0:09 This is The GPL Podcast, the production of gopherpucklive.com. 0:22 Now, let's join Hammy, Vego and your host, Jupiter. 0:37 Good evening, and welcome to The GPL Podcast. 0:41 I'm your host, Jupiter, and of course, with me again this week is Hammeh and Vegoe. 0:46 How's it going, guys? 0:47 Pretty good, pretty good. 0:49 Going well. 0:50 Well, that's good, that's good. 0:51 How's the baby? 0:52 Bigs? 0:54 She's doing well. 0:54 She's getting more active every day, but she's doing great. 0:58 Well, that's great, that's great. 1:00 When are you gonna have a family, Hammeh? 1:05 I'll get it right up. 1:06 Hey, it's not like I don't try. 1:09 Just giving you a hard time. 1:11 Alright guys, well, it's been a couple weeks. 1:13 You know, the Gophers had the week off last week, but before then, they participated in the icebreaker, and Hammeh was pretty successful, wasn't it? 1:22 Yeah, I mean, it was, you never really entirely know what to expect when you're starting off a season and you only had like a week of practice, so it's kind of nice to get some of that, the first game, the first weekend out of your system, and you feel a little bit more comfortable with what you have out there, get a little bit of ice time under your belt, and yeah, and obviously getting two wins is certainly important, especially non-conference, because you never know how things are going to shake out at the end of the year with pairwise, so yeah, it was a successful weekend. 1:51 Veegs, great start over UMD, but then the Bulldogs came back and made quite a game of it. 1:59 Yeah, I think UMD last year proved that they had a lot of offensive energy and they were able to out shoot a lot of teams last year as they ended up doing to the Gophers in that first game, and they've got some firepower, so you can't count them out. 2:15 And the Bulldogs kind of played similar even last weekend, started slow and then played much better throughout the rest of their games with Mankato, so maybe that's the type of team Bulldogs are, just kind of a slow starting team, who knows? 2:28 But it was a good test for the Gophers, you know, I think, at least. 2:32 Well, I mean, they have, I mean, UMD is always going to give Gophers, you know, a tough time because it's a rivalry thing and they're going to work hard and, you know, they're not going to generally ease up against the Gophers. 2:43 So, you know, you're going to get, you know, maybe not necessarily their best every time, but you're going to get a good effort out of them. 2:48 So I think for the first game, that's certainly going to help set the tone for the year. 2:52 And hopefully the guys will, I mean, we're going to have a target on our back this year, you know, no matter who we play. 2:58 So they might as well get that kind of a, you know, situation right out of the gates and get accustomed to it. 3:04 I agree. 3:04 They are going to have a target on their backs all year long. 3:06 You know, preseason number one, blah, blah, blah, all the returning players, you know, Wilcox and Nets. 3:13 They will have the target on their back for the entire season. 3:17 But you know, they get the 4-3 win over UMD and then they followed it up a couple of days later with a 3-0 victory over RPI. 3:24 It seemed like a little more of a tilted game than the Bulldog game. 3:28 But all in all, it was a good result, huh, Javix? 3:33 Yeah, I think so. 3:34 I think the one thing coming out of that game that was interesting is that they did have to kill five penalties, so you saw their penalty kill. 3:41 You saw, you know, the kind of changes Lucia is going to make to the lineup from Fridays to Saturday or Sunday throughout the season. 3:50 He's been talking about having kind of pairs of forwards who he expects to play together most nights and then kind of shuffle other guys around, so I think those are the kind of things you will see throughout the year, and of course, Wilcox played really, really well. 4:05 And he did shuffle quite a few guys, you know, that was, I believe, the Friday game, they had one freshman in the lineup, maybe it was just, was it just Collins, I believe? 4:15 No, it was Glover. 4:16 It might be Glover. 4:17 It was Glover, I'm sorry, not Glover. 4:19 Glover, got to make sure I say it right, I believe he was the only one in the lineup Friday. 4:23 And he played quite a few older lineup that day. 4:27 And then Sunday, he mixed in a couple, few more guys on D and a couple other guys here and there. 4:32 Is that what he's probably going to be doing for the first part of the season, Hammy? 4:37 Well, I mean, I think more than likely, I think especially, you know, trying to figure out how they're going to deal with that defensive rotation. 4:44 I mean, we know that there's going to be some guys in the line up every night, but it's just a matter of what are they going to do with those underclassmen, you know, the five underclassmen we have, and who's going to, you know, kind of get to see the ice. 4:55 And certainly it's important to get those freshmen some ice time because you never know if injuries are going to pop up or whatever, and you have to make sure that they're prepared for, you know, what they're going to face as we go on to the season. 5:06 So I'm suspecting that we'll see kind of that type of rotation with a big defense at least, you know, early in the season. 5:16 And what do you think, Veegs, are you going to keep rotating? 5:19 Yeah, I think they'll keep rotating guys through. 5:21 I think it will be interesting to see where Leon Birstad slots in the lineup. 5:27 I know he was with Rowan Fasching in practice today. 5:33 Whether he stays there for the weekend at all, that will be interesting to see. 5:37 I think that first line left wing spot is, there's a lot of guys competing for that. 5:41 I think Conor Raleigh can slot in there, Sam Worning can slot in there. 5:46 And then that has a trickle down effect on the lineup. 5:50 It definitely does. 5:51 It's, I think it's going to affect the fourth line the most, because obviously one of those guys will get put out somewhere, or maybe he'll do what he's done in the past, keep the extra defenseman and maybe just kind of keep two forwards to make a piecemeal fourth line during the season. 6:08 We'll just have to wait and see, I guess. 6:11 Yeah, it sounds to me like Michaelson and Isaacson might get a shot to stick there for a little bit based on the lineups we saw last weekend and the way Luchi has kind of been talking about it. 6:21 He wants those upperclassmen to kind of own those roles if they can. 6:25 And, you know, he'll give them first shot at us. 6:29 Well, Hammey, you know, we do have a question from Jeremy Zeyer asking who loses out with Bristead returning to the lineup? 6:36 Who will he be paired with? 6:37 You know, Vegoe kind of thought, saw who he was paired with today, but who is the unlucky guy who will not be playing due to Bristead coming back, do you think? 6:46 Well, I mean, I don't really, you know, honestly, I don't know how to answer that because I, you know, I don't know how they're going to handle the lower line stuff. 6:53 I mean, I really am not at all surprised that they have put Bristead on the top line. 6:58 I just think that he's got that kind of talent. 7:00 Everything I had heard about him, you know, after he committed it, they didn't recruit him to come in and be a grinder. 7:06 I mean, he was going to be a scoring forward role, and he just has that kind of talent. 7:11 So I think that they'll certainly give him a great opportunity to play on that top line. 7:16 I know maybe Lucia isn't going to commit to it, but I am not at all surprised if he plays for a little while on that. 7:21 As far as, I mean, I'm sure Connor Riley would be my guess that he'd get knocked down maybe to that second line. 7:26 I don't know what they're going to do with the lines exactly, but I'm excited to see what he can do, especially on that top line. 7:35 Care to take a guess, Veegs? 7:36 Who's the odd man out? 7:39 I would think Brewster would get a shot at some point playing out there, especially with it being Bemidji. 7:44 It's not exactly one of the top teams in college hockey, so it might be an opportunity to get them out there. 7:51 But again, Lucia is very uncommitted on what he was going to do. 7:55 I think Jason Gonzalez had wrote that Brewster was going to play on Friday, and listening back to it, it didn't sound like that was definitely the case. 8:05 I think he'll play this weekend, but it didn't sound to me that was going to be for sure on Friday. 8:12 Yeah, you just never know what Lucia is going to do. 8:17 You just never know. 8:18 Yeah, and he had mentioned playing seven defensemen too, so we could see that as well. 8:25 Another question via Twitter, Neil Elder is wondering, is depth going to be an issue this year? 8:30 What do you think, Veegs? 8:31 Is depth going to be a problem? 8:33 Only in goal if it becomes an issue. 8:36 But I think throughout the forwards and the defensemen, they've got talent throughout. 8:41 They've got some older players who can provide the depth and play in limited roles. 8:47 I heard Lou Nani this week kind of saying there's no team in college hockey that's deeper, and they should be the favorite every night. 8:53 And it's kind of hard to disagree with them on that. 8:56 I'm guessing you probably feel the same way, Al Hammy. 8:59 Yeah, I mean the reality is that you have defensively eight guys that have been drafted by the NHL. 9:07 Granted some of them are young, but I mean you can handle an injury or two. 9:11 I mean depending of course who it is. 9:13 I mean obviously you would prefer not to lose a guy like Riley for instance, but you know they're certainly capable of handling some things back there. 9:20 And I had forward, I mean I think that they have three lines that can threaten the score every game. 9:27 I mean obviously you're going to get a little bit more on the top six, but that line with like Boyd and Ambrose, I mean those guys are really they could be second line players on a lot of teams and maybe even first line on some of the weaker teams in college hockey. 9:42 So I mean it's just a very deep team. 9:45 You know the fourth line, that's the question mark a little bit, but I mean the reality is that as long as they work hard and they don't give up goals and they chip in on the occasional goal here or there, that's all you can really ask from those guys. 9:57 Remember, if you are listening live to us and want to send us questions via Twitter, just use the hashtag GPL Podcast and we'll try to get your question or topic on the air. 10:09 One thing I wanted to get into tonight, guys, is the rest of the Big Ten. 10:14 It is not looking good this year, and I know the one thing that stands out so far are the Badgers, Hammeh, they are bad so far. 10:26 Well, yeah, I mean, it's kind of, I mean, I remember we talked about this last year, early in the year, I mean, I was kind of like, you know, the Badgers really need to take advantage of what they have last season because it could be a good year or two before they're really even going to be much of a threat again. 10:40 And I'm not terribly surprised, I mean, it's still really early, of course, but they really didn't have a hell of a lot of great talent coming back, at least at forward. 10:51 I mean, LeBate was their best scoring forward coming back. 10:55 And to me, he's a third line player in college hockey. 10:57 He's not a top line center like he is there, at least early in the season, that's what they've had them doing. 11:04 And, you know, the young guys, you just never know what you're going to get. 11:08 And they have such a large freshman class that, I mean, there's going to be some major growing pains there. 11:14 And I know a lot of people say, well, you know, by the end, you know, by the second half, they'll be playing better and whatever. 11:20 And it's like, okay, that's probably true. 11:22 But at the same time, if you're starting off terribly and you just get a little bit better, you're still not good. 11:28 So, I mean, it's, I don't think that they're going to have a year where they're going to be really contending for the NCAAs. 11:36 Veegs, Badgers are 0-1-4 and have been outscored 11-3 so far this year. 11:43 Is Yves in trouble? 11:46 I think he has to be. 11:47 I mean, we've talked about their attendance quite often. 11:50 And it's becoming an issue probably for them there. 11:55 And they have a chance to go 0-1-6 here with North Dakota coming to town. 12:00 So it's a rough start and they have a really young roster. 12:03 So it could be a couple of weeks before they start to sort things out. 12:07 Well, I think the other thing is that Yves, I think he just signed a contract extension not long ago. 12:12 I don't know if it was last year or when it was. 12:13 But so I think he signed through like 2019 or I don't know. 12:18 I think you're right. 12:19 And so I don't see them getting rid of the guy. 12:23 And they do have a couple pretty good recruiting classes in the future. 12:28 And a lot of times, as we saw with Ohio State, if you get rid of a coach, certainly some of the recruits are likely going to bail on you. 12:36 And so I just think that would be a mistake at this point. 12:39 Plus, to be honest with you, I feel a little more comfortable with Mike Eaves in Wisconsin than having somebody else come along that's better than him. 12:46 So by all means, keep him. 12:49 That's my feeling. 12:52 Well, Phil Johnson just asked via Twitter, will the Big Ten be able to send two teams to the NCAAs this year? 13:00 I don't think so. 13:02 I think Minnesota is really the only team that stands out. 13:05 And I even saw, you know, old Cardinal was tweeting, you know, what's the over-under on Big Ten teams making the tournament this year? 13:13 He'd have put it at one and a half. 13:16 Well, I think a lot of it's just going to come down to... 13:17 I mean, I mean, I think it's pretty safe to say the Gophers will be one, but you know, you don't know what's going to happen in that the end of the season, you get to the Big Ten tournament. 13:26 Obviously, that's an auto bid. 13:27 So you have that opportunity there. 13:30 You know, I mean, the Gophers should be favored to win that. 13:33 But nonetheless, you never know in a one game situation. 13:36 So, there's that possibility. 13:39 I'm still not really ready to give up on a few of these teams like a Michigan or whatever. 13:44 I mean, maybe they're not storming out of the gates. 13:46 Great. 13:46 But you know, there's some talent there. 13:48 So I just think it's a little... 13:50 I mean, we're only a couple of weeks into the season. 13:52 So let's just see how things play out for a couple of months. 13:55 And then we can kind of have a better idea of what's going to happen. 13:58 Well, there are some odd things going on in college hockey right now. 14:00 You mean, you had Michigan last week get blown out by UNH at Yost 5-1. 14:06 And a week before that, or it wasn't maybe last weekend, where Bemidji State did the same thing to North Dakota at Ralph Engelstad Arena. 14:15 So there is quite a bit of parity, but there's no doubt that the Big Ten is down this year, Veegs. 14:22 Yeah, I mean, who knows what we're going to see out of Michigan, Michigan State. 14:26 I think we both thought that they would finish ahead of the Badgers this year when we kind of broke down our preseason. 14:31 And it is early. 14:33 I think college hockey is one of the weird sports where there's not a lot of practice time before they start playing these games. 14:41 And you can't really work on your power play and penalty kill and figure out what you have as a coach. 14:46 So I think it takes a while to kind of see what kind of hand you've been dealt and figure out who to play and how to play. 14:54 So I think that's one of the reasons you saw such a weird first week. 14:59 And for a team like Minnesota, with the non-conference schedule kind of opening up the season, it will identify where they're going to be in the pairwise, I think, for the most part. 15:09 Because all these comparisons really come out with the non-conference games. 15:17 Definitely so, definitely so. 15:18 But my opinion, Minnesota is really the only Big Ten team this year. 15:23 And it could hurt Minnesota later on when it comes to those final pairwise rankings. 15:28 With the league being so down, and we play so many games towards the end of the season, that will affect their pairwise rankings with strength of schedule. 15:37 Well, I think it's just a matter of you got to keep winning. 15:40 You know what I mean? 15:40 I mean, that's just basically what it comes down to. 15:42 There might be a little bit more pressure to continue to win and not, you know, screw up against any of the Big Ten teams that are definitely not going to be lower in the ladder. 15:52 So, I mean, you just have to make sure you take care of your business. 15:56 I think it's fair to say that there's no excuses for the Gophers to not win the Big Ten title this year. 16:02 I mean, really, there just isn't. 16:04 I mean, they got so much talent back and the way that the rest of the league is kind of shaken out, I mean, there should be no excuse. 16:12 So, we'll see what happens though. 16:15 Well, moving on, go ahead, Vey. 16:16 And they want to get that fourth ring. 16:19 Ha ha ha, jeez. 16:22 Oh, I think that is a little goofy with all the rings and whatnot, but that's just what the schools do these days. 16:29 I think people need to do it when it's nice for the players, so. 16:32 Yes. 16:33 What, you're going to be one of those haters? 16:35 Like, what was it like? 16:36 Somehow that's going to make them less motivated to win the national title if they get a regular ring, or what's the problem? 16:42 I don't have a problem with it. 16:43 I think it's a little goofy, but it's not a big deal to me. 16:48 I thought it was a little odd that Wisconsin did it for the Big Ten Championship last year. 16:53 I think a regular season title means a lot more than a playoff title just because you did it for the whole season, but that's just the way I feel. 17:00 I mean, it's not a big deal. 17:03 No, I give you that. 17:04 To me, I don't know. 17:06 I think the whole playoff scenario when it comes to conference stuff is overplayed. 17:11 I just think it's, I mean, unless you really need to win it to get in, I just think that that whole conference tournament stuff, it's overrated in my opinion. 17:19 I'd rather to see a great regular season and then hopefully you do well, of course, in the NCAAs, but as far as the conference tournament goes, I have always felt that's a bit overrated. 17:31 Well, the non-conference continues this weekend when Bemidji comes to town. 17:36 Overall, Minnesota is 16-1 and 1 against the old Beavers from Bemidji. 17:44 Let's take a listen to what Lucia said today during the media conference. 17:49 Is everyone healthy? 17:50 Yeah, we're 100 percent healthy, ready to go. 17:52 The first line, obviously, they had success with Conner and Sam up there. 17:56 How do you make a decision on that heading into this week? 17:59 Again, we're looking at balance. 18:01 So we'll keep moving things around. 18:03 We can move things around from game to game. 18:04 We can move things around during the game. 18:07 So I think what we're trying to find is a group of 12 that can be relentless. 18:12 Next line over the boards can put some offensive pressure on too. 18:16 You rotated in all eight defensemen. 18:18 The ice break, are you planning to do that again this weekend? 18:19 Well, we'll see. 18:20 I think there's a good chance that that could happen. 18:22 That's as much of Mike's decision as anything else what he wants to do back there. 18:27 We can get to the point where do we go 11 and 7 some nights, 12 and 6. 18:31 We have a lot of flexibility back there, but we're obviously trying to win games, but at the same time bring some young guys along. 18:38 You mentioned moving forward, switching forwards around a bit during the game. 18:41 Do you anticipate that as a tactic or is it just kind of like to fill holes as you need? 18:46 Well, I think based on performance. 18:47 I mean, if a couple of guys maybe aren't playing as good as we think they can play, we'll throw somebody else up there in that spot and see what they can do. 18:54 I think our lines are fluid right now. 18:58 We have some twos that we probably want to keep together, but as far as who the third person on the line is, we don't know yet. 19:03 I mean, Leon hasn't played a game. 19:05 He's a little good in practice, and we'll see what he does once a puck is dropped. 19:09 Same with some other guys. 19:11 We moved our lines around from Friday to Saturday. 19:13 The lines are different. 19:14 Basically, they've been different every day this week in practice, and we'll settle on our lines tomorrow. 19:20 What do you think, guys? 19:21 Lucia just pretty much given the same old same old there? 19:25 Yeah, I mean, you kind of know that they're going to tinker with things early on and see what kind of chemistry they have. 19:31 And there are some guys that are going to be playing some different roles. 19:34 It's not like everybody returned from last year. 19:37 So there's going to be some guys that are going to be doing some different things. 19:41 So you kind of expect that. 19:43 I mean, other than Wilcox, really, I mean, everybody's, there's going to be some new chemistry that needs to be kind of, whether it's defensive pairings or whether it's forward line. 19:52 So not a shock. 19:55 What do you think, Veegs? 19:57 Yeah, it definitely sounds like the pairs that are going to stick together throughout the season are going to be Rauhfasching, Clues Camerata, Boyd Ambrose, and you're not going to see those guys out of line up unless they're hurt. 20:09 So I think the rest of the spots are kind of up for grabs. 20:15 Definitely, definitely up for grabs. 20:17 You know, it's, everyone's always curious, but you just kind of have to wait till see what Lucia puts together Friday evening. 20:23 I mean, that's all we can do. 20:25 We can only predict so much, folks. 20:28 Well, the other thing is that nobody's really had a great chance to see Bristad. 20:31 I mean, you know, an exhibition, you know, you can't, you know, you can't read into that at all. 20:36 Oh, you can't. 20:38 And it especially is after their first practice in the morning. 20:41 Yep. 20:41 Right. 20:41 I mean, so you just, the reality is, is that it's pretty hard for us to, you know, sit there and make any definitive responses to that when, you know, we haven't seen them together as a group other than two games. 20:53 And even then, you know, that's not a heck of a lot of a sample size. 20:57 So. 20:59 Well, we played Bemidji State this weekend, guys. 21:02 And well, they're not quite the big pushover. 21:04 You know, they, they had a home and home with North Dakota a couple weeks ago. 21:09 And boy, they woke up the fighting Sue up there. 21:15 Oh, not the Sue anymore. 21:16 Sorry, gosh, forbid I said that. 21:18 But they went in there and spanked them five to one and then lost a close one the next night at home there. 21:27 You know, if they could do that in Grand Forks, they could easily do something like that here down in Mariucci, guys. 21:34 Well, yeah, I mean, you can't take them lightly and you know that they're going to play hard. 21:37 I mean, at the Serratore, he doesn't usually bring a team in there that's a pushover, that doesn't work hard. 21:42 So you know that you're going to have to work hard. 21:45 I mean, obviously, from a talent perspective, it's not much of a comparison, but you never know what's going to happen on any given night and you have to bring it both nights. 21:53 And it's early in the season, like we've talked about. 21:56 And so it's, you know, everybody's still kind of feeling their way through different line chemistry and different roles. 22:02 And, you know, I think with, you know, North Dakota, I think that their margin for error is kind of small. 22:09 So I think that, you know, they don't really have a great offensive team. 22:12 They've got some good defense and a good goalie. 22:15 So I think that when they're not playing their best, I mean, they really, I don't think, generally have the firepower to keep up with good teams. 22:22 So they really kind of have to play kind of a tighter game. 22:25 And they just didn't do it that first game apparently. 22:28 And Veegs, with the teams that Hackstall has always put out, the beginning of the season is always all over the place. 22:36 Yeah, it's for some reason they can be really inconsistent as they find their stretch. 22:40 And then by the end of the season, they're always a tough out in the playoffs. 22:45 He does a good job of doing whatever he does during the season to get them ready. 22:48 But I was definitely surprised to see Bemidji State out shoot North Dakota in the first game and keep it really close in the second game. 22:57 The things I've been reading about Bemidji is they've got more speed this year than they've had in the past. 23:02 I don't know if that's going to impact the way they traditionally play against Minnesota. 23:06 But the one thing is if Minnesota starts making turnovers at the Blue Lines, if Bemidji is faster, they're not going to be able to catch them like they used to. 23:16 Well, one thing I do enjoy is if Bemidji does bring a speed game, those are the kind of games I like to watch. 23:22 Because they're fun up and down games. 23:24 Typically, Minnesota plays very well in those type of games compared to a game against the Badgers, where they're just trying to shut you down the entire time. 23:36 Well, that's just how they're built. 23:38 Luchie has always had defensemen that can join the rush and can carry the puck, and that's just what he prefers. 23:46 He likes that kind of hockey. 23:48 I think it's fan-friendly, certainly. 23:51 People don't like to just sit there and watch Systems Hockey. 23:55 They want to see guys being creative and pushing the envelope with the puck and creating some offense, and that's certainly what we tend to like here. 24:04 And I think that a lot of times, most of these teams, they don't have the same offensive depth as the Gophers. 24:12 So it always seems like they'll try to play that style with us one night, and when it doesn't work out well, then the next night, it's like an entire 180-degree difference. 24:21 So like, slow it down, try to play tight, they just won't want to try that again, because it just doesn't work. 24:28 That is very true. 24:29 We have seen that quite a few times. 24:33 All right, boys, so what do you think this weekend? 24:35 Do you think Bemidji shows up for one of these games, or is it high-flying Minnesota all the way? 24:41 What do you think, Veegs? 24:43 I think it's going to be Minnesota all the way with all the defensive depth and all the skaters they have on the back end. 24:50 I think even if Bemidji tries to play a conservative game, Minnesota is going to play that. 24:55 If it starts to get a little more transition hockey, again, the defenseman can join the rush and Minnesota can really create the four on three. 25:05 I don't know if there's a lot of teams in college hockey that have the depth in the back end where their guys can jump into the rush all the time. 25:12 I think that's the new hockey that you're going to see. 25:15 Ever since Lucia is kind of emphasized at probably starting two, three years ago, you're seeing Minnesota able to get in transition and get those four on three opportunities that a lot of teams can't. 25:28 What do you think, Hammeh, sweep? 25:30 Well, I mean, I would be disappointed if we don't. 25:33 I mean, the reality is that we're a better team than Bemidji. 25:37 We're at home. 25:39 There's really no reason why we shouldn't sweep the series. 25:41 I do suspect that one of the games at least is going to be pretty tightly contested and whether it's a, you know, four to three game or two to one game, I don't know. 25:51 But I mean, I expect that there'll be at least one of those games will be a little bit more tightly contested. 25:56 And but I expect a Gopher sweep. 26:00 Anything else you guys want to talk about this week? 26:05 I don't know. 26:06 You know, it's been kind of quiet early in the season. 26:08 It has been, you know, that week off just kind of throws everything off too. 26:12 Well, yeah, I mean, for us, but I mean, it also just, you know, there just hasn't been anything that's really been crazy or, you know, out of the ordinary that's kind of happened. 26:22 I think that there's some good series that'll be this weekend around the country. 26:26 So it'll be, I think we'll have a little more to talk to as far as from a national perspective, you know, after this weekend, you know, I think St. 26:34 Cloud's going out to Union. 26:36 And I just think that there's some good series this weekend. 26:38 So we'll have a little more to talk to you from a national perspective at that point. 26:42 Well, what I think is odd already is that, you know, usually this time of year, we have quite a few undefeated teams and there just isn't many of them so far this year. 26:52 You know, Denver's got a couple of wins, no losses. 26:54 You've got Union is 4-0. 26:57 Lowell has a tie. 26:59 But, you know, all in all, it's kind of a quiet year so far. 27:07 Yeah, I mean, I think the other thing is that we're still all getting them accustomed to the different conference changes, the different teams. 27:13 I mean, it's going to take a little while for people to get really amped up. 27:17 I mean, we knew that was going to happen and it's just going to take a little bit of time for people to, you know, get really into things to that level again. 27:25 And, you know, whether it's on the message boards or wherever it is, you know, I think that it's going to take a little while for people to get accustomed to all that change from the last years, few years. 27:36 I don't know if I'll ever get used to it. 27:39 I still think it kind of sucks, but that's just me being bitter. 27:42 Yeah, well, I mean, I don't think you're, you know, I think you're out of the ordinary and I don't think a lot of people still kind of feel that way. 27:51 Yeah. 27:52 Well, let's keep it short this week, guys. 27:55 Since there's not much going on, might as well not drag this out any further. 28:00 One thing for all those Gopher Hockey fans that post in the Got Beer thread, there's a heck of a tap list at Stub & Herbs this weekend because Surly releases their big Russian Imperial Stout on Saturday and so Stub & Herbs always puts together a great list of options on Friday night and usually that will carry over into Saturday. 28:20 So I know Campus Pizza is the unofficial sponsor of Gopher Puck Live, but Stub & Herbs is a good spot too, so just a heads up to fans on that. 28:29 Okay, Vig, so then what's a good pumpkin beer that you can recommend to me then? 28:34 I have a hard time with pumpkin beers. 28:38 I do like the Dogfish Head Pumpkin, and it's mainly because it was one of the first pumpkin beers to start the trend, and it's a subtle pumpkin flavor. 28:50 I think some of the other ones are way over the top. 28:52 The only bad thing is you are going to have to cross the border to Wisconsin to get it. 28:58 Why would you want to do that? 28:59 Yeah, piss on that, then. 29:00 I was going to do something else. 29:02 It's not a Wisconsin beer. 29:03 It's just not distributed to Minnesota. 29:06 Ah, we've got a couple little brew houses that just popped up in Waconia, which is kind of nice. 29:12 We've got the Waconia Brewing Company and the Carver County Distillery opening up next month. 29:17 So we do have thanks for people out here on the sticks. 29:21 Yeah, there's one that opened up in Hopkins, too. 29:23 I can't remember the name. 29:24 I haven't been in it yet, but I know it's right off of Main Street in Hopkins. 29:28 They're popping up everywhere. 29:30 It's a great time to be a beer lover in Minnesota. 29:35 I'm right in northeast, so I've got all of them right near me here. 29:38 Yeah, you can walk to half of them, can't you? 29:41 It's about a mile and a half to a couple. 29:44 Oh, that might be a little far in the dead of winter. 29:47 Yeah, it's a good bike ride. 29:50 Alright, well let's wrap it up for this week. 29:53 Remember you can always follow Hammy on Twitter, at Hammy Hockey, and you can follow Vegoe on Twitter, at eVegoe. 30:01 We'll be back next week to wrap up this Beaver Series and preview the Home and Homes Series with those Huskies from St. 30:09 Cloud. 30:09 Until then, we'll see you next week. 30:12 Lick the beavers.