0:07 This is The Gopher Puck Live Podcast, part of the Pulltab Sports family. 0:13 Oh boy, Duke making mistakes, I love it. 0:20 And I'll never forget my first college game. 0:22 It was up in Duluth at the deck, and we got to play the Gophers that first game. 0:25 Puck went in the zone, I was a defenseman, started coming around the wall, and I went down the pinch to keep it in, and this guy named Trent Platt just absolutely rolled me right over, hammered me right down, got up, helmet turned, snot bubbles out of the neck, one of those, you can't find your way back to the bench, and I realized I'm a big boy college hockey now. 0:44 I think we've got a really unique situation where we connect that quickly and fast, obviously, straight change quick with the transfer portal, NIL, CHL players being eligible. 0:58 Now, here's Jupiter and Vegoe. 1:05 Jûpe Good evening and welcome to the Gopher Puck Live Podcast. 1:09 Jûpe We are live here on a Monday night. 1:11 Jûpe Let's bring Veegs in. 1:13 Jûpe Good evening, Veegs. 1:14 Jûpe We've got to have a special show tonight, don't we? 1:17 Vegoe Special show, special time, special format. 1:20 Vegoe Thanks everybody for joining us. 1:23 Vegoe Exciting times for the Pride on Ice. 1:25 Jûpe Yeah, he did mention format. 1:26 Jûpe We're streaming a little differently this this this time, starting a new system of broadcasting, but we're still live here. 1:32 Jûpe You can see us on YouTube and horizontal and vertical. 1:35 Jûpe And of course, we're live on Twitter as well and Facebook. 1:40 Jûpe But let's not delay it any longer. 1:42 Jûpe Veegs, we've got a first time current coach as a guest tonight. 1:47 Vegoe Yeah, thanks for Brett hopping on tonight. 1:50 Well, let's bring him in, guys. 1:52 Jûpe Well, there he is. 1:53 Jûpe He's already talking. 1:54 Brett Larson He's ready to go. 1:54 Jûpe Brett Larson, Gopher Hockey, new coach, has the media attention calmed down a bit as we're talking to you right now live? 2:04 Jûpe Has it been a little crazy for you? 2:06 Brett Larson It's been it has been a little crazy, but it's been fun, too. 2:09 Brett Larson I've actually really enjoyed it. 2:10 Brett Larson So meeting a lot of people getting out there. 2:12 Brett Larson And obviously, it's it's it's another level for sure. 2:16 Brett Larson But it's been fun. 2:19 Jûpe I bet it's been another level. 2:21 Jûpe It just it's not just you, but it's something that would affect your entire family. 2:25 Jûpe This is a this is a major change for you and your family, isn't it? 2:30 Brett Larson Yeah, it is. 2:31 Brett Larson So I obviously I'm doing this from home right now on my phone. 2:34 Brett Larson I'm I'm I'm going to commute a little bit here for a while. 2:37 Brett Larson I've got a son that's a senior and he's going to stay and finish his senior year here. 2:40 Brett Larson And I'll be doing a little bit of commuting and then obviously moving the family down once he gets through that. 2:46 Brett Larson But, you know, obviously for the family, it it it's going to be a change. 2:51 Brett Larson But I think it's it's also nice because he'll be able to finish his senior year here. 2:55 Jûpe On Veegs, I know you mentioned to me and Scott Slarshooter today, kind of an interesting story about the last time this change kind of happened for Brett, didn't you? 3:05 Vegoe Yeah, I think when your position changed from Duluth to St. 3:09 Vegoe Cloud, your your son was just like, Dad, what the heck? 3:12 Vegoe How could you? 3:13 Vegoe I hate the Huskies. 3:14 Vegoe Is there like a similar feeling of like, how could you pick the Gophers? 3:18 Vegoe I asked you about Hoagie on your introduction day. 3:21 Vegoe I mean, it's got to be quite the shock for everybody. 3:24 Brett Larson Yeah, it is for obviously the people in Duluth and those areas there. 3:28 Brett Larson I'm getting a lot of congrats, but also getting a hard time with it from so my kids have been different this year. 3:34 Brett Larson It's funny. 3:34 Brett Larson My daughter is a huge fan of the Gopher gymnastics team. 3:38 Brett Larson She loves it and she can't wait to get down there and meet them. 3:41 Brett Larson And my son is really excited too. 3:43 Brett Larson He's actually really excited. 3:45 Brett Larson Had him around the campus the other day and that was my first recruiting tour taking him around. 3:49 Brett Larson He goes, Dad, I want to go here. 3:50 Brett Larson So hopefully someday he'll be going to school there while I'm coaching and it's actually been a really a little bit different than that. 3:57 Brett Larson You know, he was only eight years old at the time or nine years old at the time. 4:00 Brett Larson Funny, I came home and I said, I was just offered the head job of the St. 4:04 Brett Larson Cloud State Huskies and he said, Dad, I hate the Huskies, you know. 4:07 Brett Larson And so, you know, now he tells me other things. 4:10 Brett Larson He follows social media a little bit more than I do. 4:13 Brett Larson And before I got the job, he came in the bedroom one day and he said, Hey, Dad, you just lost a pole to anybody else. 4:20 Brett Larson And I said, Huh? 4:21 Brett Larson I said, I wonder where he coaches. 4:22 Brett Larson I don't I've never heard of that guy, but. 4:26 Vegoe So did you do a little Easter egg hunt where everybody could find gopher gear around the house and restock the wardrobe a little bit? 4:33 Brett Larson I would play gopher gear. 4:34 Brett Larson I can tell you that he's wearing the sweatshirt right now and on the basement. 4:37 Brett Larson He's got a white hoodie with a big M on the front. 4:39 Brett Larson And it's it's fun to see. 4:41 Vegoe Is there any particular swag so far that you've picked up? 4:44 Vegoe You know, I'm sure there's a big closet of stuff you can pick from that you've you've been drawn to. 4:49 Brett Larson For sure, obviously, our equipment equipment manager Lee, I've been bugging them already because there's so much good stuff. 4:54 Brett Larson So got a bunch of nice quarter zips. 4:57 Brett Larson So where to work every day. 4:58 Brett Larson Got a few good t-shirts, golf shirts. 5:00 Brett Larson I'll be ready for the summer. 5:01 Brett Larson So it's pretty nice stash he's got down there. 5:06 Jûpe All right, I was bugging Slarksy earlier, but any announcements yet with the staff still waiting on HR on that? 5:13 Brett Larson Yeah, so that's just taking a little bit of time. 5:18 Brett Larson I can tell you, we're really, really close. 5:19 Brett Larson We're just waiting for me to be able to officially announce it going by the HR rules and everything else. 5:25 Brett Larson It's not that I don't want to. 5:26 Brett Larson It's I'd love to. 5:27 Brett Larson But apparently, there's these rules I got to follow when it comes to HR stuff. 5:31 Brett Larson So we're gonna have to stick with that. 5:33 Jûpe He's darn rules, Vig. 5:34 Jûpe So the US so strict, aren't they Vig's? 5:37 Vegoe It feels like Minnesota leads the nation in compliance. 5:40 Vegoe So it's a little adjustment, I think, for a lot of people. 5:42 Vegoe It's like they play by the book at the you. 5:45 Brett Larson They do these background checks are serious. 5:47 Brett Larson I guess I was glad I passed mine. 5:48 Brett Larson So I got through that and the rest of the staff is hoping there's going through as well. 5:55 Vegoe I know you can't talk about like staff members specifically, but what do you look for in a staff that you build? 6:00 Vegoe What do you lean on them for? 6:02 Vegoe What do you hope that they contribute? 6:04 Vegoe What do you what are you expecting there? 6:07 Brett Larson Well, you've got a few things that you start with. 6:09 Brett Larson Number one, you want good people. 6:11 Brett Larson You know that as a head coach, you have to surround yourself with people that you trust. 6:15 Brett Larson And we're going to go through the pressure and that together. 6:19 Brett Larson And you got to know you're in it together. 6:20 Brett Larson So that's number one. 6:22 Brett Larson You know, another one for me, obviously, then you look at just where their expertise is, kind of obviously looking for a guy that can come in and develop our defenseman and a guy that can develop our forwards, a guy that might be a little bit of both, but is kind of taking the recruiting load on his shoulders a little bit more. 6:38 Brett Larson So, you know, now that you're also allowed to have these different titles like Director of Player Development, Director of Goalie Development, which are essentially part-time roles, but they're big-time people on the staff. 6:50 Brett Larson So, you know, those people add to it as well. 6:53 Brett Larson So we'll be announcing, you know, five people here shortly in those roles. 6:58 Vegoe So I know a lot of people have an idea of how coaching staffs can work, but you can have the four coaches who can go off campus, recruit. 7:05 Vegoe They're like the full-time staff. 7:07 Vegoe Then, you know, we've had Paul Martin as a player development guy here before. 7:11 Vegoe Other schools have had, you know, goalie coaches. 7:13 Vegoe You can't have the volunteers anymore. 7:15 Vegoe But how does that work as you put together staffs? 7:19 Brett Larson Yeah, you can put your staff together like that. 7:21 Brett Larson So obviously, the four full-time head coaches that are NCAA compliant to recruit on the road, that's a big part of it, and coach at the same time. 7:29 Brett Larson The director of player development, the director of goalie development, which we're going to have those two titles, essentially, they can't go on the road and recruit, but they can call recruits. 7:38 Brett Larson They can get on the phone, they can get on the horn and call those recruits, talk to them about our program. 7:44 Brett Larson They can help us with obviously our player development piece. 7:47 Brett Larson They can be on the ice. 7:48 Brett Larson They can't directly coach the player on the ice, but they can have a relationship with them. 7:52 Brett Larson Essentially, they're the coach and direct the coaches. 7:55 Brett Larson They're almost like paid consultants that can come in and help you run your program. 8:00 Brett Larson So it's really valuable to have good people in those positions, which we're going to have great people in those positions, because they can help with the entirety of the program. 8:09 Brett Larson Like I said, they can coach the coaches, they can have relationships with the players, they can get on the phone and help with recruits. 8:14 Brett Larson There's a lot they can do. 8:16 Brett Larson The three full-time coaches, you want those guys to be, like I said, experts in certain areas, D, forward, gently kill, power play, developing players as coaches and being able to hit the road and recruit. 8:29 Jûpe Very interesting because I look at the roster right now, and the current player is committed to come in. 8:37 Jûpe Even if Bob had stayed, it looked like there's going to be a lot of interesting decisions that were going to have to be made because you've got roster limits. 8:45 Jûpe And technically, the rule hasn't changed yet. 8:47 Jûpe So it seems like there's a lot of tough decisions for you and the staff coming up soon of which players to keep, which players to bring in. 8:57 Jûpe It's not all easy, is it? 9:00 Brett Larson No, those are tough. 9:01 Brett Larson You know, obviously, they're all good kids. 9:04 Brett Larson But my main job is to make sure that we put the right line up on the ice next year. 9:08 Brett Larson That's our number one goal right now. 9:10 Brett Larson We're talking behind the scenes as much as we can as a group and making sure we're on the same page, making sure that we feel really good about the team we put on the ice. 9:18 Brett Larson So it's never easy and they aren't easy decisions, but nothing great comes easy. 9:24 Brett Larson You have to make some tough decisions and do what you think is best for the program. 9:28 Brett Larson So we'll certainly have some tough decisions for us, but you know what? 9:33 Brett Larson I'd rather have tough decisions than no decisions. 9:35 Brett Larson That means we've got good players and we have to make good, you know, tough decisions on good players. 9:40 Brett Larson So I'd rather have those tough decisions to make because that means we're going to put a really good product on the ice. 9:46 Jûpe Veegs, one thing that Brett mentioned in his opening press conference is that, well, he doesn't think he's that far away. 9:51 Jûpe And you kind of pointed that out last week when you mentioned, hey, do you know what team beat all of the frozen four participants? 9:59 Jûpe It was Minnesota. 10:01 Vegoe Yeah, it's pretty crazy. 10:02 Vegoe You know, you look at the season Minnesota just went through playing one of the toughest strength of schedules, a lot of turnover at four, a lot of turnover at D, brought in a transfer goalie. 10:13 Vegoe But a lot of pieces looked like they've been in place for next year in your meetings with your players, which I think you said was going to wrap up probably early this week. 10:21 Vegoe What are some of the themes that that came up in those discussions with guys? 10:26 Brett Larson Well, I think a lot of these things are basically around that. 10:29 Brett Larson Like we don't feel we're that far off. 10:31 Brett Larson You know, even though the record wasn't where anybody wanted it, it was a really tough year from that standpoint. 10:36 Brett Larson The guys don't want to go through that again, obviously, and the fans don't want to go through it. 10:40 Brett Larson I certainly don't want to go through it. 10:41 Brett Larson So the areas that we need to get better, obviously, were consistency. 10:45 Brett Larson Consistency was a big part of it. 10:47 Brett Larson And I think the good thing is with the tough decisions we're going to have to make, one thing that drives consistency for me is competitiveness within a lineup. 10:55 Brett Larson Knowing that you got to earn that spot every week, nothing's guaranteed. 10:59 Brett Larson And I think with the moves we can make, which there are going to be a few, with the moves we can make, whether in the portal and the decisions we have to make around the current lineup, there's going to be major, major competition within this group this year. 11:15 Brett Larson And I think that's a really good thing to drive us to that next level. 11:20 Vegoe I think I've heard you talk about coaching in the past. 11:22 Vegoe How you want to let players have the freedom to be the players that they are, to be creative, to take those chances and to foster kind of that development of players. 11:32 Vegoe You don't want a player who has to figure out they have to make 100 out of 100 right decisions. 11:37 Vegoe If they make a couple of mistakes, you don't want them to dwell on that. 11:40 Vegoe How do you balance that decision making and coaching piece of it? 11:45 Brett Larson Well, I think the biggest thing that you try to develop is you try to develop the habits within the game. 11:49 Brett Larson So the little things that eventually they're not even thinking about. 11:52 Brett Larson And that frees them up to play in those creative areas, right? 11:54 Brett Larson So our habits, like our defensive detail, our stick position, our angling, you know, the fundamentals of the game are something that you can't lay off. 12:01 Brett Larson You need to keep pushing these guys on it. 12:03 Brett Larson And the more we can develop the habits the right way, the more we can develop our competitive spirit within the within the lineup. 12:11 Brett Larson Now you got habits, you got compete level. 12:13 Brett Larson And now you put a really talented, I think what's going to be a really talented roster into that great environment with great habits. 12:20 Brett Larson Now that's when they're going to be free to play. 12:23 Brett Larson And you put themselves in the position. 12:25 Brett Larson I've said it a lot of times or talked about it a lot. 12:29 Brett Larson I want players that have the confidence and ability to make plays. 12:33 Brett Larson What I like to look for is what happens after that play doesn't work. 12:36 Brett Larson And that's where the character piece, the work piece and the habit piece comes in. 12:40 Brett Larson So I always think of a turnover. 12:42 Brett Larson Do you make a big loop and throw your head back and kind of blame somebody else? 12:46 Brett Larson Or do you hit your edges as hard as you can and bust your butt back and break that play up? 12:49 Brett Larson Because it's how you respond after that play that really matters to me. 12:55 Jûpe You know, an interesting comment here from Max Veach. 12:58 Jûpe I think you might know who he is. 13:00 Jûpe Brett, when I said I wanted you back in maroon and gold, this isn't what I meant. 13:04 Jûpe He's happy for you anyways. 13:06 Jûpe Max is a good guy. 13:07 Jûpe I'm a really big fan of Max. 13:09 Brett Larson Yeah, a great guy. 13:10 Brett Larson And obviously, in all honesty, it's the right colors and it's a dream opportunity. 13:16 Brett Larson It's a dream job for any coach in college hockey. 13:18 Brett Larson They'll tell you that. 13:19 Brett Larson You know, it's a dream job that I couldn't be more proud to be a part of. 13:23 Jûpe And I've always thought of this. 13:25 Jûpe Who's the greatest Wisconsin coach? 13:27 Jûpe Badger Bob, he was a gopher. 13:29 Jûpe Or you think Dean Blais was a gopher? 13:31 Jûpe And Don Lucia, he was from Alaska and he came down here. 13:37 Jûpe I don't think it matters. 13:38 Jûpe It matters what you should do in the role. 13:40 Brett Larson No, you look at it, it's pretty common. 13:42 Brett Larson Scott Sandlin is a North Dakota guy. 13:46 Brett Larson He's a bulldog now, but he came from North Dakota. 13:48 Brett Larson So it happens quite frequently. 13:51 Brett Larson And as a coach, what you want to do when you get in is you want to make sure the alumni in the program see right away that you're all in, that you understand that there's a lot of people that built this program and that your main job is to keep them, I think, proud of their program. 14:05 Brett Larson And that knowing that everything you do, you're trying to earn that trust every day. 14:09 Brett Larson And before you know it, hopefully, they consider me a gopher. 14:11 Brett Larson And hopefully, they consider me a part of their family. 14:14 Brett Larson But I know I gotta earn that. 14:15 Vegoe How close was that Merritt Park jersey to a Gopher jersey? 14:19 Vegoe I mean, when you were little, did you kind of envision it or? 14:22 Brett Larson It's the same. 14:23 Brett Larson So I have that picture on my phone. 14:26 Brett Larson Actually, I'll be honest, I did. 14:28 Brett Larson I sent it to Mark Coyle during the interview process. 14:31 Brett Larson I said, hey, I think I was meant to be a gopher. 14:34 Brett Larson I was wearing the jersey when I was at Squirt. 14:36 Brett Larson So it's really close. 14:38 Vegoe Are those kids on the west side? 14:40 Vegoe They're kind of like the gritty kids and, you know, maybe differing from the east side cake eaters in Duluth? 14:44 Brett Larson Oh, no, no, no. 14:47 Brett Larson That's how we look at it. 14:49 Brett Larson We're the hard working, gritty guys. 14:51 Brett Larson And we're proud of that. 14:54 Brett Larson So, yeah, West Duluth is where I grew up. 14:56 Brett Larson Not far from Denfeld High School, right across the street. 14:58 Brett Larson You know, obviously grew up idolizing a guy like Rob Staubert. 15:02 Brett Larson You know, Rob was just ahead of me and led the team, led the hunters to their first state tournament, I think. 15:08 Brett Larson And, you know, that was a big part of it. 15:10 Brett Larson A couple of years later, I got to go twice. 15:12 Brett Larson And but, you know, grew up definitely in the West, West Duluth. 15:18 Brett Larson And I idolized a guy like Rob. 15:22 Jûpe I was a big Rob Staubert fan, but not before he arrived because he knocked my Jaguars. 15:28 Jûpe I'm a Bloomington Jefferson kid out of the state tournament in the 80s. 15:31 Jûpe I remember watching that in junior high. 15:33 Jûpe I'm like, who is this guy? 15:36 Jûpe And it hurt, but then he came to be a Gopher. 15:38 Jûpe And then of course we love him. 15:40 Jûpe So yeah. 15:41 Brett Larson Well, a couple of the Gophers growing up for me were Rob Stauber and Corey Millen. 15:44 Brett Larson You know, those were the guys that, that I grew up just kind of idolizing and watching. 15:49 Brett Larson And those were two guys that were obviously big time Gophers and really fun to follow. 15:54 Jûpe For me, it was a Mike Crowley. 15:55 Jûpe That kid was just... 15:58 Brett Larson Mike's awesome. 15:59 Jûpe He's my favorite all time Gopher, probably always will be. 16:02 Jûpe He was just magic back there as a defenseman. 16:06 Jûpe He has 63 points in a season. 16:09 Jûpe Who does that? 16:12 Brett Larson I actually just ran into him recently, which was fun. 16:14 Brett Larson And our past kind of crossed a little bit. 16:16 Brett Larson He was up and down out in California, Long Beach Ice Dogs. 16:19 Brett Larson We both played some games for them. 16:20 Brett Larson And he was, he was on the other end. 16:23 Brett Larson He was the NHL down to the IHL. 16:25 Brett Larson I was the lower end up to the IHL. 16:26 Brett Larson So we didn't cross too much. 16:28 Brett Larson But he's a guy that I always used to love watching play as well. 16:32 Jûpe One thing I wanted to talk about is, you know, to both of you, we lost a program recently. 16:38 Jûpe Mercer here has just shut it down. 16:41 Jûpe That's not great on growing hockey leagues. 16:44 Jûpe But, you know, Maryville is coming in in a couple of years. 16:46 Jûpe But that was kind of a shock to the NCAA hockey family. 16:51 Brett Larson Yeah, obviously, Rick Otken had done a great job there forever. 16:55 Brett Larson And, you know, really sad he retires and that happens. 16:59 Brett Larson I don't know the behind the scenes in it. 17:00 Brett Larson But as college hockey coaches, we're pretty unanimous on one area. 17:04 Brett Larson And that's we want to see this game grow. 17:06 Brett Larson And we're trying to do everything we can to create more opportunities for kids to play college hockey at the Division I level. 17:12 Brett Larson So, you know, there's been some good momentum. 17:14 Brett Larson We want to keep that going. 17:15 Brett Larson We hope this doesn't spin it the other way. 17:17 Brett Larson But certainly really sad to see that happen right now. 17:20 Vegoe And the positive is, Mary, what do you think of the big keys to growing the game in college hockey? 17:25 Vegoe You know, David Carl is obviously one of the most vocal college coaches on things that need to change or be different or be fostered along the change. 17:34 Vegoe What do you kind of think are things that might be looked at here? 17:37 Brett Larson Well, I think obviously that the player pool has expanded so much, right? 17:41 Brett Larson So now there's more opportunity for colleges to build teams and build highly competitive teams. 17:46 Brett Larson So that's the one thing I'm hoping really can spur some of these schools on to start a program. 17:53 Brett Larson I don't want to say easy by any means, but it is easier than it used to be to feel the competitive lineup pretty much right away. 18:01 Brett Larson With the transfer portal now being another part of that and the ability to pick up players in the portal, the ability to go up in Canada to get high end players, the ability to go to Europe and get players that you couldn't get in the past. 18:11 Brett Larson I'm really hoping that this expanded player pool is a really good push for some teams to start a program. 18:20 Jûpe And Veegs, of course, we've already got that question. 18:22 Jûpe What's your stance on the home side NCAA regionals? 18:25 Jûpe That's everyone's favorite topic these days, Brett. 18:29 Brett Larson That's easy for me. 18:30 Brett Larson I'm all in on that. 18:32 Brett Larson I would rather play at home. 18:34 Brett Larson You gave me a thumbs up. 18:35 Brett Larson That's good. 18:35 Brett Larson I appreciate it. 18:36 Brett Larson I didn't know how you guys went on it, but you know, it's a cliché term, and everyone talks about student athlete experience, but let's make that the best experience possible. 18:45 Brett Larson Let's play in front of a big crowd. 18:48 Brett Larson Let's let the top eight teams earn home ice in that first game, which I think they have throughout the season, and you should get rewarded for that. 18:57 Brett Larson I'm all in on that. 18:59 Brett Larson I know Dave Carl is pushing that as well. 19:00 Brett Larson We've talked about it. 19:02 Brett Larson I don't think there's too many college coaches that are against that. 19:07 Vegoe We can tell you're not a frequent listener of our podcast. 19:09 Vegoe That's probably a good thing as a coach. 19:11 Vegoe But we talk with Brad Schlossman, and we talk about campus regionals and having that first round game or the dream would be a best of three. 19:18 Vegoe We know that's a little bit of a far-fetched plan, but we've had Adam Wodon on our show as well and talked about it. 19:23 Vegoe We just think it's the biggest games of the year. 19:26 Vegoe You want the biggest atmosphere you've seen in the conference tournaments. 19:29 Vegoe Those championship games are just terrific atmospheres sell out. 19:33 Vegoe It rewards the fans. 19:34 Vegoe It makes it easier to go and it's a great time of year. 19:38 Brett Larson I can tell you, I've been through it on the negative end. 19:41 Brett Larson My first year at St. 19:42 Brett Larson Cloud, we had a great team and we had our first seed. 19:45 Brett Larson Played AIC up in Fargo and the ice was terrible. 19:48 Brett Larson It was not a great environment and obviously, they earned the win. 19:52 Brett Larson I've not taken that away from them, but sure would have been nice to play them in St. 19:55 Brett Larson Cloud on the home rank in that game. 19:59 Brett Larson But I do think that that protects your top seeds a little bit for the most part. 20:04 Brett Larson They've earned it. 20:04 Brett Larson They should play at home. 20:07 Brett Larson And I think it's going to be a better atmosphere and environment all around. 20:12 Jûpe It's going to be very interesting. 20:13 Jûpe Oh, Eric Brewer, he's one of our favorites here. 20:15 Jûpe What is your relationship with the other Big Ten coaches? 20:18 Jûpe I'm guessing you probably know a lot of these people already. 20:22 Brett Larson For sure. 20:22 Brett Larson You know, I'll start with Steve Rolick. 20:24 Brett Larson Steve and I coached together at Duluth back in the day. 20:27 Brett Larson We're really good friends. 20:28 Brett Larson I worked for him for two years. 20:29 Brett Larson I don't know if the fans know that. 20:31 Brett Larson I was the Associated Coach at Ohio State, so I have been in the Big Ten. 20:34 Brett Larson I was able to coach the Buckeyes first game ever in Michigan that year, and we made it to the Big Ten Championship game at the X. 20:42 Brett Larson So Steve and I are really close. 20:43 Brett Larson I really look up to him. 20:45 Brett Larson You know, my first coaching job was with him. 20:47 Brett Larson We were at the college level. 20:49 Brett Larson We were together. 20:50 Brett Larson I've known Guy Gadowski since all the way back in the West Coast Hockey League days when he was up in Fresno and I was in San Diego. 20:56 Brett Larson And Mike Hastings and I obviously, you know, he's a St. 20:59 Brett Larson Cloud alum. 21:00 Brett Larson We've been close for a long time. 21:01 Brett Larson We coached on the US. 21:02 Brett Larson Olympic team together in 2021, I think, in Beijing. 21:06 Brett Larson So when you do the Olympics, especially in Beijing during COVID, you get to know each other really well. 21:11 Brett Larson We were stuck in a little apartment for three weeks together. 21:15 Brett Larson And I, you know, spend time brushing our teeth next to each other. 21:19 Brett Larson So you got to know each other pretty well. 21:22 Brett Larson You know, I'm thinking around the league now, obviously, to the other teams. 21:27 Brett Larson Those are just a few off the top of my head that I know really well. 21:31 Jûpe Veegs, do you have any final questions for Brett before we let him go here? 21:35 Jûpe We want to keep him. 21:36 Jûpe He's got to get some food in. 21:37 Jûpe Probably watch that basketball game coming up here real soon, is he? 21:40 Vegoe Brett's got to be on the road recruiting right now, I think, right? 21:42 Jûpe That too. 21:45 Brett Larson We got a lot of that, I just hit the road pretty good. 21:48 Brett Larson I got out and saw some of our incoming guys. 21:50 Brett Larson I got to tell you, that was fun. 21:53 Brett Larson Just sort of the fancy. 21:54 Brett Larson I was able to see some of our incoming guys that they'll see this year, and I was really impressed and can't wait to have them. 22:01 Vegoe You mentioned on KFAN that CHL is such an opportunity for big programs to go out and grab future first round picks and try to evaluate them. 22:10 Vegoe What is the landscape right now when you go after those big first rounders? 22:15 Vegoe I'm sure everyone's out there looking for them right now as they're trying to finalize the roster for next year. 22:21 Brett Larson Yeah, there's obviously a lot of competition for those guys. 22:24 Brett Larson It's also an interesting environment because we're used to going up to the BCHL or the AJA or those leagues and communicating with the coaches and the staff and having a good feel that way. 22:35 Brett Larson Now you feel a little bit of an outsider up there, you know, because obviously they don't want to lose their players and we all understand that, right? 22:42 Brett Larson So it's a little bit different feel. 22:44 Brett Larson Obviously, you're working with the advisors and the agents and you're getting up to see these kids play, but there's a lot of competition for these top end kids. 22:51 Brett Larson But we plan to be involved in that. 22:53 Brett Larson We plan to be involved in a player here or there that we think could really help our team. 22:57 Brett Larson Obviously, I'm not going to waver from the fact that our homegrown talent is critically important and we're going to stay with that for the majority. 23:04 Brett Larson But if we have the opportunity to mix in a player here or there that can really help our program, we're going to do it. 23:10 Vegoe When you talk to the guys who are already committed or the guys who potentially commit, what are their big questions for you as the new coach? 23:17 Brett Larson Well, the good thing is the hockey world is so small. 23:20 Brett Larson I know most of them already and I've dealt with most of them already. 23:22 Brett Larson Even the current team, I think you might have saw my first speech in there. 23:25 Brett Larson I joked that every single one of them turned me down once. 23:28 Brett Larson So I pretty much recruited this whole team. 23:31 Brett Larson We got a lot of nos and they ended up at Minnesota. 23:33 Brett Larson So now I'm happy to do that. 23:34 Brett Larson But I think just the fact that the hockey world is so small and I know most of these kids and have relationships with them already. 23:44 Brett Larson I think that brings a comfort level for them knowing the coach that's coming in and already having a relationship. 23:51 Jûpe Well, we can't thank you enough for the time. 23:54 Jûpe Can you still hear us there, Brett? 23:57 Brett Larson Yeah, it changed on me a little bit there. 23:59 Brett Larson I don't know if you can hear or see me. 24:00 Jûpe We can still hear you. 24:02 Jûpe This is probably a good sign to tell us to let you go. 24:05 Jûpe So you can go have your dinner and whatnot. 24:07 Jûpe It is quite all right. 24:10 Jûpe We cannot thank you enough for coming up on our live show tonight. 24:13 Jûpe And we will see you down the road. 24:18 Brett Larson Thanks, guys. 24:18 Brett Larson I enjoyed it. 24:19 Brett Larson So thanks for having me on. 24:21 Jûpe See you later. 24:24 Jûpe That was fun, Veegs. 24:25 Jûpe Don't you think? 24:27 Vegoe Yeah, nice to get to know the new coach a little bit better. 24:30 Vegoe You know, I think a lot of people were looking for anybody else in those early season polls. 24:35 Vegoe But I think the more that people get to know Brett and the more they listen to him, the more they hear their vision that he's going to be giving to Gopher Hockey, the more that they're going to be impressed. 24:44 Vegoe You know, everyone I talk to from Duluth and St. 24:46 Vegoe Cloud USA Hockey is super impressed with the work he's done. 24:50 Vegoe They're so happy for him to land this job, and they're interested to see what he can do with it. 24:57 Jûpe It's definitely going to be fun. 24:58 Jûpe Well, before we go on any further VEGS, we need to talk about Cub Foods. 25:05 Jûpe Big weekend this weekend, we had the final four, we got the we got the championship game tonight, and we've got the frozen fork about this week. 25:12 Jûpe Time to pick up all the stuff you need from Cub. 25:14 Vegoe Yeah, if you're getting ready for the frozen fork this weekend, I highly recommend you get down to Cub. 25:18 Vegoe I've been down to my Quarry Cub quite a bit lately as I get together for all these festivities like Easter and get ready for these championships. 25:26 Vegoe But, you know, if you're going to Cub, they're going to have everything that you need in stock. 25:30 Vegoe They're going to have great produce, they're going to have great sales, great prices. 25:33 Vegoe If you're looking for some THC stuff, they got you covered. 25:36 Vegoe If you need a couple of beverages to go with, a lot of Cubs have liquor stores now attached. 25:41 Vegoe And if you want to shop online, if you want to deliver it, if you want to pick it up, Cub can take it for you. 25:47 Vegoe And they're one of us, you know, they support Dickey Town Athletes, they support PJ Flex headset, and you can always rely on them. 25:54 Vegoe So shop Cub, shop happy. 25:57 Jûpe And of course, we can't forget about Cascade CBX Sport. 26:01 Jûpe They still have their $5 sample available. 26:05 Vegoe Yeah, that's right. 26:06 Vegoe Check out Cascade CBX Sport. 26:09 Vegoe You know, it's a miracle drug, reduces inflammation, reduces stress, it makes you feel good. 26:14 Vegoe You know, as I'm transitioning from hockey coaching to golf season, you know, the Cascade CBX Sport has been great for those aches and pains. 26:21 Vegoe And you should check it out too. 26:22 Vegoe cascadecbxsport.com/team. 26:25 Vegoe And for just five bucks, you can get a 300 milligram sample jar, shipping is free with that, and you can try it out for yourself. 26:33 Vegoe You know, they're a hungry startup and they're looking for more believers like us. 26:37 Vegoe So check it out. 26:38 Vegoe Trust the shield. 26:39 Vegoe Stay on the field. 26:41 Jûpe And of course, we thank Cub and CascadeCBXSport for sponsoring the Gopher Puck Live Podcast. 26:49 Jûpe Well, I've seen a lot of comments. 26:50 Jûpe I couldn't put them up all during the show. 26:52 Jûpe But oh, we've got Jason Bryant here saying, you know, Brett, fantastic dude, sad to lose him. 27:00 Jûpe Yes, definitely a good gain for us. 27:02 Jûpe Of course, you've got Steve here. 27:03 Jûpe He's thanking everything. 27:08 Jûpe Oh, here we go. 27:09 Jûpe Vonner, he was one of those on the fence on the coach. 27:11 Jûpe But I give him a lot of credit for doing this good on him. 27:15 Jûpe Well, we definitely appreciate it, too, as our first coach to be on live here, Veegs. 27:20 Jûpe Or have we had a coach on before at all? 27:22 Jûpe Except for you, you're you're our coach. 27:25 Vegoe Yeah, I'm I'm on a different level of coaching. 27:27 Vegoe So it's good to get Brett on. 27:29 Vegoe He has been doing the media tour. 27:31 Vegoe Oh, I feel like he's been doing something just about every night, whether it's Fox 9, whether it's Kfan. 27:37 Vegoe He's doing a couple other pods. 27:39 Vegoe You know, I'm sure he'll continue to make the rounds here. 27:41 Vegoe I think the media coverage of Gopher Hockey is something that's just a little bit different. 27:47 Vegoe And I do kind of wonder how much he knew it was going to be a part of the job. 27:53 Vegoe You know, we've often talked about how if you're at Minnesota, you're more than just a hockey coach. 27:58 Vegoe You're kind of a CAO. 28:00 Vegoe You know, you need to engage with the alumni. 28:03 Vegoe You need to engage with donors. 28:06 Vegoe You need to engage with the public through media. 28:09 Vegoe And it's just a huge part of the job. 28:11 Vegoe And Brett's really embracing that, I think. 28:13 Jûpe And he's going to see a lot of you and I. 28:16 Jûpe Because, you know, a lot of times early in the season, you know, in the fall, there's not a lot of coverage. 28:22 Jûpe Either you or I are usually there. 28:25 Jûpe Chris is as well. 28:27 Jûpe He's going to get used to seeing our ugly mugs. 28:30 Vegoe Yeah, I have not heard whether or not there will be open practices yet. 28:34 Vegoe One of these days, I'm going to ask that question to Brett. 28:36 Vegoe Hopefully he lets me a little bit under the hood to see what's going on. 28:40 Vegoe You know, I do think he is a player's coach. 28:43 Vegoe You know, you hear the way he talks about how he wants to develop talent, how he wants to give players a little bit of freedom as long as they behave the right way. 28:51 Vegoe You know, I think that's such a key in the modern game. 28:54 Vegoe You know, it's a game of mistakes. 28:56 Vegoe It's why we love it so much. 28:57 Vegoe But you need to have players who are willing to put chips on the table. 29:01 Vegoe You can't have players who just fold all the time. 29:03 Vegoe And I think, you know, as we watch this year's team, there's a lot of tentative hockey because I think there was that fear of making mistakes and playing it safe. 29:13 Vegoe And that's just not a way to win hockey games. 29:16 Jûpe And we've already seen Nathan Airy last Monday while you and I were just doing a little testing out of this platform. 29:23 Jûpe You're like, Oh, Nathan Airy is in the portal. 29:26 Jûpe So that's kind of the first thing to drop, isn't it? 29:29 Jûpe Nathan Airy is looking somewhere else. 29:32 Vegoe And I think for goalie, being in the Porter early is important, you know, because most teams, they're only going to start one or two guys. 29:40 Vegoe So if you're looking for opportunities to play, you probably want to get that process under way as fast as you can. 29:46 Vegoe You know, as we talked to Brett, he said there are decisions that they're going to have to make, and I'm sure they've had a lot of conversations with players already about what the roster could look like next year. 29:57 Vegoe Monday will be a busy day in the portal for people who follow Gopher Hockey. 30:04 Jûpe So we're keeping track, so Aerie is not going to be around, but it's been pretty quiet. 30:10 Jûpe We have not heard anyone else jumping in because the rule said, you know, the day that Aerie jumped in last Monday was their first opportunity. 30:19 Jûpe Which officially the rules are, once a coach is announced, a new coach is announced, you have a five day kind of waiting period and then a 15 day extra portal to keep it simple. 30:33 Jûpe So that essentially gives, you know, Minnesota players almost a 30 day type of portal they've got going here. 30:41 Vegoe Yeah, it's interesting. 30:42 Vegoe I'm not sure why more players who could be looking for new homes aren't in the portal yet. 30:47 Vegoe I'm sure they have advisors that are working the scenes to try to find them homes without them putting their names in. 30:56 Vegoe But it's something that will be happening, I think, as we project what a roster could look like for next year. 31:02 Vegoe They probably have more players than they have roster spots. 31:06 Jûpe Yes. 31:07 Jûpe Do we think is it? 31:08 Jûpe So they've got their meetings in Florida after the season, you know, a couple of weeks after and then I'll meet and that's where you're going to go set up a desk and we've got Brett on board now with our Oh, that was sweet. 31:21 Jûpe That was great, by the way. 31:23 Jûpe Is there any chance that rule changes or do they have to go higher up? 31:27 Jûpe Or can they just make recommendations? 31:29 Jûpe Or what's the process on that? 31:32 Vegoe So they would just be making recommendations at their coaches meeting. 31:36 Vegoe You know, official rules have to go before the NCAA committees. 31:39 Vegoe Typically, it's it's been a little more challenging to get those done quickly. 31:44 Vegoe You know, the one nice thing with Brett being at Minnesota and having a good relationship with Mark Coyle already is they need that support from the ED. 31:53 Vegoe And that's ultimately where those decisions get made. 31:56 Vegoe You know, I think when John Butchegrass was on a pod the other week and he talked about the NCAA hockey like going on their own, I think that's just some coaches being frustrated with the process of having non-hockey people making hockey decisions and maybe that's spilling over into that. 32:13 Vegoe I don't think that's a real possibility for college hockey. 32:18 Vegoe I think that's just talking on a school there, but you never know. 32:22 Vegoe Maybe John Butchegross had had too much top shelf Buffalo trace that night. 32:27 Vegoe But you know, there is a need for some low changes. 32:32 Vegoe Yeah, there is a need for some rule changes in college hockey. 32:35 Vegoe And we'll see, you know, with all these turnover and coaches, it could happen faster. 32:41 Jûpe I hope to see that. 32:42 Jûpe You know, another thing that we saw even Mike Hastings talking about is, hey, let's get some more games in there, you know, two to four more games for them to play. 32:51 Jûpe Well speaking of Mike Hastings, let's, you know, Wisconsin's in the Frozen Four. 32:56 Jûpe I don't think anybody had them getting to the Frozen Four because that's the, and I'll wait for this load here. 33:02 Jûpe When I scroll down to the bottom, here's, you know, Wisconsin and Michigan State met in the final and Wisconsin took care of them. 33:11 Jûpe Veegs, that was kind of a quite the surprise. 33:14 Vegoe Well, they really took advantage, that's for sure. 33:17 Vegoe I think Michigan State got into that feeling where let's stop making any plays that are risky. 33:23 Vegoe And when you do that in college hockey, you allow the other team to start stealing your blinds. 33:28 Vegoe And that's kind of what happened in that game in Wisconsin, just started taking some chances and they got some bounces. 33:34 Vegoe And when you play like Michigan State did in that game, you give the other team an opportunity. 33:38 Vegoe I think Gopher fans know that all too well from some of the history of Minnesota hockey. 33:44 Vegoe But this time, Wisconsin came out on top, you know, not a great pretty goal. 33:50 Vegoe But when you have a tight game like that, that's what you open yourself up to. 33:54 Vegoe And tough, tough end in Michigan State, that busted my bracket. 33:57 Vegoe I thought they had too much talent. 33:58 Vegoe You know, losing Charlie Stramel in that game, I think was a big impact. 34:02 Vegoe We've often talked about how one of the reasons Michigan State was so successful is they had a senior center like Stramel. 34:10 Vegoe When you lose him, everybody else bumps into a different role. 34:14 Vegoe And when you don't have that upper class support in your lineup, you know, the younger players get put into situations they haven't get into before. 34:23 Vegoe And it cost Sparty. 34:26 Jûpe But before that, you know, Wisconsin took out Dartmouth, you know, it was a close game until the end and Wisconsin got away. 34:32 Jûpe But you had been saying for all year, you couldn't trust Dartmouth. 34:37 Jûpe And sure enough, it came true. 34:39 Jûpe Veegs five to one loss. 34:40 Jûpe Bingo. 34:43 Jûpe There was just there wasn't much offensive. 34:44 Jûpe That was a late scoring game, I do believe. 34:47 Vegoe Yeah. 34:48 Vegoe But I had Wisconsin as the upset in that game, as kind of my go to there. 34:54 Jûpe And then the other side of the lower part of the bracket, you did have Quinnipiac taking out Providence. 34:59 Jûpe That was a little more of a surprise. 35:01 Jûpe Providence had had an excellent season. 35:03 Jûpe And a lot of us thought that they might be able to challenge North Dakota in the Sioux Falls region. 35:09 Jûpe But it turns out nobody could challenge North Dakota in that region. 35:13 Vegoe North Dakota looked very strong. 35:16 Vegoe Full credit to Dane Jackson and that program for turning things around. 35:20 Vegoe I think that's a sign how quickly you can turn over a roster and make big changes. 35:26 Vegoe Brad Schlossman documented this reconstruction many times for the Grand Forks Herald. 35:33 Vegoe Read up on that. 35:34 Vegoe I think Minnesota is going to have to go something similar. 35:37 Vegoe I don't think it's going to be as big a turnover as North Dakota went through. 35:42 Vegoe But it just shows you that in this era, you can rebuild a roster very quickly. 35:48 Jûpe You know, the top part of the bracket, you know, this is the first games, you know, Michigan 5-1, Duluth took care of Penn State late. 35:55 Jûpe Any thoughts on that Penn State Duluth game? 35:57 Jûpe Every boy ESPN lost their whole talking point the entire weekend once. 36:04 Jûpe You know who was no longer in the tournament? 36:07 Vegoe Yeah, you know, Scott Sandlin did a great job with Duluth this year. 36:11 Vegoe You know, I think a lot of people were frustrated with the season they had last year, but he loaded up a top line, had a great goalie. 36:18 Vegoe They played very well against Penn State. 36:21 Vegoe I do think Penn State, you know, one of those teams hadn't really achieved enough before, and it probably impacted them a little bit in that game. 36:32 Vegoe Interesting to see Duluth advance, and they ran into Michigan, and Michigan looks really good. 36:39 Vegoe I think we need to see them in some tighter games here in the Frozen 4. 36:43 Vegoe I'm sure they'll get one with Denver, but they looked very good in their regional. 36:48 Jûpe Denver also looked great in the regional, took a five-nothing victory over Cornell, and they faced West Cornell. 36:54 Vegoe Cornell lost in the first round. 36:55 Vegoe Interesting. 36:57 Vegoe Another ECAC team. 37:01 Jûpe Well, I'll still remind you that Minnesota has lost to an ECAC team way too many times in the national title game. 37:09 Jûpe We don't want to talk about that, though. 37:10 Vegoe We don't want to talk about that. 37:11 Vegoe Doesn't fit my narrative tonight. 37:15 Jûpe So, yeah, we go down here. 37:16 Jûpe Obviously, we had the Michigan holding on at the end against Duluth Figs. 37:20 Jûpe That was a fun game because Duluth just knew they were going to come back. 37:24 Jûpe They were just they were dominating at the end of the game. 37:27 Jûpe They were putting a lot of pressure on Michigan. 37:29 Jûpe And unlike previous years, this year Michigan held on and showed they can handle it. 37:35 Vegoe Well, I think Michigan kept playing, you know, and they came through continuing to play and put out offense. 37:41 Vegoe And, you know, they have some very good high end skill players at Michigan and they've got depth. 37:47 Vegoe You know, I think that's the one thing that's different about this Michigan team with some of the others. 37:50 Vegoe If they've got some senior leadership back there that fills depth roles and they've got that balance scoring throughout their line up. 37:57 Vegoe The one thing about Duluth, they were very top heavy this year. 38:00 Vegoe You know, they relied on their top line quite a bit. 38:04 Jûpe Denver pretty much dominated Western that entire game, Vig, so it was never really ever in doubt. 38:11 Vegoe Yeah, Eric Polkamp, I think, is my favorite for the Hobie this year. 38:16 Vegoe He looked very good in the regionals. 38:18 Vegoe He was a player that came out of the portal and picked Denver and, you know, made the transition seamlessly. 38:25 Vegoe Very good player for them. 38:26 Vegoe I always think in the NCAA tournament, you need elite defensemen to win. 38:31 Vegoe And Denver definitely has one right there. 38:34 Vegoe And Denver will be interesting to watch going forward. 38:36 Vegoe You know, they landed Ryan Lin from the CHL, you know, a high first round pick for the NHL here coming up. 38:44 Vegoe Very attractive place. 38:45 Vegoe I think the next CHL player everyone's got their eyes on is DuPont. 38:50 Vegoe And we were kind of alluding to a player like that with Brett earlier in the show. 38:55 Vegoe Every school in the nation wants that player. 38:58 Vegoe So it'll be quite the resume builder to whichever coach lands him. 39:05 Jûpe And of course, there's the North Dakota finishing off the shutout of the entire regional, not allowing a single goal, Veegs. 39:15 Vegoe Yeah, I was intrigued with Penn State and Quinnipiac going after each other on the social media about their homey candidates, which was which was more fun than the North Dakota Quinnipiac game because we saw all the ESPN coverage of Wittenbach here this past weekend. 39:34 Jûpe And then there's that Michigan State Wisconsin final. 39:39 Jûpe I felt bad for Augustine because he was kind of let hung out to dry a little bit. 39:43 Jûpe I'm not sure if he could have rescued that game at all because they all of a sudden it's like Wisconsin got that one goal and it was all of a sudden it was on. 39:57 Vegoe Yeah, I think Michigan State just needed one more defender to push them over the top this year. 40:03 Vegoe I just don't think they quite had that, you know, like some of the other top teams in college hockey seem to have. 40:11 Jûpe So there we go. 40:12 Jûpe The Frozen Four top winningest programs and NCAA all meeting in the Frozen Four, Michigan, Denver, North Dakota, Wisconsin for the first time in NCAA tournament since 1982. 40:29 Jûpe For us Gopher fans, could it be a worse frozen four team? 40:38 Vegoe I mean, it just puts the number of titles for a school further ahead of Minnesota, which I think is probably tough for most Minnesota fans' stomach. 40:49 Vegoe I mean, it's really hard. 40:51 Vegoe I mean, if you're a Gopher fan, you probably don't want to see Michigan, North Dakota, Wisconsin win this one. 41:00 Vegoe You're maybe okay with Denver, because it seems like they handle success better than everybody else. 41:06 Vegoe But it's a it's a tough frozen four for us. 41:10 Jûpe But then then you get the fact, okay, what if Denver with North Dakota wins? 41:14 Jûpe It's another NCHC sweep. 41:18 Jûpe Or or let's say Wisconsin beats North Dakota, and it's Michigan, Wisconsin. 41:24 Jûpe Yay, we get a Big Ten team winning this year. 41:28 Vegoe Crap. 41:28 Vegoe The only thing that can be happy about that is Mike Hastings. 41:32 Vegoe Pretty good dude. 41:33 Vegoe Tom Waskey, pretty good. 41:36 Vegoe You know, those those two people are joys to work with over the years. 41:40 Vegoe So it could be happy for them. 41:43 Vegoe But, you know, David Carlin, you know, being the NCAA spokesman for a lot of the changes we want to see probably wins out for me. 41:52 Jûpe Hard to argue that. 41:56 Jûpe But I was with some people and they were they were visibly upset that North Dakota wasn't there. 42:02 Jûpe And they're going to be in Vegas. 42:04 Jûpe And it is North Dakota hosted tournament or Frozen 4 in Vegas. 42:08 Speaker 3 So. 42:10 Jûpe Oh, boy, it's it's going to be interesting. 42:13 Jûpe It's going to be interesting. 42:15 Jûpe It's always it's always fun. 42:16 Jûpe Frozen 4 is a great time, unfortunately. 42:19 Jûpe Well, yeah, there we go. 42:22 Jûpe Vonner, the classic lose, lose, lose, lose scenario. 42:28 Jûpe What else is on? 42:29 Jûpe Well, I'm going to watch it. 42:30 Jûpe You're going to watch it, aren't you? 42:32 Vegoe Yeah, for sure. 42:33 Vegoe Going to watch it. 42:34 Vegoe You know, it's going to be great hockey. 42:35 Vegoe These are good teams. 42:37 Vegoe There's a lot of pro prospects to watch in this. 42:39 Vegoe I think it's interesting that North Dakota is in it with some of those kind of underage players that are going to be playing for them and see whether or not that can pay off in the NCAA tournament and maybe bring a title. 42:51 Vegoe You know, we often talk about how first round picks have a hard time winning NCAA titles. 42:57 Vegoe There's a lot of first round picks playing this weekend in Vegas. 43:02 Jûpe So what are your picks for each game and who is the champion? 43:10 Jûpe I'm guessing it might be Denver related. 43:14 Vegoe I mean, I like Denver quite a bit. 43:16 Vegoe You know, the way that they play, the way that they recover from mistakes, the goaltending they're getting, you know, Denver is probably my favorite for the weekend coming out of this tournament. 43:32 Vegoe It would be fun to see Wisconsin make it to the championship. 43:36 Jûpe Yes. 43:38 Vegoe I just don't think we're going to see that. 43:42 Jûpe I want to stick with my picks, and I had picked Michigan and Michigan State in the final, so I'm going to pick Michigan's over Denver in the final. 44:02 Jûpe Michigan over North Dakota. 44:06 Vegoe We're going opposites. 44:08 Jûpe Yeah, Michigan. 44:09 Vegoe I'm going Denver over Wisconsin. 44:11 Jûpe Michigan over North Dakota. 44:12 Jûpe God, I hate just saying that. 44:21 Jûpe Well, we can do that. 44:22 Jûpe Look at that motay coming in. 44:25 Jûpe Can you guys talk about how you got Brett to come to GPL? 44:28 Jûpe Was it Kinger pulling some strings for pulling? 44:30 Jûpe Actually no. 44:32 Jûpe During his press conference, you went over and spoke with him. 44:38 Jûpe And at the same time, about five feet away, I was speaking with Scott Slarks, the SID. 44:42 Jûpe And like, hey, let's get him on the podcast. 44:45 Jûpe And Slarks is like, oh, I don't know if I want to subject you two jokers to him. 44:48 Jûpe But at the same time, you were talking to Larson, weren't you? 44:52 Vegoe Yeah, I think we had the same idea at the same time. 44:54 Vegoe And Brett is embracing the role and knows that there's a little bit of PR that probably has to happen with his hire. 45:02 Vegoe You know, when that poll comes out, you know, I think there's a little bit of pride in the coaches goes, hey, I want to prove to everybody that I'm the right pick. 45:09 Vegoe And so I'm going to go out and meet with everybody face to face and see how it goes. 45:13 Vegoe So I think Brett was more than willing to come on and plead his case to the fans and try to generate a little bit of excitement for next year. 45:22 Jûpe It was just more of a it was kind of a timing thing too. 45:25 Jûpe We were trying to get it to happen last week, but he was the man is busy, the man is very I think coaches are just warming up to us. 45:34 Vegoe You know, Bob did mention during the year that he was looking forward to joining us at some point to be on the pod. 45:39 Vegoe So maybe at some point, we'll get a little margaritas with Bob and talk about college coaching and see how it goes. 45:47 Jûpe But you know, let's let's let's see if we can get Bob to come on this summer. 45:51 Jûpe We'll have a summer. 45:52 Jûpe We can have a couple of summer episodes. 45:54 Jûpe It doesn't have to be live. 45:55 Jûpe Maybe we can do it recorded. 45:57 Vegoe We'll see. 45:59 Vegoe We'll have more room cred out there, I guess. 46:02 Jûpe Yeah, well, that's good, because like I said, he's going to see a lot of us. 46:08 Jûpe That's just how it is. 46:09 Jûpe And I've I've this is that's the most I've ever spoken to a coach. 46:12 Jûpe I hardly ever, ever spoke to Don or Bob. 46:16 Jûpe I mean, Bob would know who I am. 46:18 Jûpe I'm just the white haired guy standing in front of asking all these weird questions at times, because I didn't see half the game because I'm looking through a camera. 46:28 Jûpe But I just hope Brett has a little more understanding. 46:33 Jûpe Well, I don't know what do you do? 46:39 Vegoe Well, we look forward to the weekend ahead, and next week will be a busy one for Brett. 46:45 Vegoe I think we'll see moves right away out of the portal. 46:49 Vegoe We'll get more clarity on the recruits that are actually going to make it to campus. 46:54 Vegoe You know, I thought about asking him, who are the guys that have signed their national letters intent? 47:00 Vegoe And what does that mean now? 47:01 Vegoe But we'll give him some space to figure out how everything's going to work out with the portal with his roster and who's coming back. 47:08 Jûpe So yeah, we talked about keeping them on for 20 minutes. 47:11 Jûpe We went over that amount. 47:13 Jûpe I could have kept asking a lot more questions more, you know, just about him, maybe less hockey and but we didn't want to keep him too long. 47:21 Jûpe We just we'll just glide into this. 47:22 Jûpe Maybe we can get him on for a segment, you know, sometime during the season too. 47:29 Jûpe We'll see. 47:30 Jûpe We're going to try. 47:30 Jûpe We're going to try. 47:32 Jûpe All right. 47:32 Jûpe Now let's just get to overtime, man. 47:35 Jûpe Get your drink ready. 47:36 Jûpe Let's go. 47:36 Vegoe I'm all thirsty. 47:38 Vegoe Let's go. 47:38 Jûpe Let's go. 47:55 Jûpe We are headed to overtime. 47:58 Jûpe You know what that means. 47:59 Jûpe It's Vegoe's Beverage of the Week. 48:14 Jûpe That was a nice little pop there. 48:16 Vegoe Yeah, we got a new coach. 48:17 Vegoe We had a little cork popping happening, so why not? 48:20 Vegoe This is a beauty from the cellar. 48:23 Vegoe This is via Russian River. 48:25 Vegoe It's called Consecration. 48:28 Vegoe So it's a strong ale, aged in barrels with black currants. 48:34 Vegoe It's one of my favorites. 48:36 Vegoe Cheers. 48:38 Vegoe Special beer, special coach. 48:40 Jûpe Very nice, very nice. 48:42 Vegoe Tart, rich, dark, lots of fruit. 48:44 Vegoe Really good. 48:47 Jûpe What's going on at Penn State? 48:48 Jûpe Lots of early departures. 48:53 Vegoe Probably I'm a little surprised to see JJ enter the portal for them, just a player who didn't like their role, maybe didn't like the coaching. 49:03 Vegoe Who knows? 49:04 Vegoe It's interesting, though. 49:05 Vegoe We'll see, because obviously I think a lot of people are expecting McKenna to turn pro. 49:10 Vegoe He would probably benefit with another year for Jackson Smith is coming back for Penn State. 49:16 Vegoe Also interesting. 49:17 Vegoe So curious. 49:24 Jûpe Tom's watch bar. 49:25 Jûpe I'm just reading through some of the messages here. 49:28 Jûpe You can see some of the messages on your side, can't you? 49:31 Vegoe Yeah, I don't think I have the controls that you do, but I can still see messages. 49:36 Jûpe I'm sorry. 49:36 Vegoe And we did the Tom's Watch Bar Dinkytown Athletes Podcast once here in Minneapolis, but I know they have one in Vegas, which will be fun. 49:45 Vegoe Do they be wary, though? 49:47 Vegoe I think it's a North Dakota and Michigan watch party at Tom's. 49:52 Vegoe Could be some fun people watching. 49:59 Jûpe I don't know. 50:00 Jûpe We know so many people going to Vegas. 50:02 Jûpe It's not like I can't wish for a comet to hit the arena like we usually would with so many teams that we hate. 50:08 Vegoe That would be bad for the field. 50:10 Jûpe It would be. 50:12 Jûpe Didn't get a chance to ask Brett, but I'm guessing he probably goes. 50:15 Jûpe You think? 50:16 Jûpe Or is he too busy or coaches tend to go? 50:20 Jûpe Just, you know, just to see each other at times. 50:23 Jûpe It's a good time to meet. 50:24 Jûpe But I guess they do have their meetings after that. 50:26 Vegoe Yeah, I'm sure it's a little bit of a networking thing and no way to wind down. 50:31 Vegoe But you never know. 50:33 Vegoe Brett could be recruiting at them. 50:35 Vegoe You know, CHL playoffs, who knows who is out. 50:39 Jûpe So you kind of said, you know, pole camp is your favorite, you think, for the Hobie. 50:43 Jûpe I like pole camp as well. 50:46 Jûpe What do you think? 50:47 Vegoe Yeah, I think it comes down to pole camp and plant. 50:50 Vegoe You know, I think those two are the ones that I put my money on. 50:55 Vegoe I just think pole camp, you know, has had one of those years where, you know, top scoring defenseman, one of the top scores for his team gets the edge for me this year, you know, really dynamic player, plays a big game, could project well to be a pro. 51:12 Jûpe And it looks like he's not going to the Frozen 4, but nothing. 51:16 Vegoe He's got to be busy. 51:16 Vegoe He's got to work. 51:19 Jûpe It could be crazy next week. 51:21 Jûpe You know, the portal just is closing today for the women. 51:24 Jûpe It's been a little quiet for the women. 51:26 Jûpe Actually, I had a couple. 51:27 Jûpe We had a couple of commitments that Tim Bruehle sent over to me. 51:30 Jûpe One of them to the Minnesota. 51:33 Vegoe Goldsworthy. 51:34 Jûpe Yes. 51:37 Jûpe But it the the women's wasn't as active. 51:40 Jûpe It was I just it was just seem a little quieter. 51:42 Jûpe We didn't get a lot of just a lot of messages and things like that and saying, hey, get me in the portal. 51:47 Jûpe Blah, blah, blah. 51:49 Jûpe I play this position. 51:50 Jûpe This was my numbers. 51:51 Jûpe It's been a little quieter on that side, but which probably just means it's going to be crazy for the men. 51:58 Vegoe Well, I think the thing with the women's portal is, you know, there's no longer the COVID year. 52:03 Vegoe You know, that's worked its way out of the game. 52:06 Vegoe And there's less of a junior hockey opportunity in the women's game either. 52:11 Vegoe So you don't have all these delayed commitments and things that that force that churn. 52:15 Vegoe You know, in the men's game, you know, things are getting crazy with roster limits, programs being caught, CHL. 52:23 Vegoe It's just there's faster churn in the men's game right now, which is why I think on Monday, the men's portal is going to be ridiculous again. 52:31 Vegoe And unfortunately, I think you're going to have a lot of players who are going to have a hard time finding a next spot when they are being encouraged to go elsewhere. 52:42 Jûpe It is getting tricky. 52:43 Jûpe It is getting very tricky. 52:47 Jûpe Who knows? 52:48 Jûpe I've got the, point the right, whatever the right way to point here. 52:53 Jûpe So we've got the chat going in the window here and even on Vertical. 53:00 Jûpe I'm kind of curious how many people are watching on the Vertical stream. 53:03 Jûpe This is a new feature we're doing with our host here. 53:08 Jûpe We'll have to see how it works. 53:09 Jûpe I know Veeegs is adapting quite a bit because there is a delay between us two. 53:13 Jûpe You guys see it pretty well, but there's a delay. 53:15 Jûpe So well, it's kind of a practice run on ahead with the head coach. 53:21 Jûpe But so far, so good. 53:24 Vegoe I like how you just went without a net. 53:25 Vegoe You're just like, well, we're going to have a coach on for the first time. 53:28 Vegoe Let's change up all of our software and just go without a net and go back home. 53:35 Jûpe So it's recording the full recording. 53:40 Jûpe It's recording the vertical recording. 53:43 Jûpe It's recording every individual player all on my machine at once. 53:50 Jûpe So that's pretty good. 53:51 Vegoe I trust you with the technical stuff. 53:55 Vegoe I'm just here to provide some insights where I can and drink beer. 53:59 Jûpe And Varner says, what does he says? 54:02 Jûpe Close this off here. 54:02 Jûpe I get too many. 54:03 Jûpe I have too many windows open. 54:05 Jûpe Your audio is quieter than Vig. 54:07 Jûpe Just FYI. 54:08 Jûpe Yeah, probably. 54:10 Vegoe We're just a loud person. 54:11 Vegoe I've had I've had many players over my career coaching. 54:15 Vegoe Tell me that I'm very loud. 54:17 Jûpe So it's important to be well, I can change things a little bit. 54:22 Jûpe I can bring this up a little bit. 54:23 Jûpe I mean, it's hard to adjust on the fly. 54:30 Jûpe Stress of beer drinking. 54:36 Vegoe This isn't my usual loaf of bread, though. 54:38 Jûpe This is it's spring, you know, it's it's the spring is coming a little lighter, maybe. 54:44 Vegoe Well, OK, it is 10 percent, but it's smaller 10 percent, but it is twelve point six ounces. 54:51 Jûpe Oh, Steve, I see forty nine currently on horizontal 18 on vertical. 54:56 Jûpe So some people are using the vertical. 54:58 Jûpe Oh, well, see, Brewer just popped up and moved on me. 55:02 Jûpe So, yeah, there we go. 55:04 Jûpe So it pops up. 55:05 Jûpe There we go. 55:07 Jûpe Currently, I mean, that's like I said, we're trying something different, different options, and it's going to be kind of nice for editing. 55:13 Jûpe I'll tell you that when I've got it all already lined up for us. 55:17 Jûpe So knock on wood. 55:20 Jûpe Oh, boy. 55:21 Jûpe I'm just texting Roseville. 55:26 Jûpe New era when you can get a coach on your podcast. 55:29 Vegoe Thanks to certainly a new era. 55:31 Jûpe Thanks to me. 55:33 Vegoe That will be interested to see if the coach brings any players with him as well from St. 55:38 Vegoe Cloud. 55:39 Vegoe You know, there's a couple of forwards like Burnabek Road. 55:49 Jûpe Hall. 55:52 Vegoe Yeah, so we'll see. 55:55 Vegoe It's going to be interesting that he recruited four CHL players for St. 55:59 Vegoe Cloud next year, too. 56:01 Vegoe So, you know, he's definitely got some experience up there. 56:05 Jûpe Yes, he does. 56:06 Jûpe I'm just going through making some adjustments here. 56:11 Jûpe Nothing for you to worry about. 56:12 Vegoe Luckily, biggest opportunity will be a defense, obviously. 56:16 Vegoe I think most fans who watched the Gophers last year were wishing a little bit more there. 56:22 Vegoe I don't see any saviors coming from St. 56:25 Vegoe Cloud on the defensive end. 56:27 Vegoe So, Henrikhs is definitely a talented player, but they're probably going to need some more. 56:34 Vegoe That's why DuPont would be such an elite fit, potential number one pick in the draft in 2027. 56:43 Jûpe Well, here's Brevver. 56:46 Jûpe My unverified source indicate that there are a number that will be coming east. 56:51 Vegoe Four could be what I've heard, potentially. 56:55 Vegoe That's a lot. 56:56 Vegoe That's a lot. 56:57 Jûpe That's a lot because that means you're definitely getting rid of players. 57:02 Vegoe Yes. 57:04 Vegoe And I've heard six or seven players could be leaving and some potential incoming players may not be coming. 57:14 Vegoe So it'll be very interesting to see how this shakes out. 57:18 Jûpe I wonder about Nevers coming in because he's out of junior availability. 57:25 Jûpe He's got, like I said, he's maxed out on age there. 57:29 Jûpe I haven't seen great numbers from him. 57:32 Jûpe The coach that had the relationship with, you know, the family is maybe not around anymore. 57:38 Jûpe I wonder about him. 57:40 Speaker 3 Yep. 57:41 Vegoe And I do wonder if we see any, like, gray shirts in hockey. 57:46 Vegoe It's something that's been a football thing in the past. 57:49 Jûpe Tell me about that. 57:50 Vegoe A player is committed to a school, but they don't have a roster spot for them. 57:55 Vegoe So a player can, like, gray shirt and not be on scholarship and basically push out their enrollment a year and come in the following year and their eligibility doesn't start. 58:06 Vegoe It's something I've never really seen in hockey, but I would be interested to see if there are potentially some players who might look for that option. 58:16 Vegoe It would be interesting to see how it would work because you can't play another year juniors. 58:21 Vegoe Yeah. 58:24 Jûpe I don't know. 58:26 Vegoe But I know that there were players that committed to Augustana before they had a program and basically sat a year where they basically just practiced for Reboin and didn't play for a year. 58:38 Brett Larson Yeah. 58:39 Vegoe But they wanted to be a part of that program, so they basically took a year off. 58:45 Jûpe Okay. 58:46 Vegoe Okay. 58:50 Vegoe You know, until that roster limit thing gets solved, we'll see. 58:55 Jûpe Just watching some of the Artemis stuff. 59:00 Jûpe Up on the TV. 59:02 Jûpe You like my remodel behind me, Veegs? 59:05 Vegoe Yeah, you put a lot of work in back there, huh? 59:08 Jûpe Yeah, it was the other night I was getting all set up and let me see if I can. 59:14 Jûpe There's more zoomed in, I don't want to see my head. 59:19 Vegoe Yeah, it's looking good back there. 59:22 Jûpe Of course, there's the old bumper from Mariucci from Between the Benches right here. 59:29 Jûpe You got the 3D goldy thing here, a couple of my old license plates. 59:35 Jûpe And you'll like this one, Veegs. 59:38 Jûpe And there's Faber. 59:41 Jûpe Got the old Ruben's Jersey up there as well. 59:43 Jûpe Yeah, got the Ruben's Jersey as well. 59:46 Vegoe So yeah, a lot of good things are except for the red color. 59:50 Jûpe Yeah, but, you know, it's the Ruben's Jersey. 59:52 Jûpe It's part of our past. 59:54 Jûpe You know, you know, part of the past. 59:56 Jûpe You know, I also got a Wisconsin Puck here and a North Dakota Puck. 1:00:01 Jûpe North Dakota, I bought that first weekend. 1:00:03 Jûpe We did our podcast from the street. 1:00:08 Jûpe The other one was the last time I was in Wisconsin, they had a stripe out day that didn't go so well. 1:00:15 Jûpe Didn't work so well for them in Minnesota. 1:00:17 Vegoe The stripe out in the hockey is tough. 1:00:19 Vegoe So, yeah. 1:00:23 Jûpe And you know what? 1:00:24 Jûpe And we know great people from both those schools. 1:00:26 Jûpe So I thought it was good for them. 1:00:27 Jûpe And then there's another puck thing here. 1:00:29 Jûpe These are, let me see, the first three pucks hit me over the years. 1:00:36 Jûpe This is the first one to hit me back in 2005 against St. 1:00:40 Jûpe Cloud. 1:00:40 Jûpe That was before they had the nets up. 1:00:43 Jûpe It was behind a goal. 1:00:45 Jûpe Matt Kowalska shot hits, so somebody tips over, hit people right in front of me, just split right this, hits me right in the knee. 1:00:53 Jûpe And another reason I remember that is, I was laid off from a job that same day. 1:01:01 Jûpe Very memorable. 1:01:03 Jûpe So, yeah, it's all fun. 1:01:06 Jûpe All fun and games. 1:01:09 Jûpe I see people, I see Steve, I see the Steves in the chat planning their trip in Vegas. 1:01:15 Jûpe Geez, guys, come on. 1:01:16 Vegoe We're just here to provide an opportunity for people to connect. 1:01:19 Vegoe So, yeah, yeah, that's what we're here for. 1:01:22 Vegoe Glad you're going. 1:01:24 Vegoe Wish I could make it. 1:01:25 Vegoe Not in the budget this year. 1:01:27 Jûpe No, no, just watch on TV. 1:01:33 Vegoe Who knows? 1:01:35 Jûpe You got anything else? 1:01:37 Vegoe I heard that there's a potential golf tournament coming up this summer. 1:01:41 Vegoe That might be a fundraising opportunity. 1:01:44 Vegoe I think Golden Helmet Collective has maybe seen some opportunities to help support the new coach. 1:01:51 Vegoe As we heard the coach talk today about a director of player development and a goalie developer. 1:01:58 Jûpe I noticed he said director goalie. 1:02:02 Vegoe Yeah, I think that's encouraging. 1:02:04 Vegoe They are going to have to fundraise, I think, for some of those salaries. 1:02:08 Vegoe I think that's part of the deal. 1:02:10 Vegoe So, you'll be hearing people reach out about that, I'm sure, this summer, so. 1:02:18 Jûpe Interesting. 1:02:20 Jûpe Yeah. 1:02:21 Vegoe So, I think that was news tonight, is that there will be a goalie development person on staff. 1:02:29 Vegoe So. 1:02:30 Jûpe Yeah. 1:02:33 Jûpe All the rumors we've been hearing, it sounds like they've got their people. 1:02:37 Vegoe Yeah. 1:02:38 Vegoe I mean, it sounds like Laylen, Gordon, Martin, Potter, Colin. 1:02:44 Vegoe I think those are your coaches that should be announced anytime soon. 1:02:49 Jûpe Yes, I believe it's, you know, Cullen would be taking Martin's old position director of player, whatever. 1:02:56 Vegoe Player development. 1:02:57 Jûpe Player development. 1:02:58 Jûpe Martin would be taking the defense. 1:03:02 Jûpe Where does Gordon and or Laylen go? 1:03:07 Vegoe Well, I think Gordon has got a good relationship with the forwards and he's got a good relationship on the road with the current recruits that are committed. 1:03:15 Jûpe Okay. 1:03:16 Vegoe And I think it's really important for Minnesota to maintain those relationships. 1:03:20 Vegoe There's a lot of talent in the pipeline that Gordon's established a relationship with. 1:03:26 Vegoe So I think it's important to keep him and help that transition. 1:03:30 Vegoe And we'll see if there's a long term fit there between Brett and Ben. 1:03:35 Vegoe But it's worth pursuing, I think, for everybody. 1:03:39 Jûpe So then is Leland in a similar position? 1:03:45 Vegoe Yeah, I think Leland's an experienced guy that has a good relationship with Brett. 1:03:48 Vegoe And you know, that's a good thing to have on staff. 1:03:52 Vegoe And just someone else that he can rely on. 1:03:55 Jûpe So right now, Ponder, as I pronounce his name, is technically one of the four coaches. 1:04:02 Jûpe Four coaches. 1:04:05 Jûpe So we're thinking either Leland or Gordon would kind of go into that position. 1:04:12 Jûpe And Ponder's day becomes one of those volunteer slash part-time type of deal, correct? 1:04:20 Vegoe Yep. 1:04:20 Vegoe And I think we'll see Leland and Gordon on the road recruiting quite a bit. 1:04:24 Vegoe I think those are the guys who are gonna be in a lot of buildings. 1:04:28 Vegoe One of the things Larson talks about is, it's not just about what you can do on the ice. 1:04:33 Vegoe It's how you react to mistakes. 1:04:36 Vegoe It's how you interact with your coaches. 1:04:38 Vegoe What's your body language like on the bench? 1:04:40 Vegoe And those are things that are hard to scout on video. 1:04:43 Vegoe And so I think he puts a premium on seeing players in person. 1:04:48 Vegoe And I think that will be one thing that will change next year is you'll see a lot of gopher coaches on the road. 1:04:55 Jûpe Interesting. 1:04:56 Jûpe Very interesting. 1:04:58 Jûpe And it's almost like it's almost like there's an extra guy there. 1:05:03 Jûpe It does seem that way. 1:05:05 Vegoe I've talked to people who cover other teams that have basically like a recruiting coach. 1:05:10 Vegoe And you know, that was one of the things when you hired a fourth coach who could go on the road recruiting, the idea is that they would be on the road a little bit more than in the past is because you had that flexibility. 1:05:21 Vegoe And so I think that's what you'll see with a lot of staffs. 1:05:24 Vegoe You know, you might not see a GM recruiter role per se with the Gophers. 1:05:30 Vegoe But I think you'll notice more coaches on the road next year. 1:05:34 Jûpe OK, OK, that would be interesting. 1:05:38 Jûpe And I see some comments. 1:05:39 Jûpe They need a top level. 1:05:41 Jûpe Was it Steve might be the top level goalie is a priority. 1:05:45 Jûpe We're hearing rumors about that. 1:05:46 Jûpe Maybe this is probably an exact opportunity where they use the portal to their advantage, right? 1:05:50 Jûpe Beings for kind of somebody to replace airy to give. 1:05:54 Vegoe I am certain that I'm certain that they'll have another goalie coming in the portal. 1:05:59 Vegoe And we should find that out publicly very soon. 1:06:03 Vegoe You know, someone who's, you know, not a freshman, not an 18 year old, but someone who's going to be a sophomore next year and kind of bridge the gap. 1:06:14 Vegoe I think a lot of people understand that Casey probably needs another year of junior hockey before he'd be ready to come to Minnesota. 1:06:21 Vegoe And I think Luca proved himself as a number one goalie this year. 1:06:25 Jûpe He was great. 1:06:26 Vegoe And he will get the majority of the starts. 1:06:28 Vegoe So I think it's important. 1:06:29 Vegoe You know, you talk about top level goalies. 1:06:32 Vegoe Here's the thing. 1:06:33 Vegoe When you're a first round goalie, you are not in great control of your body at 18 and 19. 1:06:40 Vegoe And you are still developing quite a bit. 1:06:43 Vegoe I've talked to a lot of college hockey coaches about this. 1:06:46 Vegoe It's one of the reasons like high level goalies don't usually come to college hockey because the game is a little bit above where they're ready to play. 1:06:57 Vegoe And those goalies don't get really good until they're 23, 24. 1:07:01 Vegoe And typically, those guys develop in the HL and then come to the NHL at 25, 26. 1:07:07 Vegoe So it's just been a different path. 1:07:09 Vegoe And I think goalies really benefit from playing a lot of games. 1:07:13 Vegoe And that's what Major Junior does such a good job at. 1:07:15 Vegoe That's what European hockey does such a good job at. 1:07:18 Vegoe That's what USHL does a good job at. 1:07:20 Vegoe College hockey, there's less games. 1:07:23 Vegoe So it's harder to develop goalies in college. 1:07:26 Vegoe And maybe we'll start to see CHL goalies make a transition from CHL to college to HL pretty quickly. 1:07:34 Vegoe But it's just something that's been a challenge over the years. 1:07:37 Vegoe And that's why I think you see a lot of college goalies that are undersized be good, like Alex Tracy. 1:07:45 Vegoe Like I can't remember his name. 1:07:49 Vegoe The other Minnesota State goalie who was so good and everybody thought should win the Richter and the homie. 1:07:55 Jûpe Oh yeah. 1:07:57 Vegoe 22nd of July. 1:07:58 Jûpe We'll see it in the chat. 1:07:59 Vegoe He took some performance enhancing drugs maybe. 1:08:02 Vegoe Anyway those goalies can do really well I think in college. 1:08:08 Vegoe But the bigger goalies who are going to be pros, it's a harder transition for them. 1:08:13 Jûpe So on air production meeting here, should we do a show next Wednesday or maybe the following Wednesday? 1:08:18 Jûpe Maybe give that portal a little chance to breathe or do you want to do it later in April when the portal is closed? 1:08:24 Jûpe What do you want to do here, Veegs? 1:08:25 Jûpe What do you think? 1:08:26 Vegoe I think at least after a week of the portal, OK, is probably good for you. 1:08:32 Vegoe Dr. 1:08:32 Vegoe McKay. 1:08:33 Vegoe Yes. 1:08:33 Vegoe Thank you. 1:08:33 Jûpe We should have known that because they love to tell us who he was named after. 1:08:38 Vegoe Right. 1:08:39 Vegoe So anyway, but I think we should we should give the portal at least a week before we get after. 1:08:45 Jûpe So about two weeks, then we'll have our next show. 1:08:47 Jûpe What do you think? 1:08:48 Vegoe Yep. 1:08:48 Vegoe Sounds good to me. 1:08:50 Vegoe Should be exciting. 1:08:52 Jûpe You got anything else? 1:08:53 Vegoe I'll do her. 1:08:55 Vegoe That'll buckle up, everyone. 1:08:59 Jûpe I think you're right on with that. 1:09:01 Speaker 3 So we'll see. 1:09:03 Jûpe Well, that's going to do it for this episode of the Gopher Puck Live podcast. 1:09:06 Jûpe Of course, we thank Coach Brett Larson for being on with us. 1:09:10 Jûpe And like V said, we're going to wait a week, a little extra to close out the season. 1:09:14 Jûpe Can I see where the portal ends up? 1:09:17 Jûpe But that's about it for us. 1:09:18 Jûpe You guys have a great Frozen Four. 1:09:22 Jûpe I know it's teams you don't like. 1:09:24 Jûpe Just embrace it. 1:09:25 Jûpe Just have some fun. 1:09:27 Jûpe And it'll all be better. 1:09:28 Jûpe We're hoping Denver wins. 1:09:32 Jûpe Thanks for watching and listening, folks. 1:09:48 Jûpe If you are watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and get notified each time we go live or post a video. 1:09:55 Jûpe If you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please rate our show and leave a review. 1:10:17 Jûpe Yeah, I would agree.