill. 38:17 Vegoe And they've gotten some good goaltending. 38:19 Vegoe I think this Michigan team is probably the best one that they've brought to the tournament probably since like the Kyle Cotter days. 38:25 Vegoe And it's just it's a deeper team too. 38:28 Vegoe They've got some juniors and seniors at the bottom of their lineup who have shifted down because of the talent that they've been able to bring in. 38:35 Vegoe And it's going to be a tough team to beat. 38:37 Vegoe And Bentley will have their hands full. 38:39 Vegoe Atlantic Hockey, always not a push over the team that gets out of that league. 38:43 Jûpe They've done and they've upset quite a few times. 38:46 Vegoe I don't think it's going to happen this one just because of the depth of scoring that Michigan has. 38:51 Vegoe And we always know the officiating can be something to watch. 38:55 Vegoe If they get a lot of power play opportunities, I think they'll have an easy chance against anybody. 38:59 Jûpe And what a nightcap Friday night, Duluth and Penn State. 39:04 Jûpe Wow. 39:06 Vegoe Boy, I mean, if you could pick like two vibes that are completely different, I think Minnesota, Duluth and Penn State would be totally different vibes. 39:16 Vegoe You know, you've got Scott Sandlin, who's just got gritty, tough, you know, top line, tight hockey games. 39:22 Vegoe Then you got Penn State, who is just, you know, money banks this year getting in Gavin McKenna, Friday night prime time. 39:29 Vegoe That's going to be a fun one to watch. 39:31 Vegoe I'm interested to see how Minnesota Duluth plays against Penn State because we have seen the Nittany Lions getting these up and down hockey games where they just lose their structure and they're just kind of pond hockey-ish. 39:43 Vegoe Minnesota Duluth usually is not that kind of team. 39:46 Vegoe They are not going to let that happen. 39:48 Vegoe So it would be really an intriguing matchup. 39:50 Vegoe Obviously, Minnesota Duluth has their great top line. 39:53 Jûpe Power play. 39:54 Vegoe Power play. 39:56 Jûpe Penn State's most penalized team in the league. 39:59 Vegoe Sometimes it's because of the extracurriculars that inflates that a little bit. 40:03 Jûpe It is the correct but. 40:04 Vegoe But you will get some power play chances in this one, I bet. 40:08 Vegoe I'm interested to see the physicality and if there's any extra stuff. 40:13 Vegoe It goes into that. 40:14 Jûpe Okay. 40:15 Vegoe So that's one eight hockey against this money bags hockey. 40:18 Vegoe It'll be fun. 40:20 Vegoe All right. 40:21 Jûpe Let's take a look at your overalls. 40:24 Jûpe So who do you have coming out of Albany then? 40:27 Vegoe I've got Michigan coming out of it. 40:29 Jûpe Okay. 40:30 Vegoe I just think that that's the deepest team that they've put out there in a while and I think they're going to advance. 40:34 Jûpe So you've got Michigan, Denver, North Dakota and Michigan State. 40:40 Jûpe Yep. 40:41 Vegoe Almost chalk. 40:42 Jûpe Almost chalk. 40:43 Jûpe Okay. 40:44 Jûpe Gosh, I'm kind of, I think I had something similar and actually, I believe all the way to the championship. 40:51 Jûpe I think I have Michigan and Michigan State in the title game. 40:54 Vegoe I think I've got Denver and Michigan State in my time. 40:58 Jûpe It's so good at this time of year. 41:01 Vegoe Oh, well, like they said all year, the top six teams are all really good right now. 41:07 Jûpe And I do want to point out this VIGS earlier game this night, but you know what? 41:14 Jûpe Like David Crowe wanted, it's on the big network. 41:20 Vegoe Which should be good exposure for the college hockey game to be on a big network, because then you're in all the hotel bars across the country and it's easy for everyone to find. 41:29 Vegoe I think the ratings for this tournament have been a little lackluster in the last couple of years. 41:35 Vegoe So I think getting on the big channel for the championship game should at least help that. 41:39 Vegoe And I'm sure they're hoping Gavin McKenna and Marton make it to the title game. 41:44 Vegoe So I think that might make the best narrative for their staff. 41:52 Jûpe The Big Ten really needs to win VIGS. 41:55 Jûpe They really, you know what? 41:57 Jûpe If they could get an all Big Ten final, kind of what I have, I don't pick very well. 42:01 Jûpe So it's probably not going to happen, but they need a win. 42:06 Vegoe They certainly do. 42:07 Vegoe And I do think that this Michigan and Michigan State version that will be entering this tournament are probably the deepest teams that the Big Ten has put out in a while, probably since the Gopher Tampa team. 42:20 Vegoe These teams won four lines and at least five or 60 that are pretty high end. 42:26 Vegoe And they've got good goaltending. 42:28 Vegoe And I think some of the Big Ten teams that have made it to the tournament for have been a little too young and maybe not deep enough to make these kinds of runs because it's a mistake game and so on and you need players who can play mistake free. 42:42 Vegoe And it helps to have veterans that can do that. 42:45 Vegoe And veterans who can support young guys to make contributions to the lineup of the number one seeds. 42:53 Jûpe Yes, you almost went chock. 42:55 Jûpe You want a number. 42:55 Jûpe You had three number ones and a number two. 42:59 Jûpe Are any of them? 43:03 Jûpe Could any of them get upset? 43:04 Jûpe Game one. 43:06 Jûpe And if there was one, who is the most vulnerable? 43:12 Vegoe Who is the most vulnerable? 43:13 Jûpe My thought? 43:17 Jûpe Our North Dakota fans are going to. 43:18 Jûpe I think North Dakota is the most vulnerable because Merrimack has been playing very well. 43:25 Jûpe They just won the hockey east as an eight seed. 43:32 Jûpe That's got to make some fighting hawk fans a little nervous. 43:38 Vegoe Yeah, I think that's a pretty savvy call by you on that. 43:41 Vegoe You know, looking at Merrimack, like they had a really tough November when they lost to BU, to Providence and to Notre Dame, to Dartmouth, to the UConn. 43:50 Vegoe And since then, they've they've been pretty good. 43:53 Vegoe You know, they've been real strong the second half have gone on a run. 43:56 Vegoe They've won tight games. 43:58 Vegoe I think I think that's a good pick by you. 44:00 Jûpe And really, Sue Slayer, I like this one, too. 44:03 Jûpe I think Western is could is vulnerable against Minnesota State. 44:07 Jûpe You you never know. 44:09 Jûpe Minnesota State could goal you, Veegs. 44:11 Jûpe They could goal you. 44:12 Vegoe Well, I was there for that game last year. 44:14 Vegoe Watching Western, he was amazing. 44:17 Vegoe He was a Tracy. 44:18 Vegoe It's really, really good. 44:20 Vegoe It felt like Minnesota State just wasn't able to get any really sustained offensive zone time. 44:26 Vegoe That was watching Rhett Pillick turn over the clock, you know, and it was hard to watch. 44:31 Vegoe Oh, it was probably wasn't a good fit for that roster. 44:35 Jûpe You know, I must say that was very fun sitting next to you. 44:38 Jûpe We went, I went and sat next to you and we just sat and watched that game. 44:42 Jûpe And you're at something, look at Rhett, he's got it. 44:44 Jûpe He's got to do something and he just, he was just floating around. 44:47 Jûpe And you were like, just, just watch him what he does. 44:50 Jûpe And sure enough, they really could have used him and Minnesota could have used them the year before when he got benched for the third period against BU. 44:59 Vegoe Yeah. 45:00 Vegoe So Alex Tracy is a really good goalie. 45:02 Vegoe Oh, and they play really tight structure and they can be really frustrating to play against. 45:06 Vegoe So that that will be an interesting one to watch. 45:09 Jûpe UConn is not bad either. 45:11 Vegoe You know, I don't think UConn, so you don't. 45:13 Jûpe They're not like the last year. 45:14 Jûpe Yes, true. 45:15 Jûpe But so, man, maybe Merrimack, maybe maybe Minnesota State. 45:20 Jûpe Those are good ones. 45:21 Jûpe There's always a bit. 45:22 Jûpe Actually maybe last year, there wasn't too many upsets. 45:28 Jûpe I don't think anyone did anyone's lose last year. 45:31 Jûpe The first, I don't think it even did, but I'd have to remember what it's going to happen and it's going to be a surprise. 45:40 Jûpe I look forward to it. 45:40 Jûpe That's why it's the best weekend of the year. 45:42 Jûpe VEGS, it's two solid days of hockey, just crazy. 45:48 Jûpe And then a little lighter on Saturday and Sunday. 45:52 Jûpe When it was three days straight, it was even more crazy. 45:57 Jûpe But I love this weekend more than the Frozen Four when it comes to just hockey. 46:02 Vegoe Yeah, it should be great. 46:03 Vegoe I like having the extra day of rest to spread out the games a little bit. 46:06 Vegoe They produces better hockey, you know, probably gives the fans who make the trip a day in between to kind of relax a little bit. 46:13 Vegoe And it's not such a rush. 46:15 Jûpe So drink. 46:18 Vegoe Yeah, maybe have a night on the town, you know, maybe for the media as well, you know. 46:24 Jûpe Yeah, it's going to be interesting in a couple of years to see how much the media goes between Fargo and Sioux Falls. 46:31 Jûpe They would never schedule them the same day. 46:33 Jûpe They got to do every other day. 46:36 Jûpe So it'll be interesting to see. 46:38 Vegoe Definitely something to watch. 46:40 Jûpe All right, let's get to overtime, folks. 47:00 Jûpe We are headed to overtime. 47:03 Jûpe You know what that means. 47:04 Jûpe It's Vego's Beverage of the Week. 47:19 Vegoe Okay, whenever I'm feeling a little under the weather, sometimes a Guinness is just the answer. 47:25 Jûpe Yeah. 47:26 Vegoe This little 3B pint, you know, cures all ill, I think. 47:31 Jûpe Right? 47:33 Jûpe Interesting, very interesting. 47:35 Jûpe All right, let's see how true it's 4%. 47:37 Jûpe Let's bring up the chat here. 47:39 Jûpe Yeah, we, you know, last week, I wasn't really prepared for it, because we had a show, but we're kind of changing the format a little bit. 47:45 Jûpe We're going straight to overtime now, we're going to include it as part of our regular show. 47:51 Jûpe We're not going to have a long overtime this week. 47:53 Jûpe I got to get to bed fairly soon tonight, so we'll have to see what happens. 47:58 Jûpe No one's sign off anymore. 48:01 Jûpe I'm just reading some of the texts. 48:05 Jûpe Been working a lot. 48:06 Jûpe Obviously, I got our bracket picks this year, so hopefully we've got over 150 people participating, which is awesome to see. 48:17 Jûpe Let me see. 48:18 Jûpe I'm going to take a look at it. 48:19 Jûpe I've looked at it today. 48:21 Jûpe You said you made your picks, Veegs? 48:23 Vegoe I'm in there. 48:23 Vegoe I'm good. 48:24 Jûpe I think I believe my champion, I picked Michigan State, which means they won't win, but that's what I picked. 48:33 Jûpe And so for those of you, or I'll just let's just bring it up here. 48:37 Jûpe Let's turn off the chat real quick. 48:40 Jûpe We press the right button here. 48:43 Jûpe Look at all these people playing. 48:44 Jûpe Now, one thing to note, if you notice here, there's no warning here, but I will show here. 48:52 Jûpe Give me a second here. 48:55 Jûpe Picks close 1230 p.m. 48:57 Jûpe tomorrow. 48:58 Jûpe Once those picks are closed, then you can go to the leaderboard and view anyone else's pick. 49:07 Jûpe There'll be a URL and you could pick and see what Align Rock wants. 49:10 Jûpe Or 1-8-1989, you'll be able to see that. 49:14 Jûpe We'll also have stats. 49:15 Jûpe You'll see how many people are picking this team or picking that team and whatnot. 49:19 Jûpe So more things will pop up on the bracket challenge once the bracket's closed. 49:24 Jûpe If you have got your picks and get them in, because once 1230 hits tomorrow, it's automatic. 49:29 Jûpe You will not be able to change your picks. 49:32 Jûpe And it'll be a too sad, too bad, too sad type of situation, Veegs. 49:37 Vegoe Yeah, and you'll miss out on your Cascade CBX. 49:40 Vegoe Probably some drip drop, maybe some swag. 49:44 Jûpe So, yeah, so there it's a fun. 49:47 Jûpe Yeah, we're trying, we're going to get some pull tab stuff here and try to get them to do that. 49:54 Jûpe Another big thing that we've been talking about Veegs is the transfer portal. 50:00 Jûpe We've been upgrading this. 50:01 Jûpe It's going to be very quick this year. 50:03 Jûpe Obviously you see it loads pretty quick here. 50:07 Jûpe We've already got 85 players in the portal for the women Veegs. 50:11 Jûpe That just started on Monday. 50:15 Jûpe This is last updated. 50:16 Jûpe Man, nothing's changed since this morning. 50:20 Jûpe So we're going to try to stay on top of it. 50:22 Jûpe We know it's crazy, but it loads a lot quicker than it used to. 50:27 Jûpe So this is one of the new features that you'll obviously want to keep an eye on. 50:31 Jûpe And boy, yes, people come from the men's site, but the women's site is very important. 50:37 Jûpe We get emails, we get what you said, so many messaged on Facebook and I hadn't even noticed it. 50:43 Vegoe Yep, I was on top of it. 50:44 Vegoe So we got that updated for them. 50:46 Jûpe So that was nice of you to notice. 50:50 Jûpe So, yeah, keep an eye on this. 50:52 Jûpe It's going to be crazy. 50:53 Jûpe Come, you know, a couple of weeks from now, got a couple of grad transfers in here. 50:59 Jûpe Kind of wondering who Jacob Badal is, because how could he have three years? 51:03 Jûpe I'm a grad transfer. 51:04 Vegoe Must be a really smart guy. 51:06 Jûpe He may be. 51:07 Jûpe Jeez. 51:09 Jûpe So we got that fun. 51:11 Jûpe I've been doing a lot of changes with stats. 51:13 Jûpe You know, you know, I let me bring it up here. 51:17 Jûpe I've been noticing some stats that I've been collecting over the, you know, recently, these team stats end up being very interesting. 51:25 Jûpe Let me see if I can squish this in here. 51:31 Jûpe Boy, Minnesota did finish 63rd in the penalty kill leagues. 51:37 Jûpe By far their worst. 51:39 Jûpe What's interesting is that you can, let's go back. 51:40 Vegoe Let's go back to the very nice percentage. 51:44 Jûpe Yeah, you go back to another year. 51:45 Jûpe Let's say penalty kill. 51:46 Jûpe Well, they were number 13th back in 22, 22 and 23. 51:52 Jûpe Even face-offs, they were 18th. 51:56 Vegoe Yes, I'm going to drop off. 51:58 Jûpe Or just last year. 51:59 Jûpe If I look at just last year's data here, penalty kill was not great last year. 52:06 Jûpe But look at this. 52:07 Jûpe We were third in offense. 52:09 Jûpe Then this year, we're, you know, what are we in offense? 52:13 Jûpe 43rd. 52:14 Jûpe I mean, so it's been interesting. 52:16 Jûpe I've loaded data all the way back to 2018, 2019. 52:23 Jûpe It's just interesting. 52:24 Jûpe So if you're a stats person, check it out. 52:28 Jûpe I'm trying to make some improvements, doing a little nerdy stuff here. 52:31 Jûpe Since I'm unemployed, I have the time to do it. 52:35 Jûpe So people, make sure you check out all the stuff we've got going over there on GPL. 52:41 Vegoe Yeah, it's pretty crazy to look at the Gophers from last year to this year. 52:44 Vegoe Just the, you know, they were leading the Big Ten in scoring last year and this year. 52:49 Vegoe I think they were last. 52:51 Vegoe Just a huge drop off. 52:52 Vegoe And you know, the coaches are still sending some of the same messages out there. 52:57 Vegoe So you know, there's sometimes a saying that each coach has a shelf life. 53:02 Vegoe And maybe that just hit its time at Minnesota. 53:06 Jûpe We may never know. 53:08 Jûpe Yeah, you did eventually get like a text from Bob, didn't you? 53:11 Jûpe He was kind of thanking you and things like that, didn't you? 53:14 Jûpe He probably was so overwhelmed. 53:16 Vegoe Yeah, I mean, you talk to these coaches in these big transitions and they just hear from everybody. 53:21 Vegoe So I get it very busy time for coaches. 53:24 Vegoe And, you know, I'm sure it was a tough week for Bob. 53:28 Jûpe You know, I think we should just start a rumor. 53:30 Jûpe He and Larson are just changing. 53:32 Jûpe He's going to go back up to St. 53:33 Jûpe Cloud and he's going to take over that program. 53:36 Vegoe Yeah, I put a post out there. 53:38 Vegoe There's a football movie any given Sunday with Al Pacino. 53:42 Jûpe Oh, yeah. 53:42 Vegoe Oh, yeah. 53:43 Vegoe Closing press conference. 53:45 Vegoe You know, he's saying goodbye to Miami. 53:47 Vegoe He's just like, it was so great here and all the people are good and appreciate it. 53:51 Vegoe And then as he wraps up and he's like, but it's time for a change for me, too. 53:54 Vegoe And I'm going to be the head coach of that Albert Kirke expansion team. 53:58 Vegoe And I'm signing Willie Beam and taking him with me. 54:04 Vegoe It's like if Bob did go to St. 54:05 Vegoe Cloud, I don't think he'd be taking Birdie Zemur and LJ Mooney with him. 54:08 Jûpe But you know, it would be so who to say cloud get they move Eric Rudd up. 54:16 Vegoe I mean, I heard Nick Oliver was somebody that they were thinking about having as their next coach. 54:20 Vegoe But but we'll see. 54:21 Vegoe You know, it's a very different situation than Minnesota. 54:24 Vegoe You know, you need somebody who's going to be more of a grinder there and figure it out because it's a it's a different place to recruit you and run than it was eight years ago. 54:32 Jûpe I'm still I still fear for that program. 54:34 Jûpe I still really fear five, 10 years if it exists. 54:39 Jûpe And that's not something I want to talk about. 54:43 Vegoe I mean, I think it will exist. 54:44 Vegoe It'll just be different. 54:47 Jûpe You know, oh, it's it's don't lay a bottle of stuff. 54:54 Jûpe I don't think so. 54:55 Jûpe No, no, thanks. 54:57 Vegoe No, maybe I would maybe offer a tasting. 55:03 Jûpe Maybe that's actually keep this up on the screen. 55:05 Vegoe So maybe maybe I can offer a tasting. 55:07 Speaker 3 We'll see. 55:08 Vegoe See how I'm feeling is the term that's going on. 55:10 Jûpe You know, we're kind of you had just left yesterday and we're kind of talking pizza a little bit with actually with Peyton Owens a little bit. 55:18 Jûpe And then we got to talk about you and all how your pizza making. 55:21 Jûpe And I'm like, if we could get you with some of Jim Roosevelt's maybe sauces and stuff that he had a campus pizza, maybe we could get some combination, you know, because that was a good site sauce. 55:35 Jûpe They had that little spicy to it. 55:38 Jûpe I'm like, he's like, gosh, I got to figure out what it is. 55:40 Jûpe You got to figure out what the what the recipe is. 55:43 Jûpe But I'm like, maybe we need to have a little summer pizza party sometime. 55:46 Vegoe Yeah. 55:46 Vegoe A little pizza off. 55:48 Vegoe You know, Jim's obviously got the experience on me, but, you know, but I think it's been so long now. 55:54 Jûpe He's he's by a loss of touch. 55:57 Vegoe Could be. 55:59 Vegoe But that was that was the best spot. 56:00 Vegoe I remember Brian Deutch started SID at Minnesota. 56:04 Vegoe One of the first thing he did was like, hey, can we meet at campus pizza? 56:07 Vegoe And introduce each other to each other and talk about how this is going to go. 56:11 Vegoe And it's like, that's a great idea, Brian. 56:14 Vegoe Campus pizza is spicy special. 56:16 Vegoe Let's let's split one. 56:17 Jûpe I think I was at that one, wasn't I? 56:19 Vegoe Yeah. 56:20 Jûpe Yeah, that might. 56:21 Jûpe That might be the last time we had a spicy special. 56:25 Vegoe It was the go-to order. 56:26 Jûpe Yeah, we met Deutch down there, didn't we? 56:29 Jûpe And then who did we? 56:31 Jûpe You know, we didn't. 56:32 Jûpe We met one of the start to be in reporters at the blue door. 56:38 Jûpe Megan. 56:40 Vegoe Yeah, Megan. 56:41 Jûpe Yeah, yeah, we haven't seen her in ages. 56:44 Jûpe Is she even still at the Strip? 56:45 Jûpe Probably. 56:46 Jûpe I don't know. 56:47 Vegoe She kind of transitioned into sports, I think, after doing baseball for a while. 56:50 Vegoe I don't know. 56:52 Jûpe I'm just reading some of these chats here. 56:58 Vegoe If we need to, by the way, this is because the outdoor game, not actually. 57:04 Jûpe Yeah, so maybe they should do capacity. 57:07 Jûpe You know, what was the percentage of capacity at the football stadium? 57:11 Jûpe And that would change, right? 57:12 Vegoe That would be a better way to compute that number. 57:16 Jûpe Yeah, so that's definitely misleading, just like it was misleading the year Minnesota had their Ohio State outdoor game. 57:21 Jûpe So you don't think we try to do that again, do we? 57:27 Vegoe I mean, with the new head coach, maybe you'd be looking to do it. 57:33 Vegoe It's a way to, you know, provide a special experience. 57:37 Vegoe I do feel like the outdoor game gimmick has kind of diminished a little bit here and there. 57:43 Vegoe But if you're going to do one, Minnesota is a good place to do it, because usually you get pretty decent weather. 57:47 Vegoe The only problem is it could get too cold. 57:51 Jûpe All right. 57:52 Jûpe Well, we haven't talked about it yet. 57:54 Jûpe But sort of one of our colleagues that, you know, I knew her a little bit. 58:00 Jûpe Jesse Pierce and her family, basically her entire family, except her husband died in a fire. 58:06 Jûpe Last Saturday, I woke up Sunday morning when the news started getting out. 58:10 Jûpe I'm like, what's what's happening? 58:13 Jûpe I didn't understand what was going on like. 58:17 Jûpe I think Hoppe said it was like he had put something out and I didn't know what it was in reference to and I just kind of just kind of waking up. 58:25 Jûpe This is like the worst thing we've had in the hockey community in a long time. 58:29 Jûpe Veegs, it's hit everybody hard. 58:33 Jûpe Last year, I posted that picture of Jesse and I at the World Junior kind of breakfast or lunch. 58:39 Jûpe I think it was a breakfast we had at the summer showcase. 58:46 Jûpe I was just left speechless. 58:48 Jûpe It's just a stunning, unfortunate event. 58:52 Vegoe Yeah, stunningly sad. 58:54 Vegoe Jesse was such a warm person. 58:56 Vegoe If you were in the hockey media community, you would see her anywhere. 59:01 Vegoe High school tournament, college game, pro game, showcase, World Juniors. 59:07 Vegoe I came to a game for the World Juniors at Grand Casino this year and I saw Jesse was sitting next to me and I was like, I knew I was going to have a good, positive conversation going the whole game. 59:17 Vegoe And a lot of entertaining stuff would be going on. 59:19 Vegoe And, you know, she'd be thinking about her Taco Bell order or, you know, what's that happening? 59:24 Vegoe And just always fun. 59:27 Vegoe She just put herself out there in the hockey community and it made a mark for herself. 59:31 Vegoe And I think one of her trademarks was just that positive smile and attitude. 59:39 Jûpe A couple of years ago, two or three, three or four, actually. 59:42 Jûpe Maybe three. 59:43 Jûpe She did a space, you know, it was still an X space, a Twitter space where you're just kind of doing audio and you have people come on with you. 59:51 Jûpe And she was doing it on her phone. 59:52 Jûpe It was late at night. 59:54 Jûpe And I hopped on there. 59:55 Jûpe We're all kind of BSing. 59:57 Jûpe And it was kind of funny because she was talking and then she thought she was off the air. 1:00:03 Jûpe She thought she was done. 1:00:04 Jûpe And you could hear her messing around in the kitchen and doing things. 1:00:09 Jûpe And I'm desperately trying to message her on Twitter because I didn't have her text number. 1:00:15 Jûpe Like, you're still on, you're still on. 1:00:17 Jûpe You gotta make sure, don't say anything. 1:00:19 Jûpe She didn't do it. 1:00:19 Jûpe She didn't say anything bad or her husband or anything like that. 1:00:22 Jûpe But it's just kind of a fun memory I have of her. 1:00:25 Jûpe And obviously, you know, our fun little pictures with the World Junior Trophy last summer, it was just a fun thing to do. 1:00:32 Jûpe And like you said, boy, was she full of life. 1:00:35 Jûpe And boy, does she love her kids. 1:00:38 Jûpe And I, I'm kind of surprised we haven't heard anything yet. 1:00:44 Jûpe What happened? 1:00:45 Jûpe Because it's like, what? 1:00:47 Jûpe It's just, it's so hard to come to terms with something when you're like, it's just, it's hard to understand. 1:00:52 Jûpe How does that something like that happen? 1:00:57 Jûpe And her husband, Mike, just lost his entire family. 1:01:03 Jûpe Even his dog. 1:01:05 Jûpe This is, I don't even know how to talk about this because it's just like, it's, it's awful. 1:01:14 Vegoe Yeah, can't imagine it. 1:01:16 Vegoe You know, I feel really bad for, for him and the loss. 1:01:19 Vegoe And you just see the outpouring of, oh, it's been the hockey community supporting. 1:01:25 Jûpe It's been so good. 1:01:26 Vegoe That family and it's hard to understand. 1:01:30 Jûpe They've made a ton of money on the GoFundMe, which is wonderful, just wonderful. 1:01:36 Jûpe And the tributes from the NHL to different teams. 1:01:39 Jûpe There was a national donated $10,000 to the GoFundMe. 1:01:48 Jûpe Boy, she didn't know how much she was loved probably with all the people talking about her. 1:01:54 Jûpe Other teams putting up flowers for her in Tampa and things like that. 1:02:00 Vegoe Well, I just think she was always scrappy. 1:02:02 Vegoe She was always out there writing from the hockey magazine or whatever, just trying to stay out there and stay engaged and keep writing and keep interviewing and keep podcasting and doing all of her stuff. 1:02:16 Vegoe She was a scrapper. 1:02:18 Vegoe She wasn't making a killing at it because she was still working at Lager's Trail, slinging hot dogs and beers to anyone who'd come by the course. 1:02:27 Vegoe She'd post those videos, but come on by. 1:02:30 Vegoe I could do some business. 1:02:32 Vegoe She wasn't doing it to get rich. 1:02:33 Vegoe She was doing it because she was passionate about it and it's a good time. 1:02:39 Jûpe It was, but I have very happy memories of her with my limited interactions with her. 1:02:47 Jûpe I think I ran into her a couple of times at the Frozen Four a couple of years ago in St. 1:02:50 Jûpe Paul. 1:02:51 Jûpe She was down there and going to Reeds and there she is talking with Tom Houser. 1:02:57 Jûpe We know Tom Houser is kind of a big behind the scenes guy with college hockey and Hobie Baker in the past, so it was fun seeing her there. 1:03:10 Jûpe Like I said, it's a stunning thing. 1:03:16 Jûpe I just can't imagine your husband, you're on the road somewhere and you, how do you break that kind of news? 1:03:22 Jûpe I just like you said, you shake your head and it's just like, because it's the most awful thing ever. 1:03:31 Jûpe Sorry, I didn't mean to bring down the podcast, but I had to mention her because I knew her a little bit. 1:03:37 Jûpe We're not friends. 1:03:39 Jûpe I think the last time we texted was back in July of last year, but still just to have a small little connection with somebody who's so bright and so well loved is it was very cool. 1:03:53 Jûpe So sorry to bring down Overtime. 1:03:56 Jûpe But you know, I saw that podcast with Judd and Kirsten and I'm forgetting her guy's name. 1:04:03 Vegoe Declan. 1:04:03 Jûpe Yes. 1:04:05 Jûpe Wow. 1:04:06 Jûpe What a show. 1:04:08 Jûpe What a show. 1:04:12 Jûpe And to be able to do it, you know, just a few days after she's passed, it's just what an amazing job. 1:04:18 Jûpe What an amazing show for them to just talk and just work through it because that's what she would do. 1:04:28 Jûpe She'd want to be on her own show right now, doing the same thing if somebody else had passed. 1:04:37 Jûpe So, so what you got going this weekend? 1:04:39 Jûpe Is it going to be all hockey all weekend? 1:04:43 Jûpe Or are you going to get some pizza in there? 1:04:44 Jûpe I hope Friday. 1:04:45 Vegoe I got to go on Friday. 1:04:46 Vegoe I definitely pizza in there. 1:04:47 Vegoe Yeah, we're just trying to get a little healthier in our household. 1:04:50 Vegoe You know, we all we're all under the weather a little bit. 1:04:53 Vegoe So we're just trying to get healthy. 1:04:55 Vegoe Kids are on spring break. 1:04:57 Vegoe So we're going to enjoy the next couple of days and get through it. 1:05:00 Vegoe And then we get back to the grind. 1:05:03 Vegoe But great hockey ahead. 1:05:05 Vegoe I'm looking forward to see what happens. 1:05:07 Vegoe There's always surprises in the in the hockey tournament. 1:05:10 Vegoe You know, I just think, you know, we probably don't expect a four versus one to happen this year. 1:05:16 Vegoe But I think that would be fun. 1:05:18 Vegoe I feel like it's like the last 10 years. 1:05:20 Vegoe There's always been one. 1:05:21 Vegoe You know, I can't think of the one last year, but it seems like it happens almost every year. 1:05:25 Vegoe Unlike basketball, where 116 is pretty much always safe. 1:05:30 Jûpe It's only happened one time. 1:05:32 Vegoe Yeah, so. 1:05:37 Jûpe So we will be back in two weeks. 1:05:39 Jûpe We'll do a Frozen 4 preview. 1:05:40 Jûpe We'll obviously have a closing episode. 1:05:44 Jûpe I think you wanted to head to Florida for the meetings, maybe get them, try to get them on to, I believe it's home regionals and maybe getting the rosters up to 28. 1:05:55 Jûpe And then four extra games, four extra games. 1:05:58 Jûpe So that's that's your three as commissioner. 1:06:01 Jûpe That's your three goals, three point plan. 1:06:03 Vegoe I'm OK working in the reverse. 1:06:05 Vegoe I'm OK getting the four games added, then the roster and then, you know, targeting future date for the regional home ice situation in first round, but we'll get there. 1:06:17 Jûpe It'll be fun. 1:06:19 Vegoe We just need Nate Lehman complaining more about coming west for a game. 1:06:25 Vegoe He could be, he could have a home game this week if he really wanted to. 1:06:29 Vegoe If it meant that much to him. 1:06:33 Jûpe Right. 1:06:34 Jûpe It's your rosters, regionals, four games in that order. 1:06:37 Jûpe There you go, Steve. 1:06:38 Jûpe You're right. 1:06:39 Vegoe OK. 1:06:40 Jûpe Yeah, I saw the Steve's talking earlier. 1:06:41 Jûpe It looks like they're going to meet up in Vegas. 1:06:44 Jûpe A lot of people going to Vegas this year. 1:06:46 Jûpe A lot of people just go just every year. 1:06:48 Vegoe So doesn't matter where it is. 1:06:50 Vegoe I saw somebody throw out Nashville as a site. 1:06:53 Vegoe From all I've heard, Nashville isn't going to work. 1:06:56 Vegoe They don't want to give up their building for the weekend. 1:06:58 Jûpe Too much moneymaker with concerts. 1:07:02 Jûpe And they have to. 1:07:05 Jûpe I believe Craig Flohr said that the minimum you have to be out a full day before the first practice. 1:07:14 Jûpe So that's, is it Tuesday or Wednesday they have the first practice? 1:07:20 Vegoe Yeah, probably Tuesday. 1:07:22 Jûpe So Monday. 1:07:23 Jûpe So you got to have it from Monday until the end of the night. 1:07:26 Jûpe Just not going to happen in Nashville. 1:07:29 Jûpe What a party would be. 1:07:30 Vegoe What a great town to have it home. 1:07:31 Vegoe Yeah. 1:07:32 Vegoe North Dakota played that one off game there. 1:07:34 Jûpe And you can do that. 1:07:35 Jûpe You can get a one off, but Frozen 4 would be tough. 1:07:40 Jûpe I wouldn't mind going to Washington next year. 1:07:43 Jûpe I have not been to Washington, DC since 1993. 1:07:47 Jûpe And that is one of my favorite places to go. 1:07:49 Jûpe There's just so it's so much to look at. 1:07:52 Jûpe And I'm a nerd. 1:07:53 Jûpe I love the museums. 1:07:54 Jûpe I love it all. 1:07:56 Jûpe So we'll see. 1:07:58 Jûpe And then it's back to Chicago. 1:08:01 Jûpe Do we know when they would make a decision on like future bids? 1:08:05 Jûpe Do they kind of, you know, end of this year? 1:08:07 Jûpe Would they start thinking about the next two or three years? 1:08:11 Vegoe I feel like they like to put out a series of them, like four of them at a time, from what I can remember. 1:08:16 Vegoe But I'm not the expert on the bidding. 1:08:18 Vegoe Like a Todd Molesky or Brad Losman would be. 1:08:21 Vegoe So I would I would defer to them. 1:08:24 Vegoe I doubt they're listening to us tonight. 1:08:25 Vegoe But no, you know. 1:08:31 Jûpe You got to keep it short tonight, because I got to get to bed fairly early. 1:08:35 Jûpe Got to be out of the house early tomorrow. 1:08:38 Vegoe Well, enjoy the weekend, everyone. 1:08:39 Vegoe Watch, watch all your favorite players on those smaller teams and see, you know, which transfer portal targets you want to go after. 1:08:48 Vegoe Watch out for Evan Muir for Minnesota State. 1:08:51 Vegoe He's a potential transfer target. 1:08:53 Vegoe So watch his game. 1:08:56 Jûpe I just just pay attention, you know, next couple of weeks, a lot's going to happen. 1:09:01 Jûpe I think you're going to hear rumors. 1:09:02 Jûpe But like you said, the fire really starts Monday the 13th, doesn't it? 1:09:07 Vegoe Yeah. 1:09:08 Vegoe And then just keep in mind, CHL guys typically don't want to announce until after their major junior season ends. 1:09:15 Vegoe So if you're if you're targeting guys from that league, you have to be a little patient. 1:09:21 Vegoe You know, I think they probably make overtures to teams for spots, but you won't hear it publicly until later. 1:09:31 Jûpe All right. 1:09:33 Jûpe We'll have a good weekend, Veegs. 1:09:34 Jûpe It's always fun. 1:09:35 Vegoe You as well. 1:09:37 Jûpe I definitely stay safe on the road. 1:09:39 Jûpe Definitely stay safe, people. 1:09:41 Jûpe You too. 1:09:42 Jûpe That's going to do it for this episode of the Gopher Puck Live Podcast. 1:09:46 Jûpe You know, we're scheduled to be back in two weeks. 1:09:48 Jûpe But if something happens in between, we'll definitely have a show. 1:09:53 Jûpe Either way. 1:09:55 Jûpe Thank you for tuning in for the Gopher Puck Live Podcast. 1:09:58 Jûpe And we'll catch you next time. 1:10:13 Jûpe If you are watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and get notified each time we go live or post a video. 1:10:20 Jûpe If you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please rate our show and leave a review. 1:10:43 Jûpe Pizza.