0:03 This is The Gopher Puck Live Podcast, episode number eight, recorded November 22, 2011. 0:21 Welcome to this week's GPL Podcast. 0:23 I am your host, Jupiter, and once again, I'm joined by Hammy and Ryan Cardinal. 0:28 How are you guys this evening? 0:30 Doing well. 0:32 Yeah, no complaints. 0:33 Well, there's nothing wrong with that. 0:35 It's to let the people know that we record these podcasts on Tuesday nights around 9:30 p.m., usually a little after that. 0:41 And if you head over to the GPL Podcast page at that time, you can listen to us record the podcast live. 0:47 That allows us to take your questions via Twitter, at Gopher Puck Live, or you can still email us the questions at podcast.gopherpucklive.com. 0:57 So tune in live if you can. 1:00 Well, gentlemen, for the second weekend in a row, we have a split. 1:04 And again, it was a bad performance on Friday with an opposite great performance on Saturday. 1:09 What gives, Hammeh? 1:12 You know, it's funny because I went back and looked at both games today, just to kind of get another look at it. 1:19 And I actually did not think we played necessarily terribly on Friday. 1:25 Really, when you look at the goals that they scored, for me, it was more some mental mistakes that we had made as much as anything. 1:32 And I mean, the first goal, you know, Marshall's passes, you know, kind of a soft pass behind the net, and Alta skating the opposite direction, and Bukstad's not really back checking hard enough on Hanowski, and, you know, there's a goal. 1:48 Then you have the second goal. 1:52 You know, I didn't feel like that was particularly a bad play, but I don't know. 1:59 There was, you know, the third goal with Alta, I thought he should have been, well, I think it was Alta. 2:03 I can't remember off the top of my head, but I just felt like that rebound going for the net, there wasn't enough discipline. 2:08 I think there was a bad line change between Bukestad and Holla on that one. 2:13 That final goal, there was just a total lack of discipline on the PK. 2:18 We had, I think it was Parento who was responsible for that backside, you know, where Fessler had come in, and he was skating on the other side of the net. 2:27 And it was just, you know, some bad decisions. 2:30 But all together, I didn't feel like we played that badly. 2:33 And I was really frustrated by the lack of shooting by some guys on some of those odd man rushes, particularly Jake Hanson really bothered me. 2:42 So yeah, I mean, I guess all in all, I didn't think it was a horrible performance, not like the Wisconsin Friday game, where we were just completely out of it. 2:50 But nonetheless, yes, it was a loss. 2:53 And if it weren't for our late rally, I probably would have looked a lot worse. 2:56 And I think it was. 2:57 Well, I saw, I thought the youth, they looked very young Friday night. 3:03 I mean, they weren't playing very smart. 3:06 They just looked like they were playing young defensively. 3:09 I mean, not just the defense, but just the defensive scheme. 3:12 It just, there were just breakdowns that seemed like kind of no brainers, huh, Cardinal? 3:18 Yeah, and I know Hammy mentioned this during the game on Twitter. 3:20 And I think I mentioned it, too, just one thing on Friday. 3:23 I mean, yeah, there were some defensive issues. 3:25 But even the penalties, I think St. 3:27 Claude scored two of their goals in the power play. 3:29 And three of the penalties were just atrocious. 3:32 I mean, Ambrose, in that two on one, he puts it out the glass. 3:34 And then he hits a guy three or four seconds after he let the puck go. 3:37 And the Nick Larsen one is a little bit ticky tack. 3:40 But as a senior, you don't want him doing things like that. 3:42 And I put the team down five on three. 3:44 So I think as much as anything, just some ill-advised penalties. 3:47 And you saw them clean that up a little bit on Saturday. 3:50 And I think the results kind of poured that out. 3:51 But obviously, if you're not taking dumb stuff behind the player after the whistle, you're going to have a much better chance of winning. 3:57 And like Yami said, too, that's kind of the same thing that plagued him in the Vermont loss. 4:01 So kind of a trend, not just specific to the Gophers, but again, if you're taking foolish penalties, it's going to get a lot tougher for you to win the game. 4:08 You know, the Saturday game was the complete opposite. 4:11 I mean, we had Patterson get the number six shutout for the year. 4:14 And that's a record for any Gopher in a season. 4:18 Dukestead gets his first career hat trick as a Gopher. 4:21 And it just seemed like everything was really clicking. 4:27 Well, I think, you know, and I know that Motzko had mentioned this post game on Saturday, but I think our speed really started to come to the forefront on that. 4:37 I think our depth really started to show through. 4:39 I mean, one thing that we've consistently seen this year is that when it gets to be the third period, particularly in, you know, that Saturday night game, the Gophers, and I think it's a depth thing. 4:51 They just seem to have their legs more than their opponent. 4:54 And I think, what did I Tweet on Saturday night that third period and overtime, the Gophers have outscored their opponents 25 to 4. 5:03 So, I mean, there's just a massive difference in how we're performing as compared to, you know, the opponent in the third period. 5:09 So, I think that was a big part of it. 5:11 We just seem to have our legs. 5:12 And, you know, St. 5:14 Cloud, I don't know, maybe they were just happy with the Friday night win. 5:19 I mean, like I said, I didn't feel like we played particularly bad. 5:22 I just made some mental mistakes on Friday. 5:25 And certainly, like Ryan talked about, you know, we took some really stupid penalties, especially with Nick Larsen. 5:31 I really bothered me. 5:33 But yeah, I mean, I just think that we had our legs and showed our speed and our depth a lot more on Saturday. 5:41 Any thoughts, Ryan, on the Saturday game? 5:44 Yeah, I mean, it was, you know, it was a little bit dicey in that, you know, they scored those two quick goals. 5:48 And then, you know, St. 5:49 Cloud definitely played better in the second period. 5:51 And, you know, maybe in past years, you see a Gopher team up 2-0, going to the third. 5:54 And it's a game they dominated. 5:56 And you're kind of cheatering on that edge. 5:57 Well, it's like, oh, here we go again. 5:59 We should have been up, you know, 3 or 4-0. 6:01 It's only 2-0. 6:02 But, you know, it's nice to see them get those two quick goals. 6:05 And, you know, obviously, Buksu is their best player. 6:08 And just what a difference maker he is now. 6:10 And, you know, it's going to be scary what this kid's going to do over the course of this season. 6:14 I mean, he's still so young and people forget that sometimes. 6:16 But they already have 13 goals. 6:19 And, I mean, just dominant on both ends of the ice. 6:21 And, you know, he might be the best forward they've had since, you know, Vanik maybe. 6:25 I mean, I don't even know where he's going to stack up come the end of the year. 6:28 You know, it's a lot tougher to score in college hockey now than it was when, you know, Ryan Patelny was putting up the 36 goals, you know, four or five years ago even. 6:35 So, yeah, I mean, when you have a kid like that on the ice, that can just take over. 6:39 I mean, you don't see many kids like that. 6:41 And certainly St. 6:42 Cloud doesn't have anyone like that. 6:43 So, yeah, I mean, great to have the bounce back win against the Huskies. 6:47 One thing I have noticed is that Mr. 6:49 Howla has not been on the board as much. 6:51 I mean, a couple of assists here and there, but he's not scoring like he was. 6:55 You guys have any thoughts on that? 6:57 Well, I mean, this kind of for me goes back to the Friday night game where I mentioned, you know, the odd man rushes and passing too much and whatever. 7:06 And on that particular line, to me, Jake Hansen is the shooter. 7:10 He's the guy who's, I mean, he scored 31 goals in junior hockey, you know, on his, in that one full season he had. 7:18 He's supposed to be the shooter on that line. 7:19 Everybody knows that Holl is more of the, you know, the passer and whatever. 7:22 And so for me, it's like Hansen needs to pull the trigger. 7:26 Even on his goal on Saturday, you know, it looked like he was almost reluctant to shoot. 7:31 You know, it was like he was almost looking to pass off, but then he said, oh, I don't have anybody, so I'll shoot the puck. 7:35 And it just happened to get through Farragher. 7:37 And so for me, it's like, he has to shoot the puck. 7:40 That's one big thing for me. 7:42 And I think the other thing is, maybe there was a little bit of a lull, and maybe having Travis Boyd move up to that winger spot will be kind of a positive move. 7:52 I mean, I don't want to say, blame anybody for the entire line, but sometimes just one little move like that can be a positive. 8:01 But I do think that a big part of it for Howla is he's a passer, and he needs guys to shoot the puck, and Hanson needs to shoot the puck. 8:09 Yeah, and I think, too, with Howla, it's a lot of his points. 8:11 I don't have the numbers offhand, but I feel as though that probably maybe half his points this year have come on the power play, and the first month or five, six weeks, the power play was just clicking on all cylinders and at 30 some percent. 8:22 And I think they got a couple of goals on Saturday on the power play, but against North Dakota and Wisconsin, especially, the power play really cooled off. 8:29 And I think Howla is kind of that pivot guy that Kessel and Schrader, you've seen guys before in Lucia's system, where they kind of get the puck on the half wall and either distribute it to the point or else kind of walk it down low in there, or pass it down low and then cut towards the crease. 8:42 So he's a pretty key part in that. 8:44 And teams are going to do things to take him away or to break down the power play. 8:48 You heard Motsko talk about that too this weekend, where now there's tape on him and they can kind of figure out what the Gophers are trying to do. 8:53 And obviously Lucia and company, they're going to adjust. 8:56 But I think with Howla, that's kind of a key piece as to why his productions maybe dipped a little bit. 9:02 Now they did go three for 10 this weekend on the power play. 9:05 So whatever tape Motsko might have had, it didn't entirely work. 9:11 Well, before we move on to the rest of WCHA, we've got a question via Twitter from GopherRube84. 9:19 And he asks, what are you guys' revised predictions where the Gophers will finish in the WCHA standings after the start we've had? 9:27 You guys think a little different on this year now? 9:33 Well, you know, I think I had them at 4th. 9:36 And I, you know, obviously I would kick them up at probably at least one spot or two spots at a minimum with the way that they've played on the road. 9:45 I mean, they've had what I think I said, seven of their, they're already halfway through their road schedule for the WCHA. 9:53 So, I mean, to be in first place by a point and have had most of their league games be on the road, obviously, and we've played very well at home, it's definitely a positive. 10:03 And I think part of it for me will depend upon, you know, what does UMD do on the road now? 10:09 I mean, they've kind of had a bit of a soft schedule lately, and they've had most of their games at home. 10:15 So it kind of, to me, it'll depend a little bit on how they handle the road series. 10:19 Yeah, you know, I think Duluth's got a soft schedule for the entire year. 10:24 Have you taken a look at their full schedule? 10:26 I did, you know, I noticed they don't play a lot of the big teams twice this year. 10:32 Or I mean, you know, I should say two weekends. 10:34 They play a lot of them only once, whereas they play typically the lower teams like Anchorage, and Tech, and Minnesota State four times. 10:44 So the schedule is very favorable for UMD for the rest of the year. 10:49 Yeah, that's what I was going to say too, is that, you know, with the rotation now, we've talked about this before where it's thin, so you don't play as many teams twice. 10:55 I mean, that's a big part of it, and, you know, you look at the Gophers and they get what Michigan Tech wants, Mankato wants, Anchorage wants, so, you know, you don't want to kind of make excuses or whatever, but the fact is that a lot of the bottom feeder teams, the Gophers only get to play them once, whereas Duluth, like Jupe, you just said, they get to play them twice. 11:14 So, you know, I think for the Gophers, a key to things could be those two home series coming up against Minnesota State and Michigan Tech. 11:21 And you look at the second half of the year, and there are some tough series in there. 11:23 I mean, like Hamme said, a lot of the games on the road have already been played, but you got to go to North Dakota, to Denver, to Omaha, a game at St. 11:30 Cloud. 11:30 So, you know, the road series are, you know, tougher than normal. 11:33 It's not like they're going to Michigan Tech or something like that, or the second half. 11:37 But I think it's really essential that they get four wins against, you know, Mankato and Michigan Tech. 11:40 Just, you know, you hope that they don't overlook and they're going to be coming off this really tough stretch where, you know, a lot of games on the road against rivals. 11:47 And, you know, I'm assuming maybe one or two of those games might be a little bit tougher than normal. 11:51 But I think if they can get eight points out of those, which again, there's no gimmies, and, you know, Tech's a little bit better this year, Mankato has been better as of late. 11:58 But I think it's key. 11:59 If they can get eight points out of that, I mean, winning the league is definitely not out of the equation. 12:03 But you just hate to drop one of those games right before Christmas when, you know, guys are going to be going to the World Juniors. 12:08 And, you know, you just don't know if there's going to be injuries or what's going to happen. 12:10 So I think to, you know, head into the holiday break with some, you know, good momentum and league play like that would be just huge for them. 12:16 I'd just say that for me, I picked them fourth. 12:19 And now I would say I would be a little surprised they don't finish in the top three at this point. 12:25 I would agree with that. 12:25 I think to me, you know, Duluth and CC are probably going to be the two biggest rivals to the league title this year. 12:35 I mean, I think that maybe you get Denver kicking in here. 12:39 You know, I think Tech's going to drop back. 12:41 St. 12:42 Cloud, I think, is going to be up and down, especially with some of their injuries and stuff. 12:46 And the rest of the league, you know, I don't think is terribly impressive. 12:51 So I think that it's going to be, you know, maybe two or three teams that you can really see challenging the Gophers for the league. 12:58 And so I still think that, you know, right now they're looking like a top three team to me. 13:02 Yeah, I would agree. 13:03 And it's, you know, I think there's a pretty big drop off after, you know, the Gophers, Duluth, CC and Denver. 13:09 I mean, I don't know, it's not playing out that way right now in the standings, but just once, you know, the teams start to get even in terms of number of games played. 13:15 And I think those are probably the, you know, four best teams in the league. 13:17 And then I think there's a big group, you know, kind of mixed in there with, you know, obviously North Dakota is not up right now, but you got to think by the second half, they're at least going to be a home ice type team or in that battle with, you know, Wisconsin and St. 13:28 Cloud and, you know, Omaha and I'm down the list. 13:31 I'm not a believer in North Dakota. 13:34 I mean, I said this on GPL and I'm sticking with it. 13:37 I just think that this is not the typical second half surge type of a team. 13:43 I mean, in the past, when they had those surges, I mean, they were a pretty good overall team. 13:48 They had good depth and you could kind of count on that they were going to be there because sooner or later, that talent is going to shine through. 13:55 But when you look at this year's team, I don't find that top line to be horribly impressive. 14:00 I think Knight's a solid player, but he's not a scary guy, you know, scary first line center. 14:07 I think that Brock Nelson's kind of still up and down feeling as well. 14:11 He's a good shooter, but I don't think he's really the kind of guy that's going to be creating a lot of offense for others. 14:17 And let's see, who is the, oh, and Christo, I mean, he runs hot and cold. 14:23 So, I mean, I just, and you know, I don't know if we're going to get Grimaldi back or not, you know, so it, to me. 14:29 Well, what, he's out another six to eight weeks, isn't he? 14:32 Yeah, and the other thing with that is that, you know, he's not doing anything for six to eight weeks. 14:36 So you're going to have to build up your wind, your strength, all that kind of stuff. 14:39 So it's probably going to take him, you know, a minimum of a few more weeks or maybe in a month to kind of get back in the swing of things. 14:45 So I don't know that you're going to see him at the top of his game anytime soon. 14:49 So we'll see. 14:51 We love to make fun of Grimaldi, but the kid's a talent and he just he just can't stay healthy right now. 14:58 And I guess that shot he took off the knee, and I guess there's some kind of what genetic worries has needed to infuse into one, I don't know, one piece or something, kneecap. 15:07 I don't know all the details, but, you know, sounds like kind of a fluky thing. 15:11 It's too bad for him. 15:12 Well, we have another Twitter question. 15:14 I'm probably going to mess up this guy's name, but Eric Ritaco has a question. 15:21 I know it's early, but Gophers and non-Gophers, who do you think are the front runners for the Hobey Baker? 15:28 Ryan? 15:30 Well, you obviously have to put Bugestead in the mix. 15:32 I know Patterson is going to be something that a lot of people talk about, but we've just seen it over time where it's just such a rare thing where a goalie distinguishes himself. 15:42 Now, if Patterson shutouts are the one thing, and obviously the team's going to knock and would have a pretty decent record, but if he even threatens the shutout record for nationally or gets double digit shutouts or something like that, he might put himself in the conversation. 15:56 But I mean, outside of them, I mean, nationally, not super familiar with guys at this point, but you have to think Jack Connolly is going to be in the mix, and he's tied 21 points right now, and he's a senior, and he's kind of one of the good guys. 16:07 And with the Hobey Baker Committee, they tend to favor the guys that have stuck around. 16:11 And he obviously, with the national title last year, I know that doesn't technically factor in, but to be a key piece on a national championship team, come back for your senior year and be a captain and all that kind of stuff. 16:22 And the TJ Tynan kid from Notre Dame, he tore it up as a freshman and he's got 21 points again right now. 16:27 So, in Notre Dame, again, they're going to be a team that's going to be in the mix. 16:31 It will be awesome when they play the Gophers here in about a month to get a national test for the Gophers to kind of see where they stand. 16:37 But again, outside of the WCHA, you haven't taken a huge look at things up to this point. 16:43 Yeah, I mean, the only guys that I would probably add are Jaden Schwartz. 16:46 I mean, you can probably figure he's going to be in the mix if he continues to play well. 16:52 Anders Lee, you know, former Edina Hornet. 16:56 I think that he's scoring a lot of goals and you probably have to put him in the mix at some point. 17:00 He had a good freshman year, so I mean, his name has some familiarity. 17:05 So I wonder, you know, for me, Bukstad is probably going to have to have a monster year to get in that final three simply because I don't know that, you know, he didn't have the, I mean, he had an okay freshman year, not a fantastic year. 17:21 And you kind of wonder, you know, how does that the committee look at that? 17:24 I mean, you have somebody like Connolly, who's been a very good player for Minnesota Duluth for a while. 17:29 So I think that they do tend to favor those kinds of guys a little bit. 17:34 So I don't know, we'll see, see how it goes. 17:37 Well, moving on to the rest of the WCHA this weekend, we had a Tech and Anchorage split up in Anchorage. 17:44 Is there anything really want to say about that? 17:46 Two bad teams? 17:47 Yeah, pretty expected, I think. 17:50 Then we have, well, Bucky Badger just can't win on the road. 17:55 They get swept at Colorado College. 17:58 Yeah, I think they're what? 18:00 I think they're 0-5 and 1 on the road now. 18:02 They haven't won one road game yet. 18:04 Yep, they're winless. 18:06 Yeah, I didn't, I mean, I picked CC to sweep and it was mainly for that reason. 18:09 I mean, Wisconsin is just inconsistent. 18:12 They play, you know, relatively solid at home, but on the road, they just seem like a totally different team. 18:18 And I think even that one St. 18:21 Cloud tie that they got, that was sort of a gift from the referees. 18:24 And so I don't know, just not looking good on the road. 18:29 Yeah. 18:29 And lucky for them, they have no non-conference road series this year. 18:33 And so kudos to Mike Eaves and Barry Melrose for blowing up the my personal favorite weekend in college hockey with the showcase. 18:39 And they get to host Mercyhurst this weekend. 18:41 So kudos to them on that. 18:42 They should be able to put up some wins. 18:44 But yeah, I mean, for Wisconsin, it's, you know, they're five and eight. 18:48 And you kind of thought this would be a rebuilding year for them. 18:50 And it's kind of playing out that way. 18:52 I mean, they're a little inconsistent on the back end. 18:54 And, you know, they just had a lot of issues scoring. 18:55 I mean, they put up some goals against the Sioux and, you know, one game against Omaha. 18:59 But it's been a struggle. 19:00 And they only scored three goals last week out at CC. 19:02 So it's like I said, it's playing out to be that rebuilding year out in Madtown. 19:06 Hey, it wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so bad on the road. 19:09 I mean, they're a good home team. 19:11 If they were just 500 on the road, it wouldn't be a terrible season for them. 19:15 But it's just not looking good for them right now. 19:19 Let's move on. 19:20 UNO and Denver, I believe that was a split, wasn't it? 19:24 I think Denver got three points. 19:26 Oh, Denver got three. 19:26 You know, I didn't investigate. 19:28 I just remember somebody was leading at the end. 19:30 Well, you're probably thinking because Omaha was up and they lost on Friday night. 19:34 But Omaha got up to a 3-0 lead on Saturday. 19:36 But Denver crawled back in and tied the game up and managed to get the tie. 19:44 Yeah. 19:45 Honestly, I'm not surprised by the first game. 19:49 Denver won 7-3 because Omaha's, we've talked about this multiple times, their goal-tending and whatever just hasn't been very good. 19:57 The fact that they held Denver in the second game is a little bit of a surprise for me. 20:01 But yeah, I think I picked that series as a, I don't know if I picked a split or sweep on it. 20:06 I can't remember. 20:06 But I think that I probably favored Denver and rightfully so when they got three or four. 20:12 UMD sweeps Minnesota State. 20:15 Nothing surprised there except for it didn't, UMD goalie almost scored a goal, didn't he Cardinal? 20:22 Yeah, the goalies were the star of the show at Kenny Ryder on Friday. 20:25 Ryder scores a goal. 20:26 And then on Saturday night, back up Aaron Crandall. 20:30 And a blowout win was caught doing the Bernie on the bench. 20:33 And that video lit Facebook and YouTube on fire on Sunday. 20:37 So, I guess those are the two big takeaways from that. 20:39 I mean, yeah, like everyone thought last week that Duluth would kind of blow their doors off and they put up, what, 12 goals on the weekend and they keep rolling right along. 20:46 They haven't lost since they played the Gophers way back in October. 20:49 What was it? 20:49 13th, 14th? 20:50 They're right in the middle there. 20:51 So, yeah, the Bulldogs are, you know, as good as advertised. 20:55 Yeah, only one point behind the Gophers. 20:57 And like I said, with that softer schedule, well, I think is a softer schedule for the rest of the season. 21:02 I think the Bulldogs are looking really good, huh, Hamme? 21:06 Yeah, I mean, I think obviously the key point of their season is probably the next, you know, four series, well, at least in the league, the next three series, at Tech, at Wisconsin, at UNO. 21:18 So, I mean, those are obviously going to be important series. 21:21 They're not going to be back at AMSOIL till the middle of January. 21:26 So we'll have to see how it goes, how they play on the road now, because they've been, you know, other than that Denver series, they haven't had any WCHA road series. 21:35 So it's, it'll be interesting to see how they perform if they can continue to, you know, stay on a high point on the road. 21:41 And finally, we have North Dakota splitting at Bemidji last weekend. 21:47 Looks like North Dakota kind of pulled away Saturday night and then Sunday, they just couldn't get anything going. 21:56 Yeah, I mean, it's kind of the same old story with North Dakota. 22:01 I talked about it earlier. 22:02 It's like, where's the offense going to come from? 22:03 If it seems like with that team, if it's not coming from that top line with Nelson Knight and Christo, it's not coming at all. 22:11 And so I don't know how they're going to rectify that anytime soon. 22:15 It's certainly going to be an issue that they're going to have to deal with all year. 22:18 And to me, it puts a lot of pressure on their defense because, I mean, Dell's, you know, almost every game he's going to have to be going in there thinking, well, I can't give up more than two goals or we might lose. 22:28 You know, they're not going to be blowing teams out more often than not. 22:32 And defensively, I think they're okay, but they're not, I think, playing up to the standards that we're accustomed to, at least from what I've seen of them this year. 22:40 We got, Ben Blood's a very good defenseman, but the rest, you know, are kind of nondescript. 22:46 I know Matson's looking good as a freshman, but... 22:48 Well, there are times, though, when you can only do so much defensively if you're doing nothing on the offensive end. 22:54 So, you know, they may be good on defense, but if they're always playing defense, it's tough to win. 23:02 Yeah. 23:02 And, you know, I mean, in fairness, the Grimaldi injury is pretty huge. 23:05 I mean, he was a consensus pick to be the freshman of the year. 23:09 And I think a large part of that was the fact that he was going to have ample opportunity because they didn't return. 23:14 You know, there's so many guys from last year's team that were gone, and he figured to be a key piece for them. 23:18 Well, you know, some other guys like Rao or whomever that, you know, Rao has emerged into a key guy for the Gophers, but there was other guys kind of slotted in ahead of him where he might not have had the chances early on to be on the number one line or whatever. 23:29 But then the St. 23:30 Clair, I mean, that's another injury that, you know, he was supposed to be a pretty decent freshman. 23:33 And, you know, North Dakota this year, they just weren't a team that could afford a lot of injuries upfront. 23:37 And that's kind of what they've been dealt early in the year. 23:40 But again, you know, three games under 500 and a pretty tough series in Grand Forks this week against CC. 23:45 So, you know, at some point here, they're going to have to get it going. 23:47 And I'm always one to kind of give them the benefit of the doubt just because of their history. 23:50 But like Amy said, I mean, this year, if Grimaldi doesn't come back or if he's not, you know, the dynamic guy that you know, he was really good against the Gophers. 23:58 And then they all of a sudden in two lines, that could threaten. 24:01 But without him, I mean, they have those three guys up front with Knight and Crystal and Nelson. 24:05 But past that, I mean, nobody has emerged or stepped up. 24:07 I mean, Mario Lambert is a nice player, but he's not a guy that can score. 24:10 And, you know, they have some nice pieces up front, but they just don't have anybody that can score. 24:14 And like you said, Jupe, they're just not getting it from the back end either right now. 24:18 Well, let's move on to this week with North Dakota. 24:20 One of the few series, WCHA series this weekend, is CCs visiting Grand Forks. 24:26 And it could be trouble for North Dakota. 24:29 CCs playing pretty well right now. 24:34 Well, yeah, I mean, to me, this is a tough series to call because for some reason, I just have to, maybe I'm incorrect on this, but I felt like CCs generally kind of had a difficult time in Grand Forks over the years. 24:47 And they're definitely, they're clearly the better team this year. 24:52 And I think it, you know, but defensively, you know, North Dakota is going to have the last change so they'll be able to match the lines up with that Schwartz line. 25:00 So you kind of have to figure it, you know, it might be a little bit of a tighter, tighter checking series than maybe you would think from at least CC that might be held down a little bit more offensively. 25:10 I don't know, we'll have to see, but I guess I'd probably pick that series, you know, as a split right now. 25:17 Yeah, I'm with Hammy. 25:18 That's kind of whenever I think of CC playing North Dakota up there, it's CC doesn't usually have a lot of success and maybe that's because they're more of a finesse team in general, whereas, you know, over the years, North Dakota has been a, you know, older, physical, tougher team to play against. 25:30 And you know, we've seen the Gophers kind of struggle against that North Dakota model over the last few years. 25:34 And you know, CC is, I mean, even this year, they do have some older kids, but they're not, you know, a gritty team necessarily. 25:39 They're more of the, you know, built to play on the big ice and use their speed. 25:43 But I mean, I think, you know, for North Dakota, they're probably going to play it pretty similar to how they did against the Gophers. 25:47 You know, CC has got a really good power play. 25:49 It's like Minnesota and, you know, for the Sioux, I mean, their penalty kill is okay, but you're not going to want to give, you know, the Shorts brothers a million chances on the power play. 25:56 And I'm sure they're going to try to, you know, bottle them up, shut down that top line. 25:59 And that's a lot easier said than done. 26:01 So yeah, I mean, North Dakota is desperate and we're a CC. 26:04 I mean, they've, they haven't played a ton of games. 26:06 They had the weirdest schedule at the start of the year, but you know, they've been playing well and they sweep Wisconsin and they had the loss to Denver before that. 26:12 But in general, CC has kind of lived up to the hype so far. 26:15 So yeah, it should be a really interesting series. 26:17 I would, again, I would assume split, but it wouldn't shock me if CC got, you know, three points out of there. 26:22 On the opposite end of that, Minnesota State hosting Alaska Anchorage. 26:27 Now, Mankato here, it's definitely a suitcase college. 26:34 And from experience being down there, they may be lucky to have a thousand people at that game or the games this weekend. 26:43 It could be a snoozer. 26:46 It could be? 26:47 Okay, it will be. 26:49 I mean, I think you're being a little generous there. 26:51 Yeah, it's definitely a suitcase college, and I think the student section is going to be empty. 26:58 Yeah, well, you know, the thing is, is that Anchorage hasn't exactly been lighting the world on fire on the road either, you know. 27:06 I think that they've lost all four of their league games on the road. 27:11 Granted, they're playing at Omaha and UMD, so those are good, you know, relatively good teams that they probably normally are going to lose to. 27:17 But I have to, you know, Minnesota State seems to play all right against kind of some of the bottom feeder teams. 27:25 They, of course, give St. 27:26 Cloud, you know, seems to give them a lot of a challenge. 27:30 So I'd probably say that Minnesota State is going to have a minimum come out of this with two points. 27:35 I'd probably maybe even lean towards four. 27:37 But I don't know. 27:38 I have a hard time picking Mankato to sweep anybody. 27:42 So maybe I'll stick with the split. 27:45 Yeah, I mean, Anchorage, like Hammy said, I mean, they really struggled on the road. 27:48 And you look at their, you know, after their nice start up in Alaska where they played in a couple of tournaments, I mean, you look at the goals scored per game, one, one, zero, one, zero, one, three, zero. 27:57 So, I mean, they just can't score. 27:59 That's always been the bit with them. 28:00 I mean, they're always, you know, tough defensively and, you know, with a lot of older kids, especially on the blue line with some bigger kids. 28:05 But yeah, I mean, probably a split. 28:08 But again, it wouldn't be surprising with Minnesota State. 28:10 I know they lost with the grand kid with an injury, but in general, they're healthier than they were at the start of the year where they could barely dress enough skaters to play. 28:16 So yeah, they're at home. 28:18 And like Jupe said though, the big home crowd behind them. 28:20 So we'll maybe go edge to the Mavericks. 28:23 You know, maybe I'll switch mine. 28:25 I'll still go sweep. 28:27 Sweep from Mankato, huh? 28:29 Yeah, I think, you know, Cardinal talked me into it. 28:31 So, sweep. 28:33 Well, there's a... 28:35 The rest are non-conference games this weekend. 28:37 We've got... 28:38 We'll have to go over them real quick. 28:39 Tech, Visit St. 28:41 Lawrence, Mercyhurst is at Wisconsin. 28:44 And then it looks like Princeton and Miami are playing at Denver. 28:48 You guys have any thoughts on those games or series or anything? 28:51 Well, I mean, the game that sticks out there is Miami and Denver. 28:54 And that's a bit where it's the Denver Cup, but it's a predetermined deal. 28:57 It's not like the Mariucci Classic where the championship game or whatever is... 29:02 I don't know how they determine it. 29:03 I guess whoever wins twice and scores the most goals or whatever. 29:06 But Miami-Denver, we have the storyline there with Blase and Guazdeki. 29:10 And those are two of the better teams in the country. 29:12 And Denver started slow, but they've come out a little bit as of late. 29:15 And they're probably a team that's going to threaten. 29:17 And you have to think for paralyzed implications and everything else that them playing Miami is a pretty big game nationally. 29:23 But yeah, and the other games you mentioned shall be kind of snoozers. 29:27 You know, Wisconsin gives up Michigan and Michigan State for Mercyhurst. 29:32 No, no, no. 29:32 They didn't give up for Mercyhurst. 29:34 They gave them up for the 7,000 people it will be at the Cole Center times $20 a ticket. 29:39 That's what they gave it up for. 29:42 That was well worth it. 29:43 I don't think anybody's going to accuse Barry Alvarez of being the brightest bulb when it comes to college hockey, so. 29:51 It's sad, too. 29:52 You could have gone just a couple more years, kept it going, and they're going to big tens after that. 29:58 To kill it now I think was a bad idea, but what can we do? 30:03 For me, it was one of the weekends of the year that I looked forward to the most because you can really, especially against Michigan, you could really gauge where you're at nationally because usually Michigan's a pretty good team and they're going to be, most years, probably the top 10 or 15 teams. 30:19 You kind of say to yourself, well, here's kind of an early season gauge on how successful we could possibly be in the long term. 30:27 To not have that anymore, it's kind of unfortunate. 30:30 Definitely that was one of the few games of the year that I really looked forward to on a consistent basis, so yeah, it is unfortunate. 30:38 College Hockey Showcase has been one of my favorite weekends of the year. 30:42 What was it, the early 90s they started this up? 30:44 You know, they used to go to the big arenas at first, you know, they played at the St. 30:48 Paul Civic Center, and I think they even played at the Bradley Center, and they went to the big arenas, then they went on campus. 30:53 And, you know, Michigan State hasn't had great teams, but they've had some pretty decent teams during those years, you know, when we're facing Ryan Miller and whatnot. 31:03 So I think it's really too bad. 31:07 But obviously, we kind of keep the tradition going this week. 31:11 You know, we are playing Michigan State this week, or this weekend, I should say, and, you know, they'll be coming here next year. 31:17 I'm not sure when they're coming here next year. 31:18 I do know that it's not going to be over Thanksgiving. 31:22 So we'll have to wait and see where we end up playing them next year. 31:26 But looking at the overall, you know, The Gophers playing Michigan State this weekend at Michigan State. 31:32 You know, Michigan State's 7 and 5 overall. 31:35 The overall series, Minnesota leads 101, 42 and 11. 31:41 Both games will be on FS North and they'll be at 6 p.m. 31:44 What are you guys' thoughts? 31:48 You know, I obviously haven't watched a hell of a lot of Michigan State hockey this year. 31:53 So I don't want to act like I'm any kind of an expert on them. 31:56 But just judging from what I've seen statistically, it looks like they're kind of your, maybe, you know, slightly a little bit more offensive team than what we've been accustomed to with Michigan State teams. 32:07 I think when we all think back to when Mason was a coach, it was more of a defensive, you know, trapping style a lot of the time. 32:16 But they're in the top, looks like the top 15 in scoring offense so far this year. 32:22 And, you know, they're pretty solid defensively. 32:24 So, you know, it should be a good road test for the Gophers. 32:27 You know, I see that they're only about 500 in the CCHA. 32:30 So, you know, it's relatively early, so you don't want to read too much into that kind of stuff. 32:34 But, yeah, I mean, it should be an interesting... 32:37 It'll be interested to see if Patterson gets a night off. 32:41 I kind of heard the rumor that that might happen to get one night off. 32:45 I guess we'll see if that actually comes to fruition or not. 32:49 I don't know that I would necessarily do that because we've talked about it before with the pairwise. 32:54 You don't want to kind of blow these non-conference games as if they don't mean anything. 32:57 But I guess we'll see how it goes. 32:59 But, you know, I like our chances. 33:01 One interesting little stat I've noticed in the last ten meetings, there have been five ties. 33:08 Minnesota's four, one, and five against them. 33:10 So we've only lost to Michigan once in the last ten meetings. 33:14 Man, five ties. 33:16 That's pretty odd, huh, Cardinal? 33:18 Yeah, I was just kind of combing through it, looking through the last few years here. 33:21 And yeah, most of the games have been pretty tightly contested. 33:23 I know they kind of took it to us last year. 33:25 But I know there's been some pretty memorable games. 33:28 I mean, I remember when Vannik had that, what is it, the hat trick to, I think they tied him 5-5 at Marriott, but Vannik just took over the game. 33:34 And I remember... 33:35 They had like 15 shots that game or something. 33:37 Yeah, yeah, they were in the gold jerseys and he was just all over the ice. 33:40 And he really came on in the third period. 33:41 It kind of sucked that we tied, but it was still sweet because Vannik was just unbelievable that night. 33:45 And I remember, too, the one, I think it was Ryan Miller of the year, he won the Hobey where Talyxon scored a late goal. 33:51 And I think we tied him again that year, like 3-3 in East Lansing. 33:54 It was a really tight game. 33:55 And I remember Talyxon scored a big late goal and it was against Ryan Miller, so everyone kind of freaked out. 33:59 But Michigan is obviously the bigger, kind of the bigger chip out of those two schools. 34:03 But again, Michigan State, there have been some really good games, like you said, Craig. 34:06 And you look at that team this year, and they're a little bit older. 34:09 I was doing the preview bit for GPL and was kind of looking at the roster. 34:12 And I think they have three kids under 20, a lot of juniors and seniors. 34:16 And I don't know, they have the new coach this year, and Ostos, I think is how you say it, he was the CCHA commissioner. 34:22 He kind of bailed after they commonly was, quote unquote fired or let go or whatever after last season. 34:27 But usually when Comley was there, it was a, they didn't have a lot of offensive firepower. 34:32 It was more of a, they usually have good goal tending and it's going to try to win the low scoring type games. 34:37 Now I haven't seen them play this year, so I don't know exactly if that's, that model is carried over. 34:42 I'd almost guess no, that they might've wanted to go in a different direction. 34:44 You see that with coaches, usually if a defensive guy gets fired, you're going to bring in more of a guy that likes to run and gun. 34:50 But you look at their schedule and they got killed by Boston College in the first game and got swept at Lake Superior but Lake Superior is not horrible this year. 34:59 They have a pretty good record so far. 35:01 They split against Ohio State, who might be the biggest surprise in the country. 35:04 They've been really good so far this year. 35:07 They swept Robert Morris at home, which whatever you kind of expect that. 35:10 They went to Western Michigan and swept, which Western Michigan has been pretty solid the last few years. 35:15 Then most recently, they split at Northern Michigan. 35:18 I'd imagine maybe one of the games the Gophers will handle them pretty good, just because their offense is so good, and again, they're going to have the advantage in that. 35:25 But I don't think it's going to be easy. 35:27 I mean, at least one of the games is going to be pretty tight and fought right down to the end, but it should be a couple of entertaining games for sure. 35:36 Any other thoughts then? 35:38 Well, I think that when I look at our schedule, this might be outside of the Duluth Series, this might be our toughest road series. 35:49 I don't know, I wouldn't say that. 35:51 Still got to go to North Dakota and that is a buzzkill. 35:53 No, no, no, I mean up to this point. 35:54 Up to this point, yeah. 35:56 I would say that, yeah. 35:56 And I think that, like you talked about, we will have out some second half series. 36:01 But in terms of what we have played on the road thus far, I really think that being on the road at Michigan State might be a pretty good challenge and see where we are at. 36:13 Another question via Twitter. 36:15 Jilly800, or Gilly, I don't know how to pronounce it. 36:19 How do you expect this young, but obviously talented team to respond in the second half of the season? 36:26 And then he's kind of like, so far, so good. 36:30 Ryan. 36:31 Well, I mean, when you have a young team and you've seen kind of freshmen hit the wall before, and this team is relying heavily on a lot of freshmen and sophomores, so I guess that's the one concern you might have is how are they going to kind of hold up over the course of a longer season than some of these guys are used to. 36:45 And I mean, the schedule right out of the gate, I mean, yeah, they have the holiday tournament, but then they have Notre Dame at home at North Dakota and then home against Colorado College. 36:53 So they hit the ground running here in the second half. 36:57 And again, their schedule is pretty tough. 36:59 I mean, they have Bemidji in Wisconsin at home and again, Wisconsin. 37:02 We'll see where they are at the end of the year. 37:03 I mean, it's never easy when you play a rival, but those games don't look as tough as they may have looked if Wisconsin was off to a better start. 37:10 But outside of those series, I mean, there's a lot of road games and again, some pretty decent teams. 37:15 So the schedule isn't a cakewalk form on paper, at least. 37:18 But the good thing with this team is that these wins count just as much as ones at the end of the year. 37:24 And I mean, yeah, you want to be playing your best hockey in February and March into the postseason. 37:28 But at the same time, you got to qualify for it too. 37:30 And we've seen Gopher teams the last couple of years. 37:32 I mean, last year, the team played pretty well at the end of the year, aside from the, when they laid an egg against Anchorage. 37:37 But they went up to Bemidji and were OK. 37:39 But they put themselves in such a hole, they weren't even able to make the tournament. 37:42 So, these ones are great, and they're getting themselves in a position where, especially with these Minnesota State, Michigan Tech home games coming up, where they could be 13 to 14 games above 500 going into the Christmas break. 37:55 And it'd be kind of an historic collapse if they didn't make the tournament. 37:58 And that's all that matters, I think, this year. 38:00 I mean, I've heard that a whole year. 38:01 You have the regional at home. 38:03 I mean, you're gonna have all your fans there. 38:04 And if you can just make it, yeah, you wanna be playing awesome going into it. 38:08 But even if, you know, just get there. 38:09 And when you have Ken Patterson and some big time goal scorers up front, I'll take my chances in any regional weekend, especially when it's, you know, five or six miles from their campus. 38:18 So that's why I think this weekend is big. 38:20 I mean, you're playing a non-conference game at their place. 38:25 It could have huge implications for the end of the year. 38:29 Well, like I talked about a little bit earlier, I mean, that's, you know, that's why I'm a little bit wary of being too experimental on a series like this, because you just don't know at the end what's going to be that's going to tip the scales, and, you know, positively or negatively once you get toward the end of the season, and you're shuffling through who's going to get what seed and all that kind of good stuff. 38:51 So I don't like how sometimes coaches seem to take a different attitude about any of these non-conference series as if, like, you know, you can be more experimental on it. 39:02 So I would kind of like to see them avoid that. 39:03 But getting back to the question that the individual had asked about the second half and all that, you know, on paper, like Ryan talked about, it looks like a difficult schedule to some degree. 39:15 But I will point out as what we've seen to this point, only two of our series on the road are against teams that are in the upper half of the WCHA right now. 39:25 That being Denver and UNO. 39:27 I mean, North Dakota is, you know, struggling. 39:29 We don't know what we're going to see from them. 39:31 I mean, they'll probably be improved. 39:32 But nonetheless, you know, there is a distinct talent advantage for the Gophers in that series. 39:37 So you gotta think that we're at least going to come out of points with some points in that series. 39:41 And then, you know, St. 39:43 Cloud's been up and down, you know. 39:45 I thought like, you know, we could have, we played a little bit more intelligently on Friday. 39:49 You know, it could have been a series sweep for us. 39:52 So I would say that, you know, we do have, you know, Wisconsin's been terrible on the road. 39:57 Bemidji State, you know, I mean, there's, that's a series we should sweep. 40:02 Colorado College would be a definite challenge. 40:05 But certainly, we've generally played them pretty well at Mariucci in recent years. 40:09 So I just think that it does look tough from a name perspective. 40:14 But if you look at some of the other factors, you know, we'll just have to see how it all pans out. 40:18 But I like our chances. 40:20 So any other thoughts from this weekend? 40:24 Good to go? 40:25 Yeah, you know, it's hard to say when you haven't seen a ton of the opponents. 40:28 You just kind of hope that, you know, I would say the one thing you want to hope for is that we've kind of not played our best the last two Fridays, you know, the opening game of the series. 40:39 So you kind of hope that maybe they'll put that trend aside and play well on Friday and hopefully, you know, come out with a win on both nights. 40:47 But especially I'd like to see it on Friday. 40:50 Any news on the recruiting front, Hammeh? 40:54 Nothing specific to the Gophers in terms of commitments. 40:58 The only thing that I had mentioned to you guys before, I had heard earlier today that Cody DePorque, I think that's how you say his last name, from Conticton. 41:08 He's like playing on a team with like Mario Luchia and the D'Reillys or whatever. 41:12 He, the Gophers kind of have some interest in him and he's committed to Denver, it looks like. 41:17 So I think the Gophers might have cooled a little bit on it from what I've heard mainly because he's another smaller player. 41:24 The Gophers are kind of, you know, they've got their water bug types filled up in the next, you know, 2013 and beyond. 41:31 So I think they're going to be looking a little bit more, a little more size upfront, I would gather. 41:36 So that might have been a part of the reason why they might have cooled a little bit. 41:40 But it looks like he's headed off to Denver. 41:41 But other than that, it's been pretty much, you know, high school hockey season is kicking up this week and we'll see how it goes. 41:48 You know, I'm guessing we might hear about, you know, the official news from the U about their signs. 41:56 Fairly soon here, won't we? 41:58 You know, who they're signing. 41:59 I mean, I know the women's team has done it already. 42:02 A few other men's teams have done it. 42:04 So I'm guessing that you might release this information fairly soon. 42:09 Well, you'd have to talk to your buddy down at the U. 42:11 I think last year... 42:13 Oh, I don't think it's up to Paul. 42:15 Well, I think, well, maybe it's not up to him, but you'd probably have to gauge when that might happen. 42:19 Because I remember last year, I don't even know if they had an early release like they typically do. 42:25 I thought that if I remember correctly, they didn't have one, and then our Star Tribune beat writer had to actually, you know, I think, call or talk to LuTi about, you know, who they actually had received letters of intent from. 42:38 So, you know, I guess we'll see if they're going to release. 42:40 I know that we saw Brady Shea, you know, he had announced on Twitter that he had signed his letter of intent, and I believe the Riley's had already, you know, they had done it in the past or whatever. 42:50 So I don't know. 42:51 I don't know. 42:51 We'll have to see if they do have a release or not. 42:54 Maybe just being, you know, playing devil's advocate. 42:56 I wonder if it's, you know, there's not a lot of advantage to getting that, you know, that word out there. 43:00 I mean, there is for somebody like Rovnak, where he wants to, you know, buzz about the team and recruiting. 43:04 But if you're Lucia and, you know, you worry about guys getting pushed back years and when they sign. 43:09 So again, I have no idea if that's his train of thought. 43:11 But I mean, it could be just, you know, let's keep it on the down low. 43:14 Who's signing? 43:14 And, you know, obviously everyone in the hockey community knows, but just so, you know, word doesn't get out that, hey, this kid signed, and then they're pushing him back a year or whatever. 43:21 I don't know, just hypothetical. 43:24 A quick little note. 43:26 I don't know if you guys saw my tweet earlier today, but the women's team is getting a brand new scoreboard with a nice display and all. 43:33 And it was all thanks to a half million dollar one-time donation. 43:38 Why can't we get that for the men's team? 43:40 Because we could really use a new scoreboard. 43:43 Well, I might be wrong on this, but I could have swore that I've read or heard that McTurney was saying that that was one of the next big objectives for Mariucci Arena was to get an upgraded scoreboard. 43:56 I believe they're going to use the money from the preferred seating program starting next year. 44:01 That was their excuse that once that money starts coming in, they'll start putting more money into the arena. 44:07 But I guess we'll have to wait and see on that. 44:10 Yeah, I don't know. 44:12 And I'm sure that to some degree, some of your typical money from boosters or whatever might have been tapped out a little bit from the football stadium. 44:22 Maybe you want to wait a few years. 44:24 Who knows? 44:25 And are they still trying to get the baseball thing going? 44:28 I can't keep up with all that kind of stuff. 44:30 But I guess if it doesn't exist in the hockey world, I tend not to have the most up-to-date information. 44:36 But I don't know. 44:38 Let's hope that it's going to be something in the near future. 44:40 Because it's definitely something, when I'm at the games, it's kind of pale as compared to what you're used to seeing, at least in Excel or whatever. 44:50 Well, it is a nice upgrade for Ritter, though. 44:53 Because I thought that arena's scoreboard at one end was pretty bad. 44:56 So it's a nice little addition for them. 45:01 Obviously, I was tweeting this week, bugging a few people. 45:05 And there's still no news on those new gopher jerseys. 45:09 If the U or Gold Country, anyone's going to try to sell them. 45:13 We've been trying to bug them, folks. 45:14 But it sounds like Nike is just not one of the best people to supply the university with even a decent replica jersey. 45:23 So who knows what's going to happen with that? 45:26 Okay. 45:26 But who does Wisconsin's jerseys in? 45:28 Apparently, it's Reebok. 45:30 Ah, okay. 45:31 So it's a different manufacturer. 45:32 Yeah. 45:34 I try to shame them on Facebook and stuff like that, but oh, you saw that in most of them. 45:40 Well, I read that. 45:42 Yeah. 45:42 The first thing, because I saw it on, I follow Wisconsin on Twitter and whatever just to keep in the loop. 45:47 And I seen they were tweeting the pictures of it and somebody tweeted back at them, hey, where can we get them? 45:52 And they said, well, they've been on sale for over a week. 45:54 And so then I posted on GPL and it's like, well, say what you want about the look of the jersey. 45:58 But the fact that fans could buy them before the team even wore them, I think that just one more thing that Wisconsin Athletic Department or whoever is, again, I don't know if that's exactly the Athletic Department or the, I know Jupe, you've said that the owner of Gold Country also owns the Buckees locker room or whatever. 46:13 So it's kind of weird whether, maybe it is Nike that's kind of clogging it up because Wisconsin hasn't, I don't think they've ever used Nike for hockey. 46:19 I know it's been Adidas and now Reebok because those are the same company or whatever. 46:22 So maybe it is Nike that screws the whole thing up, but just the way that you kind of does things, it just kind of seems like another kind of egg on their face moment. 46:30 Well, I saw a tweet this morning. 46:34 I can't remember who it was from, but saying that the football team, the Gopher football team renewed with Nike, and they'll have New Jersey's next year. 46:43 It doesn't look good because they'll probably just keep renewing with hockey if they're going to keep renewing with football. 46:47 So it's not looking good. 46:51 By the way, that Wisconsin Jersey is brutal. 46:55 I'm sorry, that thing is fricking, that's fugly, man. 46:59 Hey, but see, here's the thing with Wisconsin. 47:01 You got to compare it to those pajama jerseys they had about 10 years ago with Bucky superimposed on the front. 47:07 So you compare it to that, it's a thing of beauty. 47:10 But Wisconsin has not set the bar too high for alternate uniforms over the years. 47:14 Yeah, I was going to say that. 47:16 I don't remember ever seeing a really great third uni for that team. 47:20 So I think the ones they wore for the outdoor game, I don't know if it was those ones. 47:24 I don't know if one year they had one kind of like the wild, or you see a lot of teams do it now with the circular logo in the middle, which is kind of a safe route to go. 47:32 I don't see Cia's, their gold ones, and kind of like the Florida Panthers' blue ones. 47:36 But yeah, in general, I like their home and away. 47:37 I like that they haven't deviated too much and it's a traditional look. 47:40 But outside of those, the Gophers have done okay this year. 47:44 It's weird. 47:45 I can't remember a college hockey team having four uniforms like the Gophers have done so far this year. 47:50 I thought that was odd that they came out with the golds on Saturday. 47:54 Four jerseys, I guess we know where the money is going. 47:58 Yeah, four jerseys, nobody can get them, right? 48:01 Well, no way. 48:02 You can kind of get them. 48:05 The crappy Nike ones are just bad because the M is completely wrong. 48:12 I can't get to it. 48:13 I'll just get pissed off again. 48:15 Well yeah, that's the thing. 48:15 If you're going to have four jerseys, you think it would be, oh, so we can sell a bunch of different models of them and make a bunch of money. 48:20 What's the point of having a third jersey if you can't make money off it? 48:23 But the U has two third jerseys and they don't make money off either for the most part. 48:28 So, one more thing too, I know from somewhat of a recruiting thing, but I know Hammy touched on it this week a little bit, but about, I know we've talked about the goaltending of the future, but Hammy, didn't Adam Wilcox get traded this week or that's going to happen or something you said? 48:41 Yeah, I had heard that kind of rumor last, you know, you hear rumors once in a while. 48:46 I, the source is a pretty good one for me, so I figured that this one probably would come to fruition. 48:52 But yeah, he got traded from Green Bay to Tri-City, which is kind of a step or two down. 49:00 It's kind of like if you were Kent Patterson getting traded from the Gophers to, you know, Alaska Anchorage, essentially, you know, it's not exactly a step up in terms of team, but he was splitting time at Green Bay, and so I would imagine he'll be the full-time starter at Tri-City. 49:17 So from that standpoint, it's probably a good move for him because he'll be able to see a lot more pucks and a lot more games. 49:25 So I think that, you know, considering we're probably going to be leaning on him to some extent, if not, you know, a large extent next year, it's probably a good thing for us that he's actually going to be going somewhere where he'll be playing a lot. 49:38 All right. 49:39 Well, I think that's about all we have for... 49:41 Oh, that's it. 49:42 I thought we were going to ask Ryan how his St. 49:44 Cloud night went. 49:47 Oh, well, didn't you have a couple of boombaladies in front of you, but you were pretty much couldn't see the rink very well the whole night, Ryan? 49:53 Well, you know, it's going to be a good night when you come to the stoplight and you see the student bookstore also offers STD testing. 49:59 So I knew I was in the right city. 50:02 But yeah, you know what? 50:04 I don't have a lot of complaints. 50:05 I mean, I knew Chuck Schwartz, our Badger friend on Twitter, he was pretty grossy about his experience up there, and I figured I'd be probably in the same chair that he was, not the ideal seating, given we're not, you know, we're official, but we're not a newspaper or something, which that was fine. 50:18 But yeah, you know, the standing thing, the real thing at Clompton was like tweeting. 50:23 I like to be very descriptive when I tweet for GPL during the games. 50:26 I figure if people are on it, they might not be able to see what's going on. 50:29 But there was a lot of standing and sitting to do that. 50:31 But yeah, I think the freshmen were towards the back, so they were a little bit shorter. 50:36 I think they were mostly passed out by the third period. 50:38 They can't hold their liquor like the lower level ones can. 50:41 So third period, I got to sit for mostly right until the end when my Gophers almost tied it up. 50:46 But yeah, Blizzard, the big mascot was in front of me a little bit. 50:49 And that was interesting. 50:51 But yeah, it's kind of what you'd expect out of something from St. 50:54 Cloud. 50:54 So I'll leave it at that. 50:56 Wow. 50:57 Well, you know, Chuck Schwartz shouldn't be complaining. 50:59 He actually goes to school there, for God's sake. 51:01 So, you know, if he wants to blame anybody, we should blame himself. 51:05 I picked the wrong school. 51:09 Hey, I went to Mankato, so I picked the wrong school as well. 51:15 Yeah, but you like to party, so I mean, you can understand that. 51:19 Yeah, right. 51:21 Well, you can always follow Hammeh. 51:23 It's Hammeh Hockey on Twitter, and he'll obviously be back with us next week. 51:27 And Ryan, are you going to be on KFN this week, shortened week? 51:31 I will. 51:32 It'll be a little bit of a condensed deal. 51:35 It's on tomorrow, so Wednesday, I believe, 10, 15. 51:38 So again, a little bit different. 51:39 But given the success of the squad, once the second half of the year arrives, they're still riding high, and Viking season will be officially over. 51:47 Definitely more time to talk about the club. 51:49 So yeah, better things to come on that front, hopefully, once the purple season officially and mercifully comes to an end. 51:55 I was going to say, isn't it officially over already? 51:57 I mean, in a sense, I guess it is. 51:59 I think it was officially over. 52:00 What day did we sign Donovan McNabb? 52:01 Was it July 27th, 28th? 52:05 Careful, that's your employer. 52:06 Yeah, they are. 52:07 They are. 52:07 But I think everyone in that building, including the quarterback himself, would probably admit that that was pretty much the dagger to the season. 52:15 There is your dagger. 52:17 There's your dagger. 52:20 Baby time coming soon too, isn't it for you, Cardinal? 52:24 Yeah. 52:24 We're- 52:25 Tick-tock, tick-tock. 52:27 Yeah, I think January 8th is the due date, so 40 some days, give or take. 52:31 Hopefully comes before the first year, get that tax break. 52:34 Oh boy, that Notre Dame game on the 7th, that could be trouble. 52:38 I know. 52:39 I'm a Flyers fan too, and they have the winter classics. 52:42 I'm tap dancing around a bunch of big games, but he's a boy, so I've made some pleas to him from the outside to come at the appropriate time, so hopefully it hears. 52:52 But if his mother has anything to do with it, I'm sure he'll be born right in the middle of the Notre Dame game. 52:56 So we'll see. 52:58 If he's going to be a future gopher, he's probably going to want to be right before the game starts. 53:03 You know, the prep for when he actually is suiting up, you got to get used to that. 53:07 Yeah, I know. 53:08 That's fair, too. 53:10 You know, you got to indoctrinate him young, you know. 53:12 You can't let him get influenced by anybody else. 53:14 Oh, no, don't worry. 53:16 Speaking of future gophers, you know, I'm on Facebook, you know, it's always got, you know, a list of people who they think should be your friend. 53:25 And there it was. 53:26 They think I should be friends with Thomas Vannick. 53:27 And you know what Thomas Vannick had as a picture? 53:31 His two little boys, full in, you know, twins and golden gopher onesies. 53:39 Oh, he's a bit... 53:40 Maroon with the maroon onesies with the big M on it. 53:45 I think we got a couple future gophers right there. 53:48 Well, there's no doubt he's a big booster of the program. 53:50 I mean, he... 53:51 I mean, we talked about Taylor Comerada before and being in Vannick's summer hockey program, however, trust me, I'm sure that it didn't hurt to have him in our corner as far as landing that kid. 54:04 I mean, granted, he was already a gopher fan, but I'm sure, you know, having Vannick around and kind of telling him about his experiences at the U, I'm sure that never hurts, you know, the situation. 54:15 So, give it another 18 years. 54:18 We're good to go for recruiting. 54:20 Well, you know, a lot of times you see some of those legacies, you know, end up in the... 54:24 I mean, we've seen it with nannies, grandsons, and it's not uncommon to see some of those... 54:30 Quite a few father-son things, too. 54:31 A million names, yeah. 54:33 So, I mean, it's not unheard of. 54:35 Plus, what, grand patolines? 54:37 Got a couple of kids, so we could have a lot of legacies players coming down the pipeline right around the same time in, you know, 20 years, give or take. 54:45 Just a nice little pipeline going there. 54:48 All right, I think we're good for this week. 54:51 All right. 54:51 Good show, guys. 54:53 I want to thank all of you people for listening in to us, and I guess we'll see you next time on the Gopher Puck Live Podcast.