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Is the Hobey Baker Award locked up? · This Week in Hockey East

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Coming up on this week in Hockey East, we look back at the first couple of months of this 2024-25 season and take a look at some interesting non-conference matchups plus one huge matchup in women's hockey East.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's all coming up this week in Hockey East.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to this episode of This Week in Hockey East.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Bridget Prue here with Eric Galanti.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: And because we're almost at the halfway point of the season, we're at that traditional Thanksgiving uh holiday break.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: We want to take a look at where some of the men's teams and women's teams are kind of just a season recap for what Hockey East has been so far this year.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we want to start by talking about one of the best players who's continued to shine throughout the season and potentially uh the front runner for the Hobie Baker.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's the front runner right now.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about uh Ryan Leonard.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's fair, right?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I feel like anytime that anyone in the country mentions something about a BC guy, that David Carl's using it as bulletin board material for his team.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: But it's hard to argue that Ryan Leonard isn't the favorite for that award right now.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, we have a long way to go, but you look at the some of the things he's done, you you really go beyond just the numbers, right?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now he is tied for first in the country at the end of games last week in goals with 11 end goals per game with five.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's kind of the way he's been scoring, Bridget, that really has stood out so far.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some of these numbers, eight of his 11 goals have come in the third period.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Six of those have come in the final six minutes of the third period or overtime.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Seven of his 11 goals this year have tied the game or given Boston College the lead.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the Hobie sometimes, the narrative around it really matters, right?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, number one, a guy who decides to come back to school, who had the opportunity to go to the NHL, but decided to come back, said he had unfinished business with Boston College.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then you look at the way some of these game-winning goals have happened.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have the dramatic game winner against Western Michigan, where he stole the puck at the end of a penalty kill, goes down, scores, scores two goals in the last minute.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: You have the dramatic game winner against Maine, that I think is probably, you know, maybe the game of the year so far in college hockey.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Even the dramatic game winner he had against Providence, which I think you had to watch five or six times to realize what he was actually doing on the game winners.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I think at this point, it's hard to argue that he's sort of the guy.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the thing that stands out is he may not even lead his own team in points, which you know may have affected Cuttergoche last year with Boston College.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously Perot is right there and Haggis is right there.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that may factor in at some point, but I think he's the guy so far.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is about the timely goals and the kind of goals he scored.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: The one at Providence, I simultaneously I was like, that is it looked really easy and really hard at the same time.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't seen it, like he just taps it behind the behind him and he somehow knew where everything was and so coordinated to hit it in and it wins the game for him.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Against another ranked team in Providence, who we'll talk about a little bit later.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: They're still in the top 10 in the country in the USCHO.com poll this week.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: But uh one other thing we want to get to for our season recap is talking about the BU Terriers, because they, like BC, were ranked in the top three in the country to start the season.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we want to just give you a snapshot of where their game's at right now.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so the offense has not disappointed.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we talked about Cole Eiserman coming in, uh, trying to take up the point production that Mackless Tellabrini had last year, big shoes to fill in terms of freshmen that can score.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: And he's done really well this season.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think the BU offense has done well when you look at the numbers.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Their shot percentage is highest in Hockey East, 12%.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they have the third best power play in Hockey East, 24%.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good number for them.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so on the offensive side of things, they've been able to keep it going kind of as expected coming into the season.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: When you look at the defense, it's it's a little bit different.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: The numbers are skewed in the other way.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, BU save percentage, second to last in Hockey East.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: You look at their penalty kill, that's second to last in Hockey East.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that's an area that they can improve on in the second half of the season to try to compete with a team like Boston College.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or then when we when we actually get further down the line talking about what a national tournament run might look like for them, it would involve getting that defense uh to match the offensive power that they've had this season.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think the thing that J-Pandolphels mentioned the most is the starts, right?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like we've seen them have the third periods.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we even saw it against Merrimack last week, but it's just the starts have been there.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like every press conference I've pulled up of his and tried to watch what he said, that's the thing he's talking about.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: How can we start better?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: How can we start better?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're after Thanksgiving now, which is kind of the point you can start to look at the pairwise a little bit.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm changing our order on the fly here, but I think it ties into what you said because the fact is that the first time you can kind of look at the pairwise here, it really shows you how well positioned some of these hockey is teams.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And let's just use BU as an example because BU's record is six, five, and one right now.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But because they've played so many really good non-conference opponents, they're 12th in their pairwise right now.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're ahead of teams like Providence, who has two fewer losses than they do, Colorado College, who has three fewer losses than they do as of this recording.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Cornell, who's 4'2.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I could keep going.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Another great example is UConn.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: UConn comes in 17th in the pairways right now, outside, but they're 7'6 and 1, but they're where they are in the pairways right now, sort of on the bubble.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Take a team like Massachusetts, who's 6-6, but still 25th in the pairwise, ahead of a Clarkson team that's 9-4 this year, even all the way down to Northeastern, who is a two, six and three overall record as of this recording, but is 28th in the pairwise.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: The top 11 in Hockey East, all 11 teams are within the top 33 in the pairwise.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's important.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and when teams go into non-conference games, hockey East teams are rooting for each other because the better they do, the higher ranked each of each one of those teams are, the strength of schedule just continues to get better for them.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they want Hockey East teams to beat those non-conference opponents.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: It brings everybody's pairwise rankings up.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think just as a final point, I mean, I think the team we have to talk about is Lowell, right?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not that Maine hasn't been really impressive, not that Providence hasn't been really impressive, but you know, you masked Lowell, that win against UConn on Saturday, that's their ninth win of the season.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: They already exceeded last year's win total.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're still third in hockeys, twelfth nationally in scoring.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: They haven't been close to that in a really long time.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: They've always relied on their defense.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Early on, it was Chris Delaney.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you got this really impressive player, but now he actually hasn't scored in a little bit, and their offense has stayed at that point in the national picture.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: They've had a lot of different guys who have contributed.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's starting to seem more and more like this is real with Lowell.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we're gonna talk about next week, they'll have their home and home series with Boston College.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's gonna be fascinating to see what they do there and another big time test for them.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I the big thing is just there's a lot of teams that have reason to be excited, and there's a lot of teams that maybe, you know, wouldn't seem like they have as much reason, and yet you can see a path for them turning it around, which is gonna make the second half of the season so interesting.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: When we come back, we're gonna have a similar conversation with what we've seen on the women's side so far.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a clear top four?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Are other teams ready to emerge?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's all coming up on this week in Hockey East.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to This Week in Hockey East.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let's kind of continue our discussion of what we've seen so far this season across college hockey on the women's side.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: So far, there are a top four teams in Hockey East, Bridget.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And those same four teams are the four ranked in the USCHO.com poll this week.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So is there kind of a top four that's emerged in Hockey East?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I guess you could say that right now it looks like there is.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And those are the teams that have been playing the most consistently.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they've been getting the wins, they've been getting the goaltending.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get into what teams those are.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it starts with if we want to start with the rankings, BC is the highest of all the hockey east ranked teams.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: They're at 11, but right behind them, it's kind of a pack of hockey east teams, BU at number 13, UConn at 14, and Northeastern at 15 right now.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that's they're kind of clustered in the top 15 rankings in the USCHO.com poll.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And they're also the top four teams uh in the hockey east standings, with BU being slightly in the lead.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: They've had this lead that they've extended and they haven't let it up.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: So they're first place in the hockey east standings right now.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: They've gotten off to a great start.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a common theme with all of these teams, and it is that they've been getting great goaltending.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to go into some of the outstanding goaltending numbers the conference has seen so far, in particular in goals against average.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And number one in the country in that category is Northeastern's Lisa Junsson, best goals against and safe percentage in the NCAA.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then behind her, not so far behind.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: And also not a surprise, UConn's Tia Chan, sixth in the country in goals against average, a 1.34 GAA this year.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: And she's been pretty much at that her career.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then you go down a little further.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: B use Callie Shanahan, ninth in goals against average in the country.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, PC's Hope Walinsky.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a team that has a path to maybe bounce up a little bit further in the standings as the year goes on, especially if they keep getting good goaltending from Hope, who's at 12th best in the country in goals against average.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then Paige Chaborski, uh, also at Northeastern, has really great numbers still.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: So there's been a little bit of a goalie tandem going on at Northeastern, but potentially uh it doesn't really matter who you go with.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: It seems like there they have two good goalies that are that are able to jump in the net.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and one of the reasons we've talked about, you know, is there a top four is because you have UNH right there too.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, speaking of goalies, Sedona Blair has shutouts in each of the last two games that she's played.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it feels like we were having this conversation last year, too, that there's just a lot of good goalies in this league.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I think Lisa Junsson's the most amazing one because she kind of, you know, in some ways won a job, or at least, you know, if that's too far, then at least earned herself some playing time with Paige Taborski playing the majority of the games early in the season, as you talked about.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it is really amazing to watch this goalie, it makes the scoring at much more of a premium, which makes things more interesting.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I think, you know, as you mentioned, those four teams at the top, the one difference in terms of the rankings right now is that BC has those two wins over Clarkson, right?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And those are the best two wins out of conference that anyone has so far.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing that's really exciting, and you know, this can transition into our next point, because, you know, we'll have this game on Saturday, is the fact that BC and Northeastern play on Saturday.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: All those teams have played each other a lot already this year.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And even though they've played each other, I don't feel like we have resolution of who's the best of them, right?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, okay, when you see them actually play the games, you can kind of get some eye test.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we we can kind of see who's the best of this bunch.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think we've seen that so far because, you know, just BC and BU split, you know, BC and UConn just split.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I I think we're still in the learning phase of which one of these teams could emerge as the top teams.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: They might, it might be a true top four rather than a top one and one or two.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that should make things really exciting as we go through.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about that game that we just mentioned, BC and Northeastern.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: They'll play a Saturday game that is part of a big day of college hockey on Nesson, including the Friendship Four, which we'll talk about as well coming up.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're watching this week in Hockey East.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to this week in Hockey East.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's time to go around Hockey East, presented by Boston Harbor Hotel.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Visit hockeyeastonline.com for your chance to win championship tickets or a two-night stay at the Boston Harbor Hotel.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: And let's start with our Saturday night game of the week on Nesson.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Seven o'clock puck drop between BC and Northeastern.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is what we were just talking about, right?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: These top four teams, we get to see them play against each other once again.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Boston College here has split a couple of weekends in a row against UConn, and then prior to that against BU.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you talk about a gauntlet here of going through these teams.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think the thing that has stood out so far about Boston College, though, is just they've, you know, you had that gate series against Clarkson and it really stood out as a sort of turning point moment.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: But everything they've done, even though they haven't won every game since then, but they've really kept the momentum going all year long.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: You've seen them a bunch, and you know, it's felt like they've been able to carry that through to this point.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really going to matter for them against this Northeastern team.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and Northeastern has been one of those consistent teams.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: They've been getting really good goaltending, like we mentioned the previous uh segment.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: They've been getting wins over ranked teams as well.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and they're really hard to score against.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: They have a lot of shutouts this season.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they continue to they only score a few goals a game, but allow even fewer.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really what you're planning against when you're playing against a Northeastern team.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're trying to plan for the fact that they have this incredible shutdown defense, really strong defensively from their top pair to their extra defenseman.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times they do run an extra defenseman there, and their forwards are great, 200-foot forwards as well.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: So try to crack their goaltending, try to crack their defense.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's not very easy to do.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one player who's going to try, and someone we probably haven't talked enough about yet, but she's going to be our Jersey Mike's sub-above player to watch this week, is Lauren Glazer for Boston College.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Scored two goals Friday in the game against UConn, including the game winner.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: She now has nine points in her last seven games and a bunch of multi-point efforts over that span.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we've talked about some of these BC players who have come on.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: She's one that's come on a little bit later here the first half of the season, but she's really stood out and is definitely someone to watch for this weekend's game.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: It should be a lot of fun, though.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Saturday afternoon, it's it's gonna be really interesting to see which one of these two teams can kind of take a stranglehold of some momentum for what should be, again, a really competitive race at the top of Hockey East.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: This time of year, you also get a lot of non-conference games.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about some of those on the men's side that's coming up on this week in Hockey East.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's continue to go around Hockey East.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Our next segment is presented by Boston Children's Hospital.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: As we told you, a bunch of non-conference games.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And one that really stands out that I don't think anyone had on their bingo card is maybe the game of the week, is Boston College against unbeaten Dartmouth, the last unbeaten team in the country after Denver lost a couple of games last weekend.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not to say that Dartmouth is totally out of left field because they were picked third in the ECAC.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: So there was some thought about what Reed Cashman has done, but you know, new goaltender, could they follow up what they did last year?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: They certainly have in a major way.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's going to be really interesting to see what they do against Boston College.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: A couple things that stand out here.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, we mentioned the pairwise earlier.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's maybe it's still a little bit early to look at it, but I think it's telling us enough of what we'd want it to.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Dharma's third right now in the pairwise.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's usually where it gets tricky when they haven't played that many games because they're an Ivy League team, but they already have a win against Quinnipiac.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: They already have a win against Cornell, and now the task against Boston College, who's number one in the pairwise, by the way, as of right now.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: So two of the best teams in terms of what the computer views as the resumes so far, go at it and Conte Purim.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're gonna see a lot of Dartmouth and probably talk a lot of Dartmouth the last next couple of weeks.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they're gonna see at least four hockeys teams this year: BC, UVM on Sunday, UNH at Merrimack.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then they'll either play Providence or Northeastern in the Lebyard Bank Classic that they host every year.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: So really interesting game on Saturday.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think one key to think about in this series is both of these offenses have so much firepower so far.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: These are teams that have been able to score.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: You look at uh Ryan Leonard, who we talked about earlier.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Can he extend his six-game goal streak?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Not a point streak, a goal streak.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, can he keep that going against Dartmouth?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, him, Gabe Perole, and freshman James Haggins, all averaging over a point per game right now.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Can they keep that going against this Dartmouth team that has uh been harder to score against?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, Boston College has allowed less than one goal per game at home this year.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it should be a really interesting game on Friday.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: I said Saturday, on Friday.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that that actually brings you to what I wanted to say about Dartmouth, which is that they're averaging four goals a game.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and those are against good teams.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: You're wondering, oh, you know, is that just the early part of the season for the Ivies?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, were they coming up against easy teams?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: No, like you mentioned, it's a uh ranked Quinnipia team at number 15 and number six Cornell, that they were able to put four goals up on both of those teams.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe this is a high scoring game.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: It kind of has that feel to it.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then for another non-conference series that we want to preview, the Adirondack uh Invitational at Lake Placid, PC up there for Hockey East this week.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: They start out against Clarkson and then they finish off against St.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Lawrence.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, what do you need to know about PC going into it?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: They're they were back in the win column.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: They had another non-conference game last week against LIU.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: That was a really interesting game.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: It had pretty much everything in it.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: It had a major penalty, it had goals called back, it went to overtime.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: The Friars never led in that game until they scored the overtime game winner.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was Nick Poisson's game-winning goal that makes him the night shift all academic standout of the week.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: And to preview that matchup against St.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Lawrence on Saturday, 4 p.m.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: puck drop, uh, St.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Lawrence is at the bottom of the ECAC standings right now.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Providence uh towards the top of Hockey East.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: They are they're hanging right up in the top three there.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it should be an interesting matchup up there.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I know everybody always gets excited to play up Lake Placid, the history there.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, how many good players have come through and obviously the Olympic history and miracle on ice.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: So uh that's always one that people get up for.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and UMass Lowell is there as well.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: We talked a little bit about Lowell earlier, so we don't need to go into full detail on them here, but they'll participate in that weekend as well.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was something that Norm Bezend told us in the preseason.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: He loves to take his teams on these kind of experiences, play these tournament feels because you don't get to replicate that experience.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: So important weekend for them.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you mentioned Providence.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think the other important thing about that LIU game, it felt like that's a game they've lost the last couple of years.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's maybe why they've been on the outside looking in on the tournament.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that even though it wasn't a perfect effort, but they came back and they were able to get a win, I think might be really important as we go down the stretch.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Pair wise, that would have, that would have dropped them quite a bit that they were able to find the win.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, and they had that happen to them last year against Alaska.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, was a game that that kind of trapped them.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: They end up finding themselves, I think they were the the first team out of the of the tournament last year.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: So they're trying to avoid that.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Need a strong finish and to beat some of those those teams.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that starts with, or it started with LAU continues with St.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Lawrence this weekend.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: When we finish up on our short shifts, we're gonna head out to Northern Ireland and talk about the Friendship Four that's coming up next.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Time to wrap up as we take some short shifts presented by the shift group, helping former athletes and veterans become elite business professionals.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: We want to just talk a little bit about the whole experience.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: You got to see the first two semifinal games of the Friendship Four before us here on Nesson.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it's just a really amazing experience.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been cool to see how the teams that have gone over Bridget have embraced the culture and being over in a different country in Northern Ireland.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they get to go to, I believe most of the teams flew into Dublin.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: They get to check out the city, the church is there, the castle's there, and probably some things that are more up there, Allie.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that starts with Merrimack.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Merrimack's uh men's ice hockey team went to uh it's it's a big soccer stadium.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's called the Gaelic Athletic Association at Croke Park, and it basically hosts Gaelic football, hurling, I think rugby, and it's the biggest stadium in Ireland.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: It seats over 82,000 uh people.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: I know hurling shares some similarities to hockey.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh not exactly, but if you like hockey, you might also like hurling.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: So didn't we have hurling at Fenway Park a couple years ago?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have hurling at Fenway Park recently.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: They play with a stick too, but it it looks very dangerous.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: I guess they probably look at hockey the same way.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then Boston University's team went to see something that I'm jealous about, the Game of Thrones studio tour.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: They got to walk through the set, which has, you know, uh a lot of it is used in the real show, and a lot of the guys are there having fun.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you saw you see Aiden Cellebrini in the picture enjoying his time and Jack Harvey, and I'm jealous of that.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know in the past uh teams have gone to the Titanic Museum, uh, because that's kind of up near Belfast, I believe.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's all sorts of different opportunities to get some different cultural experiences, and it's a big bonding experience for the teams too.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to give us who your Jon Snow in hockey East is?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, I have no idea how to answer that.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Who maybe that'll be next week's episode.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, you can watch the Constellation game and the championship of the friendship for tomorrow.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be on Nesson Plus, 10 a.m.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: and then 2 p.m.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: on Nesson Plus, leading into that BC Northeastern game that we talked about, which will be on Nesson at seven.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Fun episode.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for joining us.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you enjoyed something a little bit different and enjoy some really interesting non conference games across this week in Hockey East.