0:07 This is The GPL Podcast, part of the Pulltab Sports family. 0:29 Cripple, hey, Stomp to St. 0:31 Paul. 0:31 Let's go. 0:33 Okay, we gotta complete the same question. 0:39 Duck, duck. 0:42 Goose. 0:44 It ain't great enough, it's goose. 0:48 Now, here's Jupiter and Vigo. 1:03 Welcome to The GPL Podcast, a special summer episode for us. 1:09 Let's bring in the Veegs here. 1:10 Veegs, here we are, it's summer. 1:14 Yeah, we're still always away from hockey, aren't we? 1:17 Well, we are, but people wanted us to do a special episode real quick, right after Snuggerud decided he was coming back, so. 1:26 Well, it's big news. 1:27 I mean, to get Snuggerud back, I think it was a little bit of a surprise for a lot of us, especially the way the end of the season went for him. 1:34 You know, I talked to Don Lucia over the years about players leaving early, and he always said that when guys are struggling down the stretch, it's sometimes a sign they're distracted and they're ready to leave college and go pro, and so maybe they're just not as dialed in and focused and relaxed on the ice, and it shows in their performance. 1:55 And I think Snuggerud was dealing with a little bit of injury, a little bit of pressure, having to drive play more by himself, and just not the way he wanted to end his college career. 2:04 And so to get him back from Minnesota is a huge bonus. 2:07 Definitely a huge bonus, but that's not the only reason why we're here tonight. 2:11 You know, I've been seeing stuff about a new type of streaming service. 2:17 We used StreamYard before. 2:18 I thought they wanted to give this EV Mux a try. 2:23 Supposedly, we're supposed to have full HD, a little sharper for the images and everything on the screen. 2:30 It gives a little more flexibility on the back end. 2:33 You know, the intro and all that other stuff. 2:35 So it's a little more complex, isn't it, Biggs? 2:39 But we just kind of wanted to give it a test drive and why not do it on a live show? 2:44 Exactly. 2:45 A lot of ways for me to screw it up as we found out during our testing. 2:48 So I'm just gonna sit back and let Juke drive and I'll just be the passenger side. 2:54 May well crack open a beverage and enjoy myself. 2:56 We'll see what happens. 2:57 There was a question earlier today and I thought that this is appropriate since it's summer. 3:02 Our guy, Drew Cove, wondering, best pizza Vigo made all summer. 3:08 What was your best pizza? 3:09 Because if you don't follow Veegs on Instagram, you should because about every Friday night, there's a lot of za going. 3:17 Lot of za. 3:18 I've been making za on most Friday nights for almost a decade now. 3:22 And I've got my dough process down pretty good where I make it usually on a Wednesday night, let it do a slow ferment, get all bubbly and perfect. 3:31 And then Friday night, I'm either throwing it at the oven as hot as the oven gets, or now that it's hot out, I've got a kettle pizza attachment for my Weber kettle so I can make turn it into a pizza oven. 3:43 But the best pizza I've made is I've upped my sausage making, prowness this summer, toasting the fennel seeds, getting the mortar and pestle out, making my own Italian sausage. 3:55 When's the party? 3:56 Well, I'll put that with some red onion and green olives and whole milk mozzarella and get it as blistery as I can and hot. 4:03 And it just turns out awesome. 4:05 And that's been by far the best pizza I've made this summer. 4:09 Let's just pop in and use some of the little features here. 4:11 We can bring up chat things. 4:13 There's Eric Brewer. 4:15 You could see every hair in your face now. 4:17 Yeah, yeah, I'm seeing that nice facial hair juke. 4:22 Yeah, I thought I'd try to grow it at once. 4:24 I look see this part doesn't really fill in. 4:29 This is this has been going for a little while. 4:31 So is this like a career best like facial hair growth for you? 4:36 By far. 4:36 I think the most I ever went was during one of our our rubes runs. 4:41 And I do believe blue liner came up to me and said, what's that fungus on your face? 4:46 It did not come in very, very lush. 4:49 Yeah, this is OK. 4:51 This is from April, end of April. 4:53 That's all that's all there is. 4:55 It's like the anti-playoff beard. 4:59 You do see it on the NHL players. 5:00 You see the guys are trying this. 5:02 That would be me. 5:03 And then you've got, you know, somebody like a burnt who looks like Chewbacca, you know, most of the season. 5:08 So what do you do? 5:12 What do you do? 5:14 So, but you know, like I said, we're trying out this new software. 5:18 See now the social media part worked. 5:20 It looked like it worked fine. 5:21 And I saw that Twitter had the little highlight of us wasn't loading it first, but now it's loading. 5:26 So maybe in the future, I'll try to go live a few minutes early with that kind of background screen ad going. 5:32 And we're learning here, folks. 5:33 We're learning. 5:34 And that's why we're doing this. 5:37 There's only one way to do this. 5:38 You have to do it live. 5:40 You got to do it live. 5:42 Donuts. 5:43 We've been doing this for a while. 5:44 It's a lot of fun. 5:45 Looking forward to the hockey season when we get into our routine. 5:50 My summer has been a little hectic. 5:51 A lot of baseball, a little bit of golf here and there. 5:54 A lot of parenting. 5:56 I saw some golf with the king. 5:57 Are you doing a little... 6:00 What's a grin? 6:01 What can you... 6:03 The grint. 6:04 Grint. 6:04 Okay. 6:05 Tell me about that. 6:06 Well, the grint is like your Strava for golf. 6:09 So if you want to... 6:11 Runs out on the golf course. 6:12 You know, the grint is a great way to do it. 6:14 You'll get live updates when they're playing, make the turn at like plus 20. 6:19 You get a notification. 6:20 You'd like, you know, you can't play double bogey golf. 6:23 You can chirp them a little bit or maybe they're having a good round and they get a birdie. 6:27 Like, hey, I'll then give you five bucks. 6:30 Enjoy. 6:34 It's kind of trash talking too, isn't it? 6:36 Either way you want to go. 6:37 You can put on the white hat or the black hat and have fun with your friends and see how they're playing. 6:42 Oh, Brevory, it's like an important question. 6:46 What's new in the Jupe Cave? 6:48 Nothing yet, but on this wall over here coming soon is a 3D cutout Goldie. 6:58 You know those large wall artworks that are kind of 3D type of things that a certain person on the Twittersphere makes? 7:08 He's making the Skatey Goldie for me, but not the retro one. 7:11 I'm going back to the kind of skating Goldie we grew up in the 80s and 90s Veegs and even early 2000s. 7:18 A little muscle on him. 7:19 He's got the big upper body. 7:20 He does a lot of bench and laths. 7:22 Yeah, yeah, it's more, you know, I got to be honest, I love retro Goldie, but it's everywhere now. 7:30 So I'm like, I kind of want to go back to the Goldie we knew, so that's what I've done. 7:37 I like variety in my Goldie. 7:38 So just like my beers, like a little variety there. 7:41 So you mentioned Mr. 7:44 Snuggerud and he didn't wait very long Veegs. 7:48 And it kind of sounds like they thought maybe the team thought he was going to leave, so we better get somebody, and all of a sudden we got Matthew Wood coming out of Connecticut, wanting to come here. 8:01 And then right before that's announced, you know, it's coming before, I mean, they knew they were trying to get him right before that Snuggerud decides to stay. 8:09 So Wood's not replacing Mr. 8:12 Snuggerud, like maybe the team had planned. 8:16 Right. 8:17 I thought, you know, Snuggerud was getting a lot of pressure from the Blues to sign. 8:21 And I just think the more and more he thought about, the more and more he wanted to be back and be a play driver and be an elite guy, because even on a world junior team, you know, he wasn't really the go-to guy on that player. 8:33 He was kind of almost like a secondary scoring option. 8:36 I think he sees himself as he had that one push, that hat trick real quick. 8:40 Yeah. 8:41 That was it. 8:42 I think he sees himself as he's he's got more. 8:45 You know, he was one of those players of the development team that had the biggest growth. 8:49 And a lot of the teammates on that squad and interviews with scouts said he's the most underrated player. 8:55 So he's got a lot more growth to get to. 8:58 And I don't know if that would happen as easily if he would have gone to the NHL, probably some trips back to the AHL. 9:05 You know, you see a guy like Brock Faber, he's not going back to Iowa Wild. 9:10 He's going to stick in the NHL because he's a pretty finished product. 9:14 So I think that's the goal for a lot of players right now is they want to be that finished product when they come out. 9:19 And so he decided to come back. 9:21 But I think the Gophers weren't sure. 9:24 And so they were all in on Matthew Wood thinking, hey, we need a top scorer to drive our power play coming into this lineup if we lose Snuggerud. 9:32 So they were pretty aggressive getting Wood. 9:35 They got him to be one of the first transfer portal guys to commit. 9:40 And he will be a great fit. 9:42 You know, he was an underage player when he went to UConn. 9:45 He is a pretty solid college hockey player right now, lots of offense. 9:49 And so now you look at Minnesota's roster, you've got two play driving offensive players coming back next year and you have a lot of depth. 9:59 And I bet it's going to be a lot of fun for those two to play college hockey this season. 10:03 Well, you know, Snuggerud had pretty special guys setting them up as a freshman. 10:11 Didn't work as well as a sophomore, and I think his goal count was the same from his freshman to his sophomore year. 10:20 And I think that kind of lends to what you're saying, you know, he's not quite the guy. 10:25 He might be the guy most of the time, but he did disappear quite a few times. 10:32 You know, we saw him disappear as freshman year towards the end. 10:35 And then last year, he had quite some quite long droughts as well. 10:40 So, yes, we're glad he's back. 10:42 You know, the Big Ten was, you know, tweeting out, you know, people aren't happy. 10:46 The other teams aren't happy he's coming back. 10:48 But we certainly are glad. 10:50 And it looks like he is as well, even if his team is not happy about it. 10:54 Well, it feels like a lot of teams of the Big Ten are losing players. 10:57 You know, Michigan's lost a few, Michigan State's lost a few, Wisconsin's lost a couple here. 11:03 You know, it's going to be a challenging league for other teams to keep up with Minnesota. 11:09 I think you look at their roster, it's deep at the center position. 11:13 It's deep at blue line. 11:15 It's deep in special teams. 11:17 And they're going to be tough to beat. 11:19 I think they'll be early favorites in the Big Ten right away this year. 11:22 And they've got to be among one of the top teams nationally with the players that the BC's and BU lost as well. 11:32 You know, you talked about losses. 11:35 It's been a weird offseason. 11:37 The portal obviously blew up. 11:40 You cannot believe the traffic we had on GPL for the portal and it updating. 11:46 And our guy was doing a fantastic job keeping it updated. 11:50 But early on, a lot of Northern Michigan guys were going to the portal. 11:54 A lot of Northern Michigan guys. 11:56 A lot of uncertainty there. 12:00 And then, Grant Patoni decides, I want to go somewhere else. 12:05 I think I'm going to resign here. 12:06 And then all of a sudden, you know, like six or seven more players either leave Michigan or, you know, a couple of D committed and went somewhere else as well. 12:16 What in the hell is going on up there at Northern Michigan? 12:20 What do you think? 12:21 Yeah, it's weird. 12:22 You hear a lot of coaches blaming NIL on stuff in hockey and movement, and I just don't see that. 12:31 I've heard, you know, rumors of some six-figure agreements handed out to certain players for some schools in the Northeast and some schools in the Midwest, but it's not prevalent. 12:45 It's not a big thing like it is in football and basketball. 12:49 And so I think that's almost an excuse for some of these programs that aren't all in. 12:57 And the Northern Michigan job is just, it's a tough spot to win. 13:01 As Grant found out over the last couple years, it's hard to win there in that league because you can't recruit the high-end players, and there's a lot of competition for those 20-year-old USHL and AHL guys, and he was not having success there. 13:19 And I think the longer he stayed there, hovering in that kind of mediocrity, maybe the worse it was going to be for his brand and for his, you know, he's got aspirations for the Minnesota job. 13:32 I don't know if those are realistic because he did interview when Matsuko was hired, but I don't think he was a real candidate at the time, and I don't think he's done anything to improve his resume. 13:43 And so sometimes as a coach, I think you just got to change lanes, and he's a good talent developing coach. 13:52 I just don't know if he's a program building coach. 13:55 And maybe going to pro hockey is going to be better for him in the long run. 14:00 Yeah, it's just been really crazy. 14:02 I hope they can get a team together. 14:06 Didn't what, Shayak take over there? 14:10 Yeah, Comley kind of came in just as a fill, probably just to do mostly kind of coaching stuff in the off season, just making sure things are, people being communicated. 14:19 Obviously, he didn't want to be coach again. 14:22 But we've seen Dave Shayak quite many years. 14:25 He was up at Anchorage. 14:27 He's been around for quite a long time. 14:29 Yeah, so I think when you have a program like that, you need a coach that fits that kind of program. 14:35 I think it's really hard to grab a guy from a big program like Minnesota where recruiting maybe is a little bit easier in terms of the talented guys want to play there. 14:44 And it's more putting together your roster as a GM and figuring out the early departures and figuring out the playing time and having backup options. 14:53 That's a very different structure than these Northern Michigan, Minnesota state type programs that have to have all these older players come in to stay competitive. 15:06 And he just didn't figure that out. 15:09 You know, so I noticed Josh here tweeted earlier today. 15:12 I think he's actually watching live as well. 15:14 Let me bring this up here. 15:17 How do you guys see the goaltender situation working out to start the season? 15:21 I assume that Airy has the advantage, but Souliere brings in a ton of experience to Dinkytown. 15:27 And Souliere was a nice offseason graduate student grab for the university. 15:34 Well, I think everybody knew that Minnesota probably needed some help between the pipes. 15:39 Losing Justin Close, who is so reliable and so dependable, didn't get injured, played a lot of minutes, you had to have another option there, especially with Nathan Airy, who went through the injury process when he got to campus. 15:52 And it's one of those injuries that goalies sometimes have them on one side, they might have them on the other. 15:57 So you really got to hedge your bets here and protect yourself with someone who's experienced, who can play goal for Minnesota. 16:05 You can't have a roster like Minnesota, and all of a sudden, instead of the V12, you put in like the 100 horsepower V2 or something, you got to have something ready to go. 16:16 And Souliere is that kind of goalie. 16:18 He's not been a top top goalie, but he has played at a high level. 16:23 Penn State was making their run into the tournament, he got hot and he helped them pull off some upsets and maybe were ready for a run if they could have got more offense. 16:34 I don't think that would be a problem in Minnesota if he gets to the net. 16:36 But I think Airy does have the advantage. 16:39 He was recruited to come here and play. 16:41 He's played a lot of minutes in junior. 16:43 They liked how he looked in practice. 16:45 They like his attitude. 16:46 And he's a big goalie who's older. 16:49 And typically, those big goalies take a while to get there. 16:52 He should be there already. 16:54 Mm-hmm. 16:56 I see this nice shirt, Jupe. 17:01 It's my Jupiter shirt, inspired by a GPLer who put it on my Facebook page. 17:06 So I had to go out and get it. 17:08 I wonder if Dale Beers is the same Dale Hanson that I introduced this shirt to at his party, him and Kim Hanson, and of course, Steve Larson, who's in the chat here along with his wife, Fiona. 17:21 Or Karina, sorry. 17:24 They wanted me to wear it for the podcast. 17:28 So here it is. 17:30 Isn't she ugly? 17:30 It's good luck. 17:32 You just gotta embrace it. 17:34 Looks good on you though. 17:36 Oh, it looks good on you though. 17:40 Thank you, Rodney. 17:41 Yes. 17:45 Oh, you know, I had some other questions here. 17:47 Let's bring them up. 17:49 Oh, boy. 17:50 Here's Phil Stark. 17:52 Wants to know via Twitter, why is a non-conference schedule so weak year after year? 17:58 Do you see it getting any better? 17:59 I wouldn't call it weak year after year. 18:03 I mean, I'd like to look at strike the schedule for the last decade. 18:06 I bet Minnesota is in the top 15 every year and maybe top 10. 18:17 It's got to be close. 18:19 Yeah, I think anytime you look at the schedule and they're playing Minnesota Duluth, you know, that's a good start. 18:25 I heard some other schools didn't necessarily want to play Minnesota this year. 18:29 Thank you. 18:33 So, well, we could quickly take a look at the schedule here. 18:37 Let me bring that on over here. 18:40 So I've got GPL updated. 18:41 Obviously, we don't have the full schedule yet. 18:43 We never really do. 18:45 Quick note, Veegs put together this nice little schedule notes talking about how many games and how the scheduling actually works. 18:53 Veegs, I'm glad you added that last year, but now we're just kind of putting it at the top so people kind of know what things are about. 19:00 You can obviously always subscribe to this calendar. 19:02 If you subscribe to either Google or Apple, whenever I add to the schedule, the games will be there. 19:07 And I think games now go back on these schedules 10 years. 19:10 So that's nice. 19:12 But let's look here, Veegs. 19:14 We got a non-conference game against Sync Cloud. 19:17 That's one thing. 19:17 Some of the rules changed a couple of years ago that you can actually play kind of, I shouldn't say non-conference. 19:22 You can play exhibitions against, you know, other D1 schools. 19:29 Good COVID adjustment right there. 19:32 Yes. 19:33 Hold on. 19:34 I need to close that message so we can see this a little better. 19:37 And then obviously we've got the icebreaker tournament with Air Force. 19:43 And then the other teams are UMass and Omaha. 19:47 Two free games in the schedule. 19:49 Got to take those. 19:50 Yeah. 19:50 You can play the icebreaker. 19:51 That's one of those games where you get to play extra. 19:54 So that's great. 19:55 You know, UMass and Omaha, not terrible teams. 19:57 We just saw Omaha last year at the end of the season at Duluth. 20:05 A road series, a complete road series. 20:07 Thank you, Bob, for bringing that back in this home and home stuff. 20:12 Yeah, that'll be great. 20:13 You know, full weekend in Duluth for the Roobs. 20:15 And then next year, full weekend for those Duluth Bulldogs here in Minneapolis. 20:20 You know, they might live here anyway. 20:25 Home and home in October again for St. 20:29 Thomas. 20:29 I mean, that Friday game is the first game of the season at Mariucci. 20:35 We wait until October 25th until we have a home game, Veegs. 20:38 A lot of football games at home early in the year. 20:41 I think that's probably a factor. 20:43 And Bob says playing at St. 20:45 Thomas is his favorite road trip on the calendar. 20:51 Well, it's that Excel. 20:53 He loves it. 20:54 He loves Excel. 20:55 Okay. 20:56 A home and home of Bemidji a couple of days apart. 20:58 Kind of a strange Thursday, Saturday series. 21:01 Maybe they just wanted time for travel? 21:03 I think so. 21:05 Bemidji can be kind of tricky to get to, especially. 21:08 So build in that extra day. 21:11 There's that Alaska Fairbanks coming down to kind of around, you know, after, what's that? 21:17 That's just after Thanksgiving, looks like there. 21:22 Mercyhurst. 21:23 I think this is what's causing the pete's. 21:25 It's these these, you know, these two four games right here. 21:28 It's Alabama or it's Alaska and it's Mercyhurst in January. 21:32 That's probably causing the most issues. 21:34 Don't you think, Veegs? 21:35 Yeah, I think some of this is coming out of COVID. 21:39 It was tricky to get your scheduling going again. 21:43 And also being in the Big Ten, there's been rumors of an eighth team being in there for a long time. 21:50 And so you've got schools that aren't able to enter in long term agreements for non-conference schedules because they've been told to hold games. 21:57 So I think it's just kind of put them in a tough spot. 21:59 And when you're at Minnesota, you don't have many easy games in your schedule. 22:04 I mean, you look at some of those schedules that Ohio State and Penn State play, Notre Dame, you're not going to see great non-conference schedules because they know they're going to be playing big teams at conference. 22:15 Minnesota traditionally has tried to play as many of the in-state schools as possible, which are always going to be difficult games, and then they try to play North Dakota. 22:25 So that just loads up your schedule with very difficult non-conference games. 22:30 This year, some little schools didn't want to do that. 22:33 We're in an off year with North Dakota, so this is what you get. 22:36 So it might actually be good for Minnesota for once in the last 20 years to have a schedule where they can develop some younger players in these games. 22:46 That's not something they typically are able to do. 22:49 Definitely can do that. 22:54 We know the schedule probably won't come out until mid-August. 23:00 What do you think? 23:01 If you're lucky. 23:01 If you're lucky, State Fair. 23:04 If you're lucky, it will come out during the State Fair, and then they will try to sell some tickets to like the Ohio State Penn State games or something. 23:13 You get a fair deal. 23:16 Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. 23:19 Phil had another question earlier. 23:24 Oh yeah, this definitely does come into play. 23:27 Another question is, does football and their schedule affect hockey team and who they can play and get? 23:31 I don't know if it's who they can play, but just kind of the days and the times. 23:37 Yeah, some teams are okay with kind of moving things around if they're going to play Friday, Sunday. 23:41 Other teams definitely are not. 23:43 I think like North Dakota didn't really want to move the schedule around, so we had like that Thursday, Friday game for them one year. 23:50 You know, different coaches want to do different things. 23:54 Okay, another final question from Twitter earlier today and yesterday, Dale again. 24:01 What do the players do in the offseason to stay sharp? 24:05 Well, you got the beauty league. 24:07 Yes, they do. 24:08 There are a little less players this year, I notice. 24:11 Yeah, a few less players. 24:12 You have a lot of players that skate at Mary G still. 24:15 The pro players come back and they want to use that facility. 24:18 You know, Paul Martin put in that sauna years ago because he really wanted one in the offseason. 24:24 So they had that put in. 24:26 They brought in, Vanek brought in the bubble hockey and stuff. 24:29 You know, there's a lot of alums who want to come back and skate and they skate with the current players who are in town. 24:34 You know, as Minnesota has gotten a little bit more national with some of the recruiting, they have had more players going their separate ways, which I don't know if it's been a great thing for the program because you have the guys kind of get separated, but that's just something that happens when you open up your recruiting. 24:52 You know, you have guys going home. 24:54 There's a lot of skills coaches that help too. 24:56 Barb doesn't like the shirt. 24:58 She says, you know, Dale and you guys, you're just being nice. 25:04 I don't care. 25:04 I love the shirt. 25:07 It says Jupiter. 25:09 Duh. 25:10 Just gotta embrace it. 25:12 I do embrace it. 25:13 Okay, I go. 25:13 Let's see. 25:14 We have this question from earlier. 25:18 I try to figure out, pronounce his name, who coming in plays center this year? 25:22 My biggest worry offensively. 25:25 With Nelson Gunn, that's a big hole. 25:27 Faloon? 25:27 Hendrickson? 25:28 I mean, I like Paulson quite a bit at center. 25:33 You know, he did a really nice job in the USHL as a two-way center. 25:37 I think he will be able to step right in and play a lot of minutes. 25:41 I really like Jimmy Clark at center. 25:43 This last year, he played really well. 25:45 Aaron Huglen has always been a good depth center. 25:49 I do think it's going to be interesting who might be that fourth center. 25:53 You know, is it going to be someone like Faloon or is it going to be someone like Hendrickson? 25:58 Is Oliver Moore going to stick at center? 26:00 I know Motzko was kind of thinking, you know, maybe he ends up as a wing, as a pro. 26:04 So why would we force him to play center now? 26:08 It's going to be interesting to see. 26:10 That's one of my first things to watch when I get to see the team skate for their first couple of practices is who's playing down the middle. 26:17 Because it's so important for this program to have good centers. 26:24 What do we know about Pitlick? 26:28 I have heard he is not in school this summer and he has graduated. 26:35 So that opens up... 26:36 He finished school that quickly? 26:37 I believe he's finished school and graduated. 26:40 That's what I'm kind of hearing. 26:41 So that's a very big unknown. 26:47 So I think there's an option for him to weigh whether he wants to play another year of college hockey or if he wants to sign a professional contract. 26:57 So how would that work really? 26:59 I mean, obviously he's graduated. 27:00 He doesn't need to keep a full schedule of classes. 27:04 Would he technically become a graduate student and have to take some kind of minimum amount of schooling? 27:10 Yep, a lot of players. 27:11 Same as a regular student. 27:12 Jackson Nelson did that. 27:13 Justin Coles did that. 27:14 You know, there's a lot of players that do that. 27:16 But I mean, he's 23 years old. 27:18 Yeah. 27:19 You know, he's an older player and, you know, he graduated in three years. 27:25 So he's got options and he played those extra years after his draft year. 27:29 So I believe that he could be a free agent August 15th. 27:35 Oh, that makes it even more interesting. 27:37 Right. 27:38 So he doesn't have to sign with Montreal. 27:40 If he withdrew from school at the end of the year and doesn't sign with anybody until August 15th, I'm pretty sure he could be a free agent and pick his spot. 27:51 Very interesting. 27:54 So, I mean, that could be what he's weighing. 27:57 Does someone want him and give him maybe an opportunity, you know, like a San Jose or something? 28:04 Yeah, totally just throwing somebody against the wall here. 28:07 Do they offer him a chance where he gets, you know, a guaranteed one way contract or something like that or, you know, one way salary and can play two ways. 28:17 So to be determined, maybe, hopefully we'll hear, I guess maybe the latest we'll hear is like that August 15th date. 28:27 Yeah, I would, I would think that August time period, you know, when school starts up and the team is trying to figure out the practice schedules. 28:33 You know, I don't think there's any bad blood there. 28:38 You know, Rhett did get benched in that BU game to finish out the season for some of those turnovers that he was making and some of the extended shifts he was taking. 28:47 You know, it's not a great way to cap off his career. 28:51 And, you know, he was pretty quiet, you know, after the game and reflective on disappointment and not too clear about how he fit with the team at that time. 29:03 So I think that's just something to watch as we get closer to the start of the season. 29:08 Now, we did also have some players leave, decided to hit the portal and do some other things. 29:17 And we had some, you know, Nevers and Kester decided they're kind of that last class that can take an extra graduate season. 29:26 I'm forgetting where Fish ended up, but I have to look it up right now. 29:29 I don't have that screen up, but Fish decided to go on. 29:33 It's a high end. 29:35 Is it Providence? 29:36 I think it might be. 29:38 I don't have my own site up to look at it right now. 29:42 Pretty sure you have Providence, I'm not sure. 29:45 But Nevers and Kester are coming back. 29:47 Kester started the season last year injured. 29:49 I remember we ran into him right outside the bus in Grand Forks. 29:54 He was still kind of moving. 29:56 He skated, but he was a little ginger at the time. 29:59 He started this season just to work off an injury. 30:03 Yeah, I think it was a disappointing ending career year for him. 30:07 He just didn't have the explosiveness, skating or the mobility to really execute what his brain wanted to execute. 30:14 He's just one of those players. 30:16 He's not a high-end skater to begin with. 30:19 When you are dealing with coming back from an injury and trying to play through it, it probably never, ever really gets back. 30:27 Him having that opportunity to come back, I really do think he's a player who could help a second power play. 30:34 He's got some of the best vision for the gopher defenseman, especially walking the blue line, getting pucks to the net, and that some defenseman, Ryan Chesley, chief among them, when he's shooting the puck, it could hit anything. 30:48 It could hit a shim pad, it could hit the glass, it could hit the backboards, it could hit somebody and go in, it could go right in. 30:54 But with Kester, you know what's probably getting to the net. 30:57 So I think having him back would be great. 31:00 Nevers, same situation. 31:01 He took that headshot from the Midgee State in the exhibition, concussion, set off his season with a lot of limitations. 31:11 You know, his conditioning didn't really catch up until probably the end of January, and just not probably the season he wanted. 31:18 So getting those two veterans back are going to be good for Minnesota. 31:23 Just high IQ players. 31:24 Yes. 31:26 Other players that left. 31:27 Owen Bartoszkiewicz. 31:31 He wasn't even on the team last year, Biggs. 31:33 There really wasn't a place for him to go. 31:35 I think he initially went to Western, but then kind of pushed out there and looks like he's going to Lindenwood now. 31:43 What else we got here? 31:45 And then we've got obviously Carl Fish. 31:47 You're right. 31:47 Going to Providence for one year. 31:50 Charlie Strobel decided to move over to Colorado College, Biggs. 31:54 Yeah, I think just a different opportunity there for him. 31:58 I think he flashed a lot at Minnesota, but he was just never really that consistent player that had the trust of the coaching staff. 32:06 And maybe Mayotte out in CC will be a better fit for him. 32:10 He's a player that had some things that you really liked, but just couldn't put it together consistently. 32:16 And then Pino's going to Omaha, which we may see that opening weekend, Biggs. 32:21 Yep, again, he was probably one of the players that the fans went after the most for Minnesota. 32:27 I think his confidence with the Gophers just was not consistent, and he was always kind of deferring. 32:33 You know, you go to a place like Omaha, maybe things will click. 32:36 You know, Grant Krutschank, one of those players came in in Minnesota, I think he was always kind of tentative playing for the Gophers. 32:42 Like, it just never really felt comfortable for him. 32:44 You know, he goes to a different school, and it clicks for him, and all of a sudden, he's an all-league player. 32:48 So, you know, maybe, you know, getting away from home will be good for Pino and Strobel. 32:54 All right, I'm just going to kind of look through some of the questions. 32:57 One note on the Carl Fish thing. 32:59 Oh, yeah, okay. 33:00 You know, I think he was thinking about hanging him up after the end of last year, but the coaching staff really encouraged him to use the COVID year. 33:08 And they really said, hey, take advantage of this. 33:12 We don't have a spot for you because we promised spots to guys coming in. 33:16 Like, it's just not going to work for you here. 33:18 Go somewhere where you can play, somewhere where you can take the benefit of playing the extra year. 33:23 Enjoy it. 33:24 So I don't think there's any bad blood there between anyone. 33:28 No, I don't think so. 33:29 Yeah, who knows about Pino and Strobel, but... 33:35 Bartosz Giewicz. 33:36 I think Bartosz was still dating a gopher female goalie for a while there. 33:40 I think he still is. 33:41 Could be. 33:43 Eri got engaged in the offseason. 33:45 So those goalies. 33:47 Yeah. 33:48 Let me see here. 33:49 I see that... 33:50 I need that conference schedule. 33:53 Got to update my Sports Schedule Matrix spreadsheet. 33:57 Barb, who is watching or probably so was, she's just like, I just want the schedule so I could schedule stuff. 34:04 I like it because she's not going to schedule like on a home Michigan series. 34:08 But if it's, you know, home Penn State or something else, that's a little different. 34:14 Just subscribe to the calendar, Bobby. 34:16 That'll help. 34:17 If you subscribe to the calendar, you'll get the updates automatically. 34:20 And our podcasts. 34:25 Just subscribe. 34:25 Like I said, it'll backfill everything. 34:27 And like I said, as soon as I get the schedule, I put it on the schedule there. 34:30 I usually put seven o'clock starting time for all games, just default. 34:36 Or if it's Eastern, I might put 6 p.m. 34:38 or something like that. 34:39 And I'll update those when we get the time. 34:41 So we shall see. 34:43 I saw, you know, we're credentialed for the next season. 34:46 So another season of the GPL is being at Mariucci. 34:49 So that's good. 34:52 Let me see here. 34:53 I'm trying to look through the questions. 34:58 If you guys have anything, send it over. 35:00 I'm just looking through here. 35:05 Everything's a little set up a little differently on our screen. 35:07 So that's a whole bunch of comments just came in. 35:13 Anything new at Mariucci this season, Veegs? 35:17 I think they spent most of their time over at Ritter. 35:20 They did. 35:20 New ice. 35:21 The new ice plant connected. 35:23 It's the same ice plant for both rinks. 35:26 They just had it connected up. 35:28 They got a new Zamboni at Mariucci. 35:31 It's got a laser level tool to it. 35:34 So the ice will be even better at Mariucci this year. 35:38 So new tech for Zamboni. 35:40 Our guy George was saying, you know, why isn't it electric? 35:43 Why haven't they gone electric there? 35:45 More power, I don't know. 35:46 We're still propane right now. 35:48 Just bought a brand new propane one. 35:50 Well, I could imagine doing two rinks. 35:53 You know, you want the speed and the flexibility. 35:54 I don't know. 35:57 Big mistake to whoever credentialed you, Axe. 36:02 Interesting. 36:03 Brad Page. 36:06 Hmm. 36:10 It's a BD, but I don't know if that's Brad Page. 36:15 Hey. 36:17 If it is who I think it is, your former boss approved him, so. 36:24 It should be a good year. 36:25 I mean, I'm excited to see Grua. 36:27 Brevver's like, oh, gosh, St. 36:29 Cloud's had a level on their Zamp for years. 36:32 Use it when the new video board is on. 36:34 Interference. 36:38 So that's where they're spending their money at St. 36:40 Cloud. 36:41 Oh, good budgeting there. 36:44 Oh, boy. 36:45 So do we got anything else, Veegs? 36:49 You know, I'm interested to see how the freshmen all fit in. 36:52 Yeah. 36:52 You know, we haven't talked too much about them other than Paulson. 36:55 Well, we'll probably talk more about that in our opening podcast, probably in October or so. 37:00 Yeah. 37:00 I think it's a good thing that you didn't see many Gophers go high in the draft. 37:05 I know a lot of people were excited about Cole Iserman committing, but he left for a very good reason. 37:11 You know, his dad was dealing with cancer and he wanted to be home for that. 37:14 And, you know, probably a good decision for him. 37:17 He might not be a long time college player. 37:18 And I'm really impressed how people kept their mouth shut on that piece, because we kind of known almost a year ago, right before when this happened. 37:31 But that's family stuff. 37:32 We're not going to divulge that stuff. 37:33 And the fact that it came out on his own terms, I love that. 37:39 I just love that because it's so rare these days with media and social media. 37:45 Feels like with hockey, it's always a little bit different. 37:48 You know, they often say the gentleman's agreement died in college hockey, but there's still some gentlemanly behavior. 37:53 You know how people are. 37:55 You know, there's certain people in college hockey who would have loved to have known that information. 38:01 So. 38:02 But best of luck to them out east. 38:03 I think Minnesota is going to be just fine. 38:05 You know, I think they've got the right kind of character guys. 38:08 They've got a good balance with Zimmer and Henderson coming in. 38:12 You know, some younger guys, some older guys. 38:15 The defenseman should be good. 38:17 You know, Whipple, I think, was a guy we weren't sure was going to come in. 38:21 He is going to be coming in. 38:22 And I think they hope he's like a Cal Thomas-like player for them. 38:26 So we'll see. 38:27 He had kind of got put in that second pair role with Ann Arbor. 38:33 Any Big Ten school going to add, do you want hockey? 38:37 Not right now. 38:37 I think Northwestern spent all that money on their new football stadium. 38:41 And I don't think Illinois really has the budget to add it right now. 38:46 It's really interesting with the Big Ten. 38:48 I just don't know where they're going to find that eighth school. 38:52 Felt like maybe they were going to welcome in one of these younger expansion type teams. 38:58 The Oregon Ducks. 39:00 That would be nice. 39:02 We'd love to see those uniforms at UCLA, but the UCLA athletic department is in shambles right now. 39:07 So they won't be thinking about that for probably 10 years. 39:11 Well, they took less money to join the Big Ten. 39:14 You know, that's going to impact their athletic department for the next decade. 39:18 You know, they didn't take a full share. 39:20 They were just like, we need a home. 39:22 And the life rafts are all getting full. 39:25 Maybe we can talk more about that in a little overtime then, because, geez, huge conference now. 39:35 18 teams, Veegs? 39:37 18 teams and maybe the end of scholarship limits come Friday. 39:43 The NCAA is probably making a decision this week to finalize how much money schools can pay out to athletes. 39:49 It's probably going to be in that 20 to 25 million dollar range and scholarship limits could go away. 39:55 And so you could have football teams of 105 guys on scholarship. 40:00 Even baseball could have 30 guys on scholarship. 40:02 Hockey, all full rides if you want to. 40:04 You know, it's going to be changing the way college athletics works. 40:09 I don't think it's going to go away like Adam Holden has been hinting. 40:14 Well, I don't trust anything that happens to us. 40:17 Alright, I think we're good, Bees. 40:19 It was a successful test show. 40:21 Kind of here with our new software. 40:23 Hopefully things are working for people. 40:24 It's just a learning curve, but I thought it was good to get an actual live episode and see how it goes. 40:30 And a decent start. 40:33 We'll see how it goes. 40:37 Thanks for joining, everyone. 40:38 Appreciate it. 40:38 I'm looking forward to a beer of the week here and hanging out for a little bit. 40:42 Cool summer OT. 40:44 Alright, well, that will do it for this week's episode of The GPL Podcast. 40:50 We'll be back sometime in, I think it's early October, and we'll have some fun starting the 14th season of The GPL Podcast. 41:01 Until then, thanks for watching.