0:30 Good evening, and welcome to a special GPL Podcast, live from Tom's Watch Bar. 0:38 I'm at home, but Veegs, you're there with a guest. 0:42 Yeah, we've got Luke Buer here from Gopher Illustrated. 0:45 I'm not from Gopher Illustrated. 0:46 Oh, Gopher Gridiron Radio. 0:47 Gopher Gridiron Radio. 0:48 Sorry. 0:49 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 0:51 We got to make sure we get those lines drawn. 0:53 I'm not from Gopher Illustrated, I'm from Gopher Gridiron Radio. 0:56 I also do a basketball podcast with Ryan Burns, Talk Gopher Buckets, but we mix it up a little bit. 1:03 Yeah, so this is kind of like a collab of all things Gophers. 1:06 So we can do a crossover, like I can put this in my feed, and we can say the introduction of Gopher Puck Live, and then conversely one day you'll have to come back on our podcast and we'll do this and we'll invite Craig and it'll be this whole merry thing. 1:19 Yeah, I think we've got to design a beer label too for it, you know? 1:22 Because it's a true collab, which is really fun for me. 1:26 Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. 1:27 No, this is great. 1:28 I'm excited. 1:29 And we probably should put the disclaimer out here. 1:31 I know nothing about hockey. 1:33 That's okay. 1:33 Literally nothing. 1:34 I have lots of notes. 1:36 I don't either. 1:36 Lots of notes. 1:37 Okay, good. 1:38 I'm glad about that, Craig. 1:39 Thanks. 1:41 So Veegs, what's going on there tonight? 1:43 So it's a special watch program at Tom's Watch Bar. 1:47 You get some Duck Duck beer. 1:48 You got Dinkytown. 1:49 You've even got some Pulltab stuff there with you, don't you? 1:54 Yeah, so thanks to everybody who's chipping in for this with Dinkytown Athletes getting this set up. 1:59 Grey Duck is giving people two free Duck Duck beers for coming to this watch party. 2:04 It's a big night of athletics. 2:06 We've got the Gopher Hockey game. 2:08 We've got The Wild. 2:09 We've got the National Championship for football. 2:12 So if you're looking for a place to go tonight, this is a great spot. 2:15 There's TVs all around us here. 2:18 Lots of service, so it should be a good night here. 2:20 And we've got a bunch of swag to give away. 2:22 Pulltab gave us a bunch of stuff from hats, to candy, to salsa, to Duke Cannon, to Jimmy's Caramel Dip, Chill Boys, and then Unreal Gear. 2:32 I've got my Unreal sweatshirt here. 2:35 We gave one of those away to one of our first guests who showed up tonight. 2:38 And we'll be giving stuff away. 2:40 And I've got two free tickets to the game tonight for someone here. 2:43 At some point during the night, we will give those away. 2:46 That sounds pretty fun. 2:47 And we should note that Tom's Watch Bar has some golf hitting bays. 2:50 I think there are probably a bunch of people actually hitting in those right now, too. 2:53 Yeah, this is a cool spot. 2:54 We're right downtown. 2:56 City center. 2:58 Come on by. 2:58 Yeah, should be fun. 2:59 All right, so I got to ask you guys. 3:02 I don't know a lot about hockey, but that looks like a clunker last night. 3:05 It was kind of a tough game for the Gophers. 3:09 I put on Twitter today a comment Bob Bosco said before the Ohio State game where he's really happy with 95% of his game right now with his team. 3:18 It's just this 5% of their performance is really disappointing because they're making these huge catastrophic errors. 3:25 They're just giving the other team offense and giving them goals. 3:29 And it's making it hard for them to win two games a weekend. 3:32 And with the mistakes they made last night is going to make it tough to get a win tonight, which is really important. 3:43 Hey, Biggs, I'm wondering, what are your thoughts on Mr. 3:48 Close so far? 3:49 He kind of had a rough game last night. 3:51 Some people are like, hey, let's put Harry in there. 3:55 I'm thinking you want to hold off on that a little bit. 3:57 Well, I definitely think you want to hold off. 3:59 You know, Justin Close made the decision to come back for a fifth year. 4:02 He has a lot of experience. 4:04 And I don't know if he's really playing poorly. 4:06 You know, some of the things with Close is he's been playing for a long time. 4:08 He's not exactly the biggest goaltender. 4:11 So when teams are able to get rushes and move the puck side to side and get quick shots off, that's not going to be his strength. 4:18 What his strength is going to be is when he can see who the shooter is, identify them, or anticipate the play and make a read and be aggressive on pucks. 4:25 When you have a team that's on their heels like Minnesota was after they make those catastrophic mistakes, that exposes his limitations a little bit. 4:33 So I worry that if you go to another goaltender, you might lose locker room a little bit. 4:40 And so I think you ride this out with close unless he has a first period where he just doesn't play well. 4:45 So something I've been curious about, I obviously don't pay a ton of attention to hockey and I don't know a ton, but when I look at scores and I look at that box score, right, I see that the Gophers seem to start slow sometimes. 4:55 I don't know, I don't have the analytics to back that up, right? 4:58 But I see that and I'm like, what's going on with that? 5:00 And why does that happen? 5:01 And they seem to have to dig themselves out of a hole? 5:03 Or am I completely off base with that take? 5:06 I don't know if it's always that they start slow. 5:09 I think it's magnified because we watch this team so closely as fans that you expect a lot. 5:15 You know, this team has been to back to back frozen fours. 5:18 I think the expectation in the state of hockey is that they're going to get back there real easily. 5:22 I almost think inside the locker room, that might be the attitude as well, that it's going to come easy. 5:26 You know, last night they came out with a good strong 10 minutes, but they're up against one of the best boys in college hockey, in Kadem and in Berko. 5:34 And he shut them down early, and Minnesota got bored, and then they let CC into the game. 5:38 All right, so my other question then, just updating off the game last night. 5:46 When I look at hockey, I'm like, okay, you got to get out of your zone and into the next zone, right? 5:50 And obviously that often starts with defense, right? 5:53 And it seemed like from my watching, we struggled with that, from moving it from the defense into the offensive zone. 6:01 This is the quintessential outlet, passing basketball. 6:05 Yeah, you noticed a lot in the first period, the Gophers chipping it off the glass into the neutral zone and trying to reset, or they're circling back and trying to reload and restart their breakout. 6:15 Playing CC last night was a tough matchup coming off a break. 6:19 CC is a bigger, heavier team, and it looked like they were trying to intimidate the Gophers a little bit with that physicality. 6:25 And I think sometimes the Gophers fell into that trap and they got distracted by the physical play, and it wasn't clean. 6:35 And then the players get stretched out and you have a hard time gaining speed, which is what you need to beat a team like CC, is use your speed. 6:42 The Gophers have better skating talent than most of the teams in college hockey. 6:47 They have to create that routine where they can play with speed. 6:51 So this question is probably really for both of you, but I obviously paid attention to the World Juniors as just a Gopher fan knowing that there are a couple of Gophers playing on the team and they had an assistant coach. 7:02 But how much should we take into account? 7:05 You got four players, maybe four of your top players coming off of World Juniors into a game, what, like three or four days later? 7:12 Like that seems like a little bit of an asterisk maybe to put on this series or the next couple of weeks. 7:17 Yeah, the World Junior is always a challenge because the guys from Minnesota were playing big minutes. 7:21 Chesley and Snuggerud more, they were playing big roles for USA in Sweden and then the travel coming back. 7:28 You know, they got back I think about 10 o'clock on Friday night and so they had Saturday to recover and get back into everything. 7:37 I don't think it affected them that much last night. 7:40 It's going to affect them next weekend against Robert Morris more. 7:43 The adrenaline is going to get them through this weekend and I think losing the first game will allow them just to jump into it again tonight and then they'll have to go through the recovery. 7:51 I mean, Jimmy Snugger had two goals last night. 7:53 He looked just fine. 7:54 Yeah, absolutely. 7:55 What about your perspective, Craig? 7:57 Like, what do you think? 7:59 How do you take into account that whole World Juniors thing, especially over the next few weeks? 8:05 Well, I believe that actually Snuggeroots said he got back midnight on Saturday and basically slept most of Sunday until it was game time. 8:15 So he scored two goals and I think it's similar to what Vegoe said. 8:19 They're on adrenaline. 8:20 But Vegs usually, you know, Matsuko lets them play as much during games, but he lets them get breaks during practice. 8:26 He works them a lot less, you know, during the week to kind of help them recover, doesn't he? 8:32 Yeah, I think those guys will get Tuesday, maybe even Wednesday off from practice and he will basically lock them out of the rink and say, don't come in. 8:40 And that's probably going to be really frustrating for Jimmy Snuggeroot because he's going to want to come in and give his 200 shots that he takes. 8:48 But it's something they need to do and they have to protect the players from themselves. 8:52 And at the University of Minnesota, they've got all these resources. 8:55 Cal Deitz, the strength and conditioning guy, he monitors these guys with lots of metrics to see how they're recovering. 9:01 So they'll get back on track eventually. 9:03 Minnesota is lucky to have a lot of experience dealing with this. 9:07 I've got a question for Veegs here. 9:09 Just one lineup change tonight. 9:11 Pinanimi is out, Strobel is in, how much do you think that affects the game tonight? 9:17 Well, I think against a heavy team like CC, having Strobel in the lineup should be a huge plus. 9:23 I think sometimes that line has struggled, the string shifts together and play consistently. 9:28 I know in the post game last night, someone was asking Matsko about John Middlestadt coming through with a goal. 9:34 He's like, yeah, but that line was minus two before that. 9:37 So I think having Strobel that line gives a little bit more size, a little bit more physicality and could be important tonight. 9:43 I like to change and I've been waiting to see this one for a while. 9:47 So, yeah, so my question was going to be about Jimmy Snuggerwood in general. 9:53 So, you know, obviously he seems to be a superstar, right? 9:57 But it seems to be that his shot is really what gets him, you know, makes him such a superstar. 10:03 So what about that is so lethal, right? 10:05 Is his release, his accuracy, his speed or, you know, what's accounting for him to being such a lethal player? 10:11 I think the biggest thing for Snuggerwood to me is how quick he gets his shot off and how hard it is. 10:17 And he gets that with repetition. 10:19 You know, I asked him about, is there any technique that you've worked on and developed? 10:22 He's like, no, I just shoot pucks as much as possible. 10:25 I shoot 200 a day. 10:26 You know, I aim for 1400 a week, you know, 10,000 a month. 10:30 You know, I think the theory was over a summer, if you shot 10,000 pucks, that would be good for a player's development. 10:37 Snuggerwood is doing that basically every month. 10:39 And I was talking to him about his stick budget, and he's like, yeah, I go through about 12, 20 sticks a year. 10:45 So for all those hockey families out there, that's that's like six grand of sticks. 10:49 So he's he's putting in the time and the investment. 10:54 I don't really have any questions about the game tonight, so I'm going to just turn it over to Craig, honestly, if there's got to be more stuff you guys want to talk about. 11:01 All I know is Colorado College is in Colorado. 11:03 They're ranked number 20 in the country. 11:05 That's all I got. 11:07 Yeah, I think the one thing about CC is they did beat North Dakota two games in a row, who was the number one team when they played. 11:14 CC is better than I think some people were thinking. 11:17 It's a tough test. 11:18 You know, the NCHC is pretty deep, and it's an important weekend for Minnesota to respond. 11:25 Definitely an important weekend. 11:27 And I actually think the next weekend is more important pairwise when it comes to the rankings, Veegs. 11:32 They lose anything next weekend, they're in big trouble. 11:36 Let's do one thing. 11:37 Let's give something away, Veegs. 11:40 Yeah, let's give some away. 11:41 If anybody here has a question for the podcast, they can come up and they can pick something off the table. 11:47 We've got all kinds of hats, candies, salsa, Jimmy's Caramel. 11:53 I'm voting for Kim Hansen. 11:58 Kim, you want to come up and ask a question? 12:01 Finish some delicious food that she's working on? 12:06 We can take multiple questions. 12:08 Yeah. 12:08 We've got lots of gear to give away. 12:14 Hey, Jupe. 12:16 Hello, you know, being that the Frozen Four is here in St. 12:20 Paul this year, how do you think that that is going to change Bob's approach, if at all? 12:30 Do you know what I mean? 12:30 Because there's a lot of pressure that this is here in the backyard. 12:34 They've got a long way to go to even get there at this point. 12:38 Just curious what your thoughts are. 12:42 I mean, that's a great question, because so many people this year are like, this is a huge opportunity for this program to have a Frozen Four at home. 12:49 Craig, I know you often say Minnesota does really well in regionals that are home and Frozen Fours that are home. 12:56 There's a history there. 12:57 The one thing I think Bob will do differently in the second half is I think he's going to have a tighter leash with this team. 13:04 I mean, we see it tonight already. 13:06 Pino has played every game so far this season, and he's going to sit out tonight. 13:10 I'm interested to see what happens with the defensive ice time tonight, whether or not he leans a little bit heavier on Rinzel, Chesley, Kester even more, even though some of those guys might be tired from the World Junior. 13:23 They're the most talented players. 13:25 And for this team to advance, those players have to develop and get better. 13:31 Craig, what do you think? 13:35 I think that Bob isn't even thinking about Frozen 4. 13:40 It's the last thing on his mind right now. 13:42 He's like I said, he's more worried about just getting better, just getting better. 13:51 You and I talk, Eric, a lot about mostly football, right? 13:54 And one of the things that frustrates me about PJ Flack is he doesn't let his players fail, right? 14:00 And maybe that's magnified in large part because they only play 12 games. 14:03 But he doesn't put the team in position and you can see it in his conservative play calling you know to even make some of those mistakes. 14:10 But I would argue that when I watch Gopher Hockey, they play a lot of those young guys and they let them fail in tough spots. 14:17 And you talk about that a lot, that that's an approach that Motsgouw takes. 14:20 So tell me about that. 14:22 Is that what we're living because they're pretty young at this juncture? 14:25 And they got to gain this experience leading into, you know, postseason hockey? 14:30 Well, Bob often talks about the only way that you're going to learn is from game experience. 14:34 You're not going to learn these lessons in practice because the players almost don't believe the coaches. 14:40 They believe that they can get away with the high skill plays, the high risk plays and just develop that way. 14:46 Learning to make those decisions in game is totally different. 14:50 And Bob puts players in position to do that. 14:52 If you look at the power play time right now, he's playing Chesley and Runzel with that top unit. 14:58 Kester is kind of playing with that second unit and stayed there. 15:01 But Bob is trying to give opportunities to Runzel and Chesley to take hold of a unit and perform. 15:07 And I don't think that's something that necessarily happens in Gopher football because they play so conservative and they circle the wagon so quickly. 15:15 Bob gives everybody a little bit more leech. 15:18 One thing I would say, though, Veegs, going off of that, is that, yes, that was the goal the first half of the season. 15:26 Maybe these couple of non-conference games in January. 15:29 But after that, it's time to settle in. 15:33 It is time to settle in. 15:34 I think you have to play the guys who perform. 15:39 But Don LeChi always used to say they don't let the plumbers paint the frescoes in Italy during the Renaissance. 15:46 You need the artisans to do that. 15:48 You need the talent. 15:50 And you have guys on the roster who have the talent. 15:54 They just have to get the decision making and the brain to sync up with that talent. 15:59 All right. 15:59 So one thing that stuck out to me from the box score and watching the game is that the Gophers are scored on special teams, which ended up being the difference maker in the final score. 16:09 You know, what's the difference they have to make there? 16:13 Obviously, don't want to lose ever in any aspect of hockey because goals are at a minimum. 16:18 I will say that I was the guy in high school at the hockey games that was yelling score a goal to my to my classmates, right? 16:24 So because there's so few of them. 16:25 So what's what's the difference they have to make, especially on special teams? 16:29 I think the Gopher special teams look the best when they create chaos on the power play and they get pucks to the net and they win second chances and they allow their creativity to come through the chaos. 16:40 I think they get in trouble when they try to get very static and set up in their power play and everybody goes to their spots. 16:47 Every penalty kill knows what spots they're going to go in in those situations. 16:51 They know what spots to take away when they create chaos and create loose pucks and you create opportunities for snugger just to find a loose puck and pick a corner with this quick release. 17:01 I think you see some of that with Chesley and Kester trying to shoot pucks. 17:05 I think that's something Rinzel has to add to his game is being able to deliver pucks to the net and create that chaos and the other guys in the power play have to win those second pucks. 17:14 They can't just wait for passes. 17:16 They have to be ready to pounce and that anticipation is what separates a power play that can operate at 30 percent and a power play that's maybe around 20. 17:26 Veegs, let's lighten it up a little bit here. 17:29 Retro Goldie gold uniforms are being introduced tonight. 17:35 Tell us what you think. 17:37 I love Retro Goldie. 17:38 I love all the vintage Minnesota stuff and I can't wait to see them on the ice tonight. 17:43 I've liked this set of jerseys that they have this year and you know it's been a long time coming for them to get a new set and this one is fantastic. 17:50 I can't wait to see it under the bright LED lights of Mariucci. 17:53 I do have to add that you know I don't think it's any coincidence that I got to make my appearance on this podcast with the new Goldie Retro jerseys. 18:04 You know I don't know maybe pulled some strings within the athletic department to make sure that that happened so at least I had something to talk about but yes you not me so there we digress. 18:13 That's alright Luke thanks for jumping in. 18:15 That's what a collaboration is all about is you know jumping in and finding your spots. 18:19 We create chaos on the power play. 18:21 We create chaos on the podcast way to do it. 18:24 There's a lot of chaos on the podcast. 18:28 A lot. 18:30 I think for. 18:31 Is there anyone there without tickets? 18:33 Oh yeah there you go. 18:35 Is there anyone? 18:37 Yes anyone need a pair of tickets for tonight? 18:40 Mary you got tickets? 18:43 You need some tickets? 18:44 No? 18:46 I've got a pair of tickets. 18:48 Lower level. 18:51 If you know someone maybe. 18:52 Maybe you can bring two friends. 18:54 Yeah well they're not club seats. 18:57 Got to be honest. 18:59 But they're two seats. 19:00 So if someone here is looking for tickets for tonight, should be a good game. 19:05 Still would be able to get back and watch some of the football game afterwards. 19:08 Maybe come back here. 19:09 Yeah. 19:11 We have a question Veegs. 19:12 What is your drink of choice tonight? 19:15 I mean drink of choice is obviously Duck Duck Beer. 19:17 I mean that's the drink of choice tonight. 19:20 Should be for all fans here tonight supporting the program. 19:24 We do have some interesting news coming from Grey Duck. 19:27 Yeah so we got an email from Derek Burns and this is going to be released actually tomorrow via press release. 19:36 Which is pretty exciting. 19:37 So I'm not going to take the thunder away from you Eric. 19:40 You should have the opportunity to see your podcast to plug this. 19:43 Yeah so Grey Duck is seeing a path where they can give a million dollars annually to support Dinkytown Athletes. 19:52 And that's a pretty impressive commitment. 19:54 And one of the big ways for that to happen is for fans to buy Grey Duck Vodka and Duck Duck Beer. 20:03 And I think 20% of the beer and 25% of the vodka goes towards Dinkytown Athletes. 20:09 Yeah I think more importantly is this goal to try to get to a million dollars going to Dinkytown Athletes is really we're going to have to displace other vodka brands that you're seeing on your rails now. 20:21 So for those people that are ordering Tito's, I mean they're from Texas. 20:26 Why are we ordering that? 20:27 Let's order Grey Duck and if we can move the needle at all, we're going to do it by replacing these outstate spirits and we're going to replace them with Grey Duck who's already made a commitment to go for sports and Dinkytown Athletes. 20:43 That's going to really move the needle. 20:44 And their goal for 2024, and it's an audacious goal, and let's do it, is a million dollars to Dinkytown Athletes. 20:51 Yeah and I'm all about One Minnesota. 20:53 Like on our podcast, all of our sponsors are local companies, and Grey Duck's one of those companies. 20:59 And why should we send money to Texas with Tito's? 21:03 Why should we send money to Missouri or whatever for Budweiser? 21:06 You know, buy your local product. 21:08 It's a great beer. 21:09 It's a great light beer. 21:10 It's in all the venues at the university. 21:12 So support that. 21:14 And more importantly here at Tom's Watch Bar, I think they actually even offer Grey Duck vodka. 21:19 So if you're here now and you're thinking like, hey, I want to make a difference tonight, go ahead. 21:24 Order, I don't know, your Moscow Mule and ask it for it with the Grey Duck. 21:28 Yeah, I mean vodka soda that supports the athletes, it's a great way to go. 21:32 So it's the premium real drink here. 21:34 So make sure to ask for it when you order. 21:38 Do we have any more questions from the audience for us? 21:41 There's Swag here. 21:43 Oh, there's one right there. 21:45 If you want to come up and ask a question, you get your choice. 21:47 We've got some cool Unreal Gear 2 as well. 21:49 Hey, Juke. 21:54 How are you? 21:55 I'm doing well. 21:56 Nice to see you. 21:57 Nice to see you again. 21:58 So my question is on Oliver Moore. 22:00 We know Ollie is a fast skater, but at the first half of the season, do we think Ollie has caught up to the college game or is he still learning and how key is he to the second half? 22:14 Well, I think from my perspective, he's finding better ways to impact the game. 22:19 You're not necessarily seeing it on the score sheet, but he's not disappearing. 22:23 I feel like some other young players, Casey Middlestadt comes to mind, came to college. 22:29 It didn't come easy, and he just kind of struggled through it. 22:33 And he left, and he became a pro, and because of that choice in his development, he struggled as a pro. 22:39 He's doing fine now. 22:40 He's having a great season for Buffalo, but it just took a long time, and he couldn't find other ways to impact the game other than the score sheet. 22:47 What Oliver Moore is doing is he's finding a way to make himself indispensable on penalty kill. 22:53 His speed out there can really be a difference maker on the penalty kill, and he's finding ways to get those second chances, second pucks, which I think is going to be really good on a line with Rhett Pitlick and Jimmy Snuggerud if he buys into that role, and I think he is. 23:08 You can see that effort from him and that intensity, and I think he's doing very well for himself right now. 23:14 You got to make sure you get something. 23:16 You got to make sure you get something while you listen to Jupiter. 23:19 Okay, but you can get something else, too. 23:21 Yeah, grab whatever you want there. 23:22 Go for it. 23:23 Take it. 23:23 I would also say that, you know, Veegs, Aizerman wasn't on the penalty kill early this season, so this is where, you know, Matsuko has allowed him to grow a bit by putting him in the penalty kill type of situations. 23:36 Yeah, and I think that's an important role on the team. 23:38 For this team to be successful, they have to be able to kill penalties. 23:41 You know, we saw, you know, Sammy Walker and Blake McLaughlin, they made a huge impact on the penalty kill. 23:47 Even when Sammy went through his senior year where he wasn't performing the best, he still was impactful on the penalty kill. 23:53 And I think that's critical for a team that wants to get to the Frozen Four. 23:56 I love that he's picking on us. 23:58 There's another question here, so we got to get the other question. 24:01 Make sure you get something, yeah. 24:07 All right, easy question, maybe. 24:10 Which Middlestad would you place better in your ideas, the better Middlestad? 24:19 Well, I think right now Luke Middlestad is the best gopher of the three. 24:26 John has some unique attributes. 24:28 He's kind of struggled to come in on line up with his consistency. 24:31 You know, I think he wants to make an impact so hard that sometimes he creates opportunities for the other team. 24:37 Casey, I just never thought got it going at Minnesota, and I think he had some conflicts with the coaches. 24:44 But Luke is very consistent. 24:45 He's very hard on pucks. 24:47 I think he's underrated a little bit because his pro projection maybe isn't the best because of his foot speed. 24:52 But as a college player, he is a perfect fit for Minnesota. 24:56 And as he gets older and develops more and gets more confidence, I think that's going to help. 25:00 I mean, he's good on this flank on that power play unit too. 25:03 How many middle studs do we have? 25:05 We've had three. 25:06 Casey was a high pick early. 25:08 And then John and Luke have come on now. 25:11 You got to make sure you get your gear too, man. 25:13 And John and Luke also will be there likely for four years too, Veegs. 25:18 It's not a quick one and done like Casey. 25:21 Yeah, and I think that's part of what Bob is doing with this team is he is getting players to stick around longer, which I think is really important in college hockey and separates what's happening right now in Minnesota with what happened in the past. 25:35 Okay, and then I'm curious just in general. 25:39 I don't, you know, a lot of guys will go and play junior. 25:41 Some will come straight from high school. 25:43 Like, is Bob's approach different than Lucia's from that standpoint? 25:48 I think Bob is more forceful and that he expects players to play those two years of junior before they come to college. 25:57 And you're seeing guys buy into that. 25:59 They'll go play two years with the development team program. 26:02 They'll go play two years of USHL or NHL or VCHL, wherever they come from. 26:07 And so their roster is older. 26:09 And if it's not older, it's more experienced. 26:12 And I definitely think you're going to see a trend with goalies where Bob is looking for guys who play 2,000 minutes of junior hockey before they get to college. 26:20 His goalie is one of the hardest positions to evaluate. 26:23 You can see all the technical stuff that you want, but until you see that physical and mental mesh together in adversity, you don't really know what you have. 26:34 By the way, John was in the building last night to see both of his former teams. 26:40 Ooh, I wonder if we'll see him again. 26:42 He is so much more relaxed now that he's not the head coach of Minnesota. 26:47 If you do see him, you should say hi. 26:49 I think Don needs a rest. 26:53 Maybe Don is friendly. 26:58 I'll have to have my head on a swivel tonight. 27:00 A lot of alumni were in the building yesterday as well, just taking advantage of the easier tickets to get. 27:06 So there was quite a few familiar faces all over the arena yesterday. 27:10 What time are you going to get to the rink? 27:14 We should probably start wrapping things up. 27:16 Do we have any more questions for Swag in the audience? 27:21 Oh, we got one right here. 27:22 Oh, yeah. 27:22 First one here. 27:25 Do you think they'll start dressing extra forward to try and figure out that fourth line a little bit and give more time to Chesley, Renzel and the rest of the D? 27:35 I've often heard Bob say that he still prefers to dress 7D because it's easier to work those D in. 27:42 And if you have an injury or a game misconduct, probably doing those D, you still want to have 6. 27:47 With the forwards, because of all the special teams' time, it's hard to mix in that 13th forward because you already have the minutes divided up. 27:55 So I think you probably still will just see that 7D and 12 forwards. 27:59 So do you want to hit anything else? 28:02 I mean, we've talked some good gopher hockey. 28:05 I mean, you're also the foremost expert on gopher athletics. 28:09 So any good nuggets? 28:12 I've been anxiously awaiting the 2023 audited NCAA financial records. 28:18 It's interesting to see where we're at with finances at the U. 28:22 It's a big transition year for the Big Ten, getting their new TV deal kicks in next year. 28:27 The university still has quite a bit of debt from the Athletes Village and now the Mariucci upgrades that they're doing. 28:34 So there's some issues there that they have to address, but you're going to start to see more investment, I think, in coaches and all the programs. 28:43 You know, Minnesota cut some sports, and part of the reason they did that is so they could put more money into these revenue producing sports and support the whole program long term. 28:52 So I think you're going to see increased coaching salaries. 28:54 We already saw Bob get his extension with more money. 28:57 I think you're going to see that transition to assistant coaches and just further investment in the program. 29:02 You know, the paying Athletes money out of the Alston case, you know, that's something the university is already doing. 29:07 So that's a $2 to $3 million, you know, check that goes to the Athletes if they do some financial classes and other things that they have to do to get that money. 29:17 I think you're going to see more of that stuff. 29:19 Looks like we have another question. 29:22 I mean, I have a statement that Carl Fish rules, and I'm really glad that he signed with Dinkytown Athletes. 29:30 And then also, do you think that any of the second round of additions will be like drink rails and stuff? 29:34 Like, I need a place to set my Duff Duff beer at Mariucci. 29:38 Have you any insight on the second round of revisions? 29:42 That is definitely a big... 29:44 Yeah, pick yourself out some swag here if you want. 29:48 Upgrading the amenities at Mariucci is definitely that phase two. 29:51 You know, next year, Ritter Arena is going to get their ice plant upgraded and tied into the current refrigerant. 29:57 And then the phase after that is to upgrade some of the seating, some of the club section stuff, and some of the vendors in the concourse. 30:05 So I definitely think that's something they're looking to do. 30:07 I don't know if Grey Duck Vodka is going to be served at the venues yet, but I'm sure it's something they'll pursue. 30:14 Because I know, you know, one of the things that works in athletics is selling premium seats and premium experiences. 30:20 When you look at ticket sales, clubrooms and suites are usually sold out, and it's the other seats that are difficult sometimes because people go to those places for the experience. 30:30 You know, wins and losses are up and down, but the experience is key. 30:33 So that's where they're going to invest. 30:35 All right. 30:36 Thanks. 30:37 One quick question we have here, Biggs. 30:40 Brad Page wants to know, worried about four games in seven days? 30:44 Well, it's definitely a concern with guys coming back from World Junior about how it's going to work out. 30:50 They do lean pretty heavy on their top players right now on power play and penalty kill. 30:56 So it's going to be a concern. 30:58 And Robert Morris has not been the best team this season, but they've been a little bit better as of late. 31:04 So it's a game where they have to keep their focus. 31:07 On our podcast last week, we had Eric Shearhorn calling this series a get-right weekend. 31:13 I think there was a little bit of overlook going into this series. 31:17 So maybe it's a good thing that they lost that first game because if they can win tonight and then sweep Robert Morris, they put themselves in good shape going into the conference again. 31:25 Knowing that Minnesota... 31:27 Well, I think they're going to win tonight. 31:29 I think we're going to see probably like a 4-1 or 4-2 game. 31:36 I think the power play gets a goal tonight, and I think close play as well. 31:41 I think it's reasonable to think the Gophers won 6-0. 31:44 That's just my real inside take. 31:48 6-0 for sure. 31:49 I've always got the dapper down. 31:50 Our guests come on. 31:52 Our collab hosts come on, and everybody expects the 6-0 game. 31:55 Yeah, 6-0. 31:56 I mean, especially after that game, and Stugger is just going to have it. 31:59 He's going to have it for sure. 32:03 We'll see. 32:05 I'm not quite that optimistic. 32:06 It's going to be hard work. 32:07 More questions? 32:08 Oh, yeah. 32:10 So just real quick, would you guys want to discuss when we should start really watching the pairwise rankings? 32:17 Now. 32:19 Yes, now is the time. 32:21 Usually what I see in pairwise is the conferences are locked in about now. 32:26 Non-conference games are essentially over after next weekend for most schools. 32:30 You know, the independents obviously will still be playing non-conference games. 32:33 But the top three Big Ten teams are probably going to be the three teams that get bits. 32:38 And you're going to fight within the standings for those spots. 32:42 But there's going to be three Big Ten teams in that top 13. 32:45 So pairwise is important, but I think it's more so for the conferences. 32:49 You're going to see how many teams from each conference get in. 32:52 And that could flip-flop, but pairwise is essential right now at this time of year. 32:55 Is this like the equivalent of net rating in college basketball? 32:59 Except that they actually use this to determine the field. 33:02 It's all math. 33:03 Well, there's no debate. 33:04 There's no FSU doesn't get into the playoffs because some committee said they didn't want them in there. 33:10 So this actually looks like there's no committee at just pairwise rankings? 33:14 Correct. 33:15 So they just go by the pairwise. 33:16 There is a committee that they use for matchups, but the teams are predetermined. 33:22 So yeah. 33:23 So like this would be like the NCAA tournament got rid of their committee and just said, well, just the matchups, right? 33:29 It's like we're just going to put it put about region. 33:31 But based on the automatic bits, because there's automatic bits in the NCAA tournament too, right? 33:34 Yep. 33:35 So if you win your conference tournament, you get the auto bid. 33:37 Yeah. 33:38 This makes sense. 33:38 I've always wondered and I haven't Googled. 33:41 And you know, in the day of Generative AI, the fact that I didn't figure this out yet is really shape on me. 33:45 Well, we often do have the College Hockey Google equivalents on our podcasts. 33:50 Oh, okay. 33:50 So we can answer a lot of these questions. 33:52 But Minnesota is the Alabama College Hockey. 33:55 I'm aware. 33:55 We're not just getting in over like a 13-0 Penn State team or something like that. 33:59 They're going to have to get in. 34:02 Correct. 34:03 Correct. 34:04 Well, Veegs, we should probably wrap this up here. 34:06 You'll stay there for a little bit, maybe give away a little bit more swag, aren't you? 34:10 Yeah, if anybody's here and wants some swag, I've got some salsa, some carl dip, some Duke Can, Chill Boys, a couple more shirts and stuff. 34:18 So come on up and say hi. 34:20 We'll talk after. 34:21 Thanks, Luke. 34:22 Yeah, it was fun. 34:22 Thanks for having me on, guys. 34:23 It would be fun. 34:24 We'll have to figure out another crossover sometime. 34:26 Maybe we can get all the sports together. 34:28 And maybe I can actually be there. 34:30 Yeah, if you'd be here, that'd be cool. 34:32 We can do a high five. 34:34 That'd be great. 34:36 All right. 34:37 Thanks, guys. 34:39 We'll see everybody at the rink tonight.