Latest / The PodKaz: USCHO Women's Hockey / Episode 13: Patty Kaz contenders, the future of centralization and reaching the finish line
Transcript
- 0:04Hi again, and welcome to the podcast from us cho dot Com. I'm
- 0:07Todd Moleski here with Nicole Hasey, and we're entering the final week of the
- 0:11regular season for some teams. Well, I guess most teams in women's college
- 0:15hockey, three of the five conferences, play their final games of the regular
- 0:20season this weekend to have another week after that. But Nicole, looking back
- 0:26at last weekend, that was a pretty eventful week when for some of the
- 0:30top players in the country in terms of who we might be looking at,
- 0:34and for making a run out of Patty Casmier Award nomination and then eventually getting
- 0:41the vote for it. Some of the names of people who had big performances.
- 0:48Nicole Gosling for Clarkson two overtime winners back to back days. They beat
- 0:53Princeton, they beat Winnipeac in consecutive days. Abby Hustler hat trick for Saint
- 1:00Lawrence won it in overtime with her third goal of the game against Quinnepiac on
- 1:03Friday. Then she scored another goal, her fourth of the weekend on Saturday.
- 1:08Abby Murphy scored in overtime for Minnesota to beat Saint Cloud State on Friday
- 1:12and then scored another goal on Saturday. We saw everyone from Wisconsin score a
- 1:19goal, I think last weekend scoring seventeen against But Midgee State, Tell me
- 1:25what you're thinking about when you're seeing those names come up when we get down
- 1:30to this time of the season. Yeah, you know, I think it's
- 1:34hard, and I think some of the feeling across Wisconsin is first of all,
- 1:38that they've had some really high scoring games, right, and so how
- 1:42much do you put an asterisk on any of that. Secondarily, there's so
- 1:47many of them. There's so many Badgers in the top you know ten of
- 1:51scoring. You got Lacy Eating at ten, Britack Curl at eight, Casey
- 1:55O'Brien is second in Kirsten Sims is number one in scoring right now, person
- 2:00Sims the only, i think the only player in the country averaging two points
- 2:02per game. So I think any time that you've got multiple players again,
- 2:07you know, kind of in the conversation from the same team, that's always
- 2:10I think takes away from one or the others. So there's that, you
- 2:15know, I think that was Abby Hustler has just been absolutely huge kind of
- 2:19in the second half. It's not that she wasn't producing in the first half,
- 2:22but she's just producing at a faster clip. So you know, she
- 2:25had eleven goals, fifteen cents for twenty six points over the thirteen games since
- 2:30the winter break, you know, she had, So that's twenty six of
- 2:35her forty nine points. So that means, you know, twenty three of
- 2:37them in nineteen games before the break. So just you know, seven goals,
- 2:40three assists over the last three weeks against all the other ranked ECAC opponents.
- 2:46I mean, I think recency is always going to play into the conversation.
- 2:49It's going to be kind of who's at the front of your mind.
- 2:52But I also think that playing your best at the best at the biggest,
- 2:54most important part of the season is something that stands out. And I think,
- 2:59you know, like for someone with like Abby Murphy, it's a really
- 3:01interesting conversation because you know, I would contend that there is nobody more important
- 3:06to her team than Abby Murphy. Uh when I you know, I said
- 3:12that on our fan forums on us c HO, I got some pushback that,
- 3:15you know, other players like Izzy Daniels, the difference between her and
- 3:17the players below her on her own team, the you know, how much
- 3:22more she's scoring than everyone else on her team. And that argument for me
- 3:24is that she also has Annelie Bergman in net. So I don't I don't
- 3:30think Cornell without Izzy is as bad as Minnesota without Abby Murphy. Like that's
- 3:38kind of the mental gymnastics that I do on it, like what does the
- 3:39what does the team look like with with either that player not there or like
- 3:44replacement level player there. But yeah, so I with Abby, you also
- 3:49have the fact, you know that she has so many penalties that she's sort
- 3:52of a known kind of uh dur of emotions and fighting and and there's embellishment
- 3:59penalty, and there's major penalties. And since there is a component to the
- 4:03Pattykaz that's about character, like how much do you play any of that into
- 4:06there? I would have said CULTI culton Kova was in that conversation set a
- 4:12new you know, career goals record at at Colgate. But she's missed the
- 4:16last four games, you know. I spoke to the ECAC and to Colgate
- 4:21and found that she was issued at two games suspension. ECAC won't tell us
- 4:26anymore, does not disclose any more information, and then Colgate told us that
- 4:30she is taking some time away from the team. So at the moment she's
- 4:33missed four games, we have no idea if that will continue. So that
- 4:39is going to play into that, not only the character issue of why the
- 4:43spent suspension may have happened, but also just missing time. And I will
- 4:46say her being gone definitely shows how important she is to Colgate. The team
- 4:51was, you know, averaging more than five goals a game, and they
- 4:54haven't scored more than three in any of the four games that she has been
- 4:58gone, and and that's just it's clear how huge her impact was on that
- 5:02team. So that is definitely interesting. But yeah, I for me,
- 5:06I think the standout right now is probably Hustler, just the how important she
- 5:11has been to her team coming on strong. Here is this as the season
- 5:15winds down. What about you? I mean it's hard. I mean we're
- 5:19a we watch Wisconsin so much, but but it's it's hard. I think
- 5:24the fact that Wisconsin has played that's you know, sort of easier schedule this
- 5:28year and had these big blowout games. It's definitely not going to play in
- 5:30any of the Badgers' favor in terms of this conversation. Yeah, I agree
- 5:33with that, because you even get to the point of, like, Okay,
- 5:36who do they start promoting for Patty? You know, you don't throw
- 5:40six names out there and say, you know, pick from this group.
- 5:44You've kind of gotta gotta narrow it down a little bit more than that.
- 5:46And I don't necessarily know how you do that. It's been kind of a
- 5:50little bit of a you know, who's hot at the at the moment kind
- 5:55of thing. I mean, Kristen Simms has put together a lot of points.
- 6:00Casey O'Brien is on a great run right now something you know, seventeen
- 6:04points in eight games or something along those lines. But you do get into
- 6:11the who they're playing when they're putting up these big numbers, and I I'd
- 6:15encourage everyone to, you know, people who vote to to look at who's
- 6:21scoring in the big games and scoring in the games that are gonna termin championships.
- 6:28And for Wisconsin, we're still getting to those two. We'll talk about
- 6:31this at the end because they've got Minnesota and Ohio State in these final two
- 6:36weeks of the regular season, so we're gonna know a little bit more about
- 6:40that over the next two weeks. But you know, I've I've been you
- 6:46know, I was really surprised, I guess, and you know it was
- 6:50really good reporting by you with the CULTI Culton COVID News. I'm I'm a
- 6:57little I have to say, disappointin did with the way ECAC Hockey does their
- 7:01suspensions and that they don't announce them, that people are just supposed to you
- 7:06know, well, you know this player is out for some reason. I
- 7:12mean, we're dealing with adults here, right, I mean I don't I
- 7:15don't feel like this is a there's no hippo you know, for suspensions or
- 7:20for uh, you know, saying why somebody is not playing, uh when
- 7:26it's a suspension. I don't know why we're why this is the policy,
- 7:32right. I mean, we're both journalists, so we're gonna we're going error
- 7:34towards the like you should be telling us everything. And I'm like, I
- 7:38try to feel like even if I am like gracious about it, and there's
- 7:41still a middle ground between what what I think we would say and what they're
- 7:45saying, which is I had to notice that she wasn't playing for four games,
- 7:47right, So the idea that like you'll hear if a person receives extra
- 7:54games for you know, a major penalty things like that, like that they'll
- 7:58announce that sort of stuff, but like to not even put out that she
- 8:01was suspended. We're not necessarily I mean we are, but like I wouldn't
- 8:05have I wouldn't feel this way if they had told us that but hadn't told
- 8:09us why. It's it's the absolutely like nobody said anything and I had to
- 8:13like get confirmation the the reason she was missing time was a suspension and not
- 8:18injury or something else. So yeah, right, we get in this weird
- 8:24situation, and I like, having covered the sport for so long, I
- 8:26always try to find this balance that, like, particularly before this year,
- 8:31like these are ninety percent women that aren't going to go on and make money,
- 8:35Like these are not professionals. These are you know, like the difference
- 8:39between talking to, you know, a men hockey player who has gone through
- 8:41juniors and is in their mid twenties and is going, you know, on
- 8:46towards their career versus like asking you know, personal questions of someone who isn't
- 8:50going to do that and who is nineteen. Like I try to balance.
- 8:54I'm not always sure what I feel like is comfortable or okay to be asking
- 9:00about if that makes sense. But yeah, like I just I don't think
- 9:03that this is like that it's completely ghosher or out of the realm of possibility
- 9:07or what however you want to say it. That like, we we feel
- 9:11that we should be able to have access to this information, that it should
- 9:13be public information. And this is part of the trade off you have with
- 9:18you know, wanting to be covered, wanting to have news and out there
- 9:22about your sport, your game, uh, your competitions. You don't always
- 9:28get to choose what that news looks like because when you know, as much
- 9:33as we don't really like doing it, when when negative news happens, it
- 9:37still needs to be reported. And that's that's part of the game. So
- 9:43yeah, like like you're saying, I think we're on both sides, we're
- 9:46both on one side of this, uh this discussion, but uh and and
- 9:50others obviously won't won't necessarily agree with us. But yeah, I'm I'm all
- 9:56for more more transparency and in what's app being out there. And look,
- 10:01I mean we know everyone's you know, trying to find more more coverage,
- 10:09more ways of getting you know, what's good about women's college hockey out there,
- 10:16But that doesn't absolve us of the responsibility of telling the whole story.
- 10:22Yeah, absolutely so. And then it comes down to things like, you
- 10:26know, had had I not asked these questions, like would I be in
- 10:30a Patty Kasmier conversation in a few weeks, and would we be talking about
- 10:33Caltonkova as like a possible person, you know, a possible top ten or
- 10:39a possible winner, when like they're disciplinary issue, it's just an interest,
- 10:43Like it leaves the lack of information leaves like sort of the integrity of that
- 10:48and other things up for up for question. I guess, I mean that
- 10:52feels like taking it maybe a little too far, but I just it bugs
- 10:56me to feel like there's there's information to be had, and as a as
- 11:01an NCAA athlete, as someone you know, receiving scholarship and things I don't
- 11:05know like where what the line is and what people quote unquote deserve. But
- 11:09I definitely would be frustrated to find out in retrospect that we're like, you
- 11:13know, somebody did something that that we that speaks to their character that we
- 11:20and then we didn't have that information and that's I mean, that's a little
- 11:22bit of what we still don't know, right that's right. Yes, I'm
- 11:26trying to be careful. We don't know what the reason is, and so
- 11:30when I say that, I do mean somebody like it is a bad policy
- 11:33that we are talking about in the moment of this particular instance, but not
- 11:39necessarily like we don't have other information. And it's not like I was told
- 11:43something else and just didn't report it, Like I literally do not know more.
- 11:46But yeah, just if there is a disciplinary action taken, that's that
- 11:54there's more information to be had. I just I think that there need that
- 11:56needs to be out there. I don't I don't think we need to know
- 11:58every little detail, but I do, being generous, think that there should
- 12:03be something. This does get into a little bit of something that might veer
- 12:07us way up track here. Having character as one of the components of of
- 12:13awards does does always feel a little strange to me, because how do we
- 12:18know the whole story there? There's no possible way of knowing as a voter
- 12:24or as an someone who gives out an award, what that whole what the
- 12:31totality of that is across you know, all of your nominees or even when
- 12:35you get down to trying to pick, you know the winner, what's the
- 12:41same we know everything about that person, and maybe that you know something that
- 12:46just didn't come out. So I always feel a little skittish about considering that
- 12:54in one case and not another because you know, we're yeah, yeah,
- 13:01I understand that the sentiment of it that you know, you're you're giving an
- 13:05award for a complete player, and that's that's a part of what you want
- 13:09it to be. But there's a lot of unknowns there in terms of you
- 13:15know, we get to see them when they're on the ice, and you
- 13:16know, you see them more than anyone on the ice because you watch so
- 13:20many games. You know, I don't get to see that many players.
- 13:24But it's that that's a little concerning for me when when that is factored in
- 13:31only when we find out about things. Yeah, and the nature of the
- 13:37sport, right is that, like I'm the only national writer, so like,
- 13:41and and the committee changes year to year, so we're only getting information,
- 13:46Like it could be basically that there would be like one representative from a
- 13:52specific conference and like that person is the only one that can give us any
- 13:56information about anybody in that and like if it's several of your nominees or potential
- 14:03top ten are from then that conference that year. Then, like there's just
- 14:05a lack of information And like I said, as the only national writer,
- 14:09like most of the people voting don't watch don't get to watch games week to
- 14:13week, don't watch a multitude of games from multiple conferences. Like it's just
- 14:18it's not a situation that's set up, uh to get gather that information or
- 14:24to make that kind of decision, And like, you know, it's a
- 14:28two year commitment, like after this year, I am not back on the
- 14:31committee for several years, you know, so if I get if I get
- 14:35back as BacT. So yeah, yeah, it's a not a great situation
- 14:41with that. But does it mean, like I also don't want to say
- 14:45that character shouldn't be I don't. Yeah, I don't know what that is.
- 14:46I don't know. That's the hard part about it, right. I
- 14:52certainly understand why it's it's part of the award, but it's it just adds
- 14:56a level of complexity that I don't know can fully account for. I guess
- 15:03is the long story short? Yeah? Yeah, all right, well,
- 15:07okay, let's let's continue on finishing up. Looking back at last weekend,
- 15:11a couple other results you had found an interesting nugget with a Boston college player
- 15:20a few weeks ago. You want to get into what further nuggets you have
- 15:26on on that? Sure it was that well. So BC has played a
- 15:30ton of overtime games, most all of them have gone into shootout. They
- 15:35have not won very many shootouts. So I believe it was last weekend rate
- 15:39that they went to a shootout they finally won it. The person that won
- 15:43it was Kara Goulding, who does not in her sophomore year, does not
- 15:48yet have an official goal to her tally, so her first official goal will
- 15:54not count because shootout goals don't don't go on to the stats. So that's
- 15:58just kind of fun and silly, right. Well, she did it again.
- 16:02So this weekend they played to a shootout with Vermont that was too too
- 16:08tie. BC won the shootout. The only goal was scored by Kara Goulding.
- 16:14I'm sorry it was two weeks ago. It was at Providence on January
- 16:15twenty sixth. So now she has two unofficial goals but does not yet have
- 16:22a goal, you know, an NSAY career, she has no in no
- 16:25record book as having a goal, which I just that's that's crazyness, and
- 16:27I love it. Yeah, it's coming for her soon, right that we'd
- 16:32have to think, right, right? Yeah, and when I mean when
- 16:33she was put in the game, when she was sent out to do the
- 16:37shootout a couple of weeks ago, like that was kind of like an unusual
- 16:40choice for Katie Crowley, but you know, I think she was just looking
- 16:42to shake things up, right, Like Kara has one assist this season,
- 16:47Like she is not she's she's not the person that they would normally go to.
- 16:51But what they were doing hasn't worked, so like keep trying something that
- 16:53till something does. Right. So it worked last time and it worked again
- 16:56this time, and I don't know, I just really love it. I
- 16:59love that she now has done it twice and just like that's just going to
- 17:03be a really fun, crazy little factoid, right that she putting in these
- 17:08game winners, getting her team that shoot out win, but she she still
- 17:14does not officially have a goal. That's crazy. Yeah. Other results around
- 17:19the country, Minnesota completed a sweep. I mentioned that the Abbey Murphy goals.
- 17:23They swept Saint Cloud State. Another tough couple of results for Saint Cloud,
- 17:27who went through that stretch of having to play Ohio State, Wisconsin and
- 17:32then Minnesota are right in a row, and it's you know, they were
- 17:38right in there with a one nothing game on last Friday and then lost five
- 17:45to one in Minneapolis on Saturday. Was at the Saturday game there were two
- 17:52empty netters, so a three to one game. But having watched Saint Cloud
- 17:55State in Wisconsin and Wisconsin in Madison in person the weekend before, this was
- 18:00not the same Saint Cloud State in that game. Like, I just you
- 18:03could see sort of the listlessness, if for lack of a better word,
- 18:08I just you can't help but feel bad for them after after having talked what
- 18:12we've talked about in the past with talking to Brian Dalski, like it's just
- 18:15I was like, man, they were so much more dynamic in Madison,
- 18:19and it just feels like that's really you know, it's it's getting to them
- 18:23right, and that's it's just such a difficult spot to be in. But
- 18:29yeah, I after I would watch some of the Friday game, you know,
- 18:32on the stream, and Saint Cloud fought that game to the very end,
- 18:34and it was like that was the last straw that broke the Camel's back
- 18:38because we were at that game in Ritter and it just, yeah, it
- 18:42wasn't the same Saint Cloud State that I know that they can be yeap,
- 18:47So they the Minnesota wins combined with Clarkson having to win an overtime twice did
- 18:55an interesting thing in the pair wise. Minnesota moved into fourth, Clarkson dropped
- 18:59the fifth. So that's the only thing that really changed from last week in
- 19:03terms of the order of the the top eight who as of right now would
- 19:08be in the tournament with three automatic qualifiers from from conferences that don't have anyone
- 19:17else in the in the field as of right now. And so that was
- 19:21an interesting, uh kind of showing you, you know, how tightly packed
- 19:26the really number two Colgate to number five clerks that are in NPI numbers.
- 19:33How that's determining where things are at in the pair wise right now, it's
- 19:38going to go right down to the wire with that, and we're going to
- 19:41see, you know, overtime results. Only if you win an overtime game
- 19:45and only counts is two thirds of a win in the in towards the NPI,
- 19:51whereas you win in regulation you get the full credit for it. Those
- 19:56things matter and we saw that this week and where you know, when you're
- 20:00in the difference between fourth and fifth is hosting that that game in the uh
- 20:06the I guess the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament. I was going to say
- 20:10first round, but it's really the second round. And I don't really know
- 20:12what to call that. Yeah, do that's if that ends up being the
- 20:18you know, the difference between winning a game and regulation and winning game and
- 20:21overtime that that flips that that's that's kind of crazy. Yeah, and you
- 20:26I mean you were talking about sort of two through five, but the same
- 20:27thing exists for six through nine, right, and like maybe generously into Saint
- 20:32Cloud State at ten, but six through nine is something is less than uh
- 20:36like what one point one point three points apart in the NPI, Like it's
- 20:40just the difference between Quinnipeec and eight, which is at this moment we think
- 20:45getting in the tournament, right and and not the difference between them and Minnesota
- 20:48Duluth and ninth is point zero eight nine in the NPI. Like it's just
- 20:55it's just in Wisconsin or Colgate to Wisconsin is what point zero three three?
- 21:00I mean, just these margins right now are so slim. Like when I
- 21:03started doing recaps on Sunday and I started looking at some of this stuff and
- 21:08I pulled up the NPI. I sent a screenshot to some of my friends.
- 21:11I was saying, you guys, look at these NPI numbers, just
- 21:14because like this is unbelievable. And I mean, we're gonna I think we
- 21:18were seeing Wisconsin, Minnesota. I was stay all playing each other. We're
- 21:22gonna see movement and so yeah, this is uh, it's gonna be interesting
- 21:26for sure. Yeah, when we come back, we are going to talk
- 21:32Rivalry Series, PWHL centralization, all sorts of topics that they're kind of coming
- 21:38up in the world connected to college, but not necessarily directly to college.
- 21:45But we'll get into that when we come back on the podcast. Hi,
- 21:53welcome back to the podcast. This is Nicole Hasey. He's Todd Malesky.
- 21:59We are going to talk a little bit about the Rivalry Series and some questions
- 22:03that came up out of that that kind of tie back to the college game.
- 22:07So I was at the Rivalry Series game on Sunday, watched a pretty
- 22:11lackluster game from tam Usa where they lost to Canada, and that for Canada
- 22:17completed the second straight reverse sweep in the rivalry series, meaning the US won
- 22:22the first three games, Canada won the last four, both in last year's
- 22:27or it's not a year because it's over the new year, but in last
- 22:32rivalry series and in this one. And one of the interesting conversations that came
- 22:36about from that from Jared Book, who is a Canadian that writes a lot
- 22:40about women's hockey, and I've known in the kind of Twitter conversation about women's
- 22:44hockey for a while, so Jared on Twitter and his handle is at Jared
- 22:48Book hypothesized that the US is better at the beginning of a rivalry series because
- 22:52they are using their collegiate talent, which they're all generalizations, by the way,
- 22:59I'm not like making aspirations on anybody's character or the but so that the
- 23:04US basically relies more has better younger talent, so one that talent is playing,
- 23:10the US is a better team than Canada. And later in the series,
- 23:15particularly the last three games Canada when they do neither team uses their collegiate
- 23:19players because we're much later in the collegiate season and they don't take them away
- 23:22for this that Canada has a stronger veteran group, and so that is why
- 23:27they are able to manufacture that reverse sweep now like game to game, you
- 23:33know, the US didn't. It was awful on special teams things like that.
- 23:37Like there's certainly I'm making sort of broad sweeping generalizations here. So it
- 23:42was just a really interesting conversation about how the two teams look at their collegiate
- 23:47talent use their collegiate age talent. So one of the questions that has come
- 23:52up with the PWHL, and this is on the assumption that the PWHL continues
- 23:57as we know it, that it is going to remove the need for centralization
- 24:03for the US and Canada, and that the PWHL will sort of continue on
- 24:07and all of these players will continue to play at their teams, and centralization
- 24:11as we know it meaning Hockey Canada and USA Hockey each take their group of
- 24:18players pull them for a full year in residency. That will not happen in
- 24:22the future. That is the hypothesis that that I think sort of has been
- 24:30supported by people in both Hockey Canada and USA Hockey, Like this is the
- 24:33discussion that's being that's happening right now, is that that centralization residency would not
- 24:38happen, But what does that mean for collegiate players? And so the long
- 24:44story short of that is, like if a player, if the teams aren't
- 24:47pulling for a full residency, they will still do things like camps, maybe
- 24:51monthly camps, other things like that. So do collegiate players stay with their
- 24:55collegiate team but leave intermittently to go to various camps and other things with a
- 25:00national team and then also be gone for a months in February at the height
- 25:04of the collegiate season to play in the Olympics If they don't. If they
- 25:08that's that would be that they stay with their teams, right, So if
- 25:11they don't do that, if they red shirt, then they aren't playing for
- 25:15a bunch a bunch of that time right like they are, Then they're not
- 25:18getting that that high level experience. They're just going to those camps. They
- 25:25would save their year of eligibility. But but wouldn't you know, be playing
- 25:27as much. So there's it brings up a ton of questions about what would
- 25:30happen for collegiate players one centralization changes or if centralization changes. So, yeah,
- 25:37it's just an it's an interesting conversation that led off of the US being
- 25:41reverse swept for the second year in a row in this rivalry series, and
- 25:45I think there's a bigger conversation about how Canada has not much used their younger
- 25:51talent. They do tend to sew skew older on their roster because their roster
- 25:57is so good, and now those players are all getting a bunch more playing
- 26:00time like that From an American standpoint, it's kind of scary, like watching,
- 26:04you know, thirty three year old Natalie Spooner only get better. You
- 26:08understand why some of the younger players aren't getting national team spots. But yeah,
- 26:12I think there is a really interesting conversation on what happens, like what
- 26:17collegiate coaches and programs would allow players to do if a collegiate player would have
- 26:22to give up essentially a year of eligibility playing intermittently, and what would that
- 26:27look like. So I know that it's a bunch of hypotheticals right now,
- 26:30but always interesting when we're talking national team stuff, and it has kind of
- 26:36serious ramifications for the college game. I wonder whether there's a kind of a
- 26:41hybrid option available to where the college players would be in some kind of residency
- 26:47for the year they'd take the year off from the college teams, because I
- 26:49really don't it doesn't feel like there would be a lot of support from the
- 26:55coaching body of the college coaching body of let's take our our best players out
- 27:00for a month in February and have much less if there was other camps.
- 27:06Yeah, right, have them play in you know, the most demanding tournament
- 27:10that there is every four years, and then bring them back and you know,
- 27:14okay, let's just get right back into the playoffs. Not to mention
- 27:17that, you know, you know, there's that little school thing they have
- 27:19to worry about too. I know there's only right, yeah, different ways
- 27:22of doing that remotely and things like that. Now, but that seems like
- 27:26a lot and I don't know if I i, you know, putting myself
- 27:30in the shoes of a lot of coaches, I can't see a lot of
- 27:34support for that. Well. But that's interesting because like like players from Chechia
- 27:41and Switzerland and things like that, they do that, right, they stay
- 27:42with their collegiate team and then just go for the month of the Olympics because
- 27:48their countries don't support centralization and this is the highest like they're getting the best
- 27:52preparation that available to them by continuing to play in the NCAA. But that
- 27:56has been intermittently just a small handfulful of players and from programs that are happy
- 28:03to have most of a year of service from that player. Right. But
- 28:07what happens when you're talking about sort of biggerity in programs and and them all
- 28:11being concentrated when conference and things like that, definitely is an ass just done
- 28:15that, right, Yeah? And and I mean to be fair, and
- 28:18you know, not wanting to take anything away from you know, the countries
- 28:21that are growing things, but US and Canada didn't get to be the dominant
- 28:25teams by doing things where they just pull for you know, the two weeks
- 28:30or three weeks that they need them. That that's that's really been the difference.
- 28:33Right. So I don't know if I can see them, you know,
- 28:40pulling away from that necessarily, you know, other than you know,
- 28:44when we're talking about having p WHL players join in. I there's a lot
- 28:52of people at the table on this one, right, So there's a lot
- 28:56of interests that are going to be represented, and that's going to have to
- 29:02be a pretty delicate balance of how this goes forward. And yeah, I
- 29:08don't honestly know whether this was addressed in the the CBA that was, you
- 29:15know, between the p w h L and its players, how how Olympic
- 29:19UH cycles go. I don't know if I would have to look into that
- 29:26a little bit more, whether that was UH part of how how things were
- 29:30framed right, And then you know, I was thinking kind of if it
- 29:36was the collegiate players would stay with their team and then come back, like
- 29:38would we see conferences re thinking how they put their schedule together, Like we
- 29:44know that the w c h A back end so that all of their you
- 29:47know, likely top teams are playing each other in these final few weekends.
- 29:49But if it came to it, like one would think like right now they
- 29:53I think it's I know it's w c h A and was a Hockey East
- 29:57also took off that Four Nations weekend earlier in the it's in November, Like
- 30:03do they not take that sort of bye week and do they back end that
- 30:07and make sure that you know, that's one of the weekends. And then
- 30:10they're they're like scheduling things differently so that the loss of those players doesn't impact
- 30:15the outcome of the season. And then the other thought I had was to
- 30:18like collegiate players get a dispensation to play in the PWHL for a year,
- 30:22kind of like like Sophie surely played that year in THECHCWHL before she came to
- 30:26Wisconsin. Right, It's always been okay before you start in college, but
- 30:30once you start in college, going back and forth has been forbidden as far
- 30:33as I understand. Right, Yeah, So, like there's just as you
- 30:37said, there's so many interests at the table and at the moment, you
- 30:41know, PWHL seems to not be making tons of decisions that think that take
- 30:47the de NCAA into consideration. I certainly don't want to like make any like
- 30:53I have no but it does seem like like they have these upcoming games in
- 30:57NHL stadium that are happening on the NCAA quarter final weekend. Things like that,
- 31:03where you're like you see them working around like an NHL schedule, but
- 31:06not necessarily having thought about what happens on the NCAA schedule. So it does
- 31:11make me wonder how much anybody will care about that and why or why not?
- 31:15Right Like when all of your players, I think there's what like five
- 31:18women the whole PWHL that didn't go to an NCA school. There has to
- 31:22be something working together here and everybody being at the table and discussion. And
- 31:26from the little bit that I've asked around, nothing is set in stone.
- 31:30No full conversations have been had. But we're also, you know, a
- 31:33year out from when this would need to happen. But yeah, it's certainly
- 31:40in the discussion of rivalry series, I mean kind of down a huge rabbit
- 31:44hole of what effect that could have at the game For the college side,
- 31:48Yeah, I think there's They can't really afford to delay too much on a
- 31:56decision, rightly, because of all the people that are going to be involved,
- 32:00and we'll have to you know, college coaches might have to adjust recruiting
- 32:06patterns for a year because if you don't have a couple of players you're expecting,
- 32:10you're you're short, and you might need to bring someone else, you
- 32:14know, look for someone else to fill fill in your roster, right and
- 32:17vice versa. Right, Like, they are planning ahead that players they expected
- 32:23they're expecting to be gone for centralization, right Like, like I am assuming
- 32:28Bradfrost expects that Murphy, Abby Murphy will be in you know, in the
- 32:34pool and in the conversation, and so like is not planning to have her
- 32:37on the ice at the moment, and so has recruited to fill that spot
- 32:40and fill that need on its roster, you know, Wisconsin, same thing.
- 32:45You know, you think about a couple of programs across the country,
- 32:49and so I just think it's, yeah, like you said, it's on
- 32:52the one hand, it is a year away, and the other like,
- 32:55honestly like the players will need to know this by August, honestly before then,
- 33:01but like August at the very leadest. Yeah, it's it comes up
- 33:07faster than you realize that. I think when you're you talk about the Olympics
- 33:10being in twenty twenty six, okay, it feels like that's that's a ways
- 33:15away here, But a lot of those decisions are being made then in June
- 33:20of twenty twenty five and into the summer of twenty twenty five, which is
- 33:24not more much more than a year from now when you really want to get
- 33:28down to it. So, yeah, a lot of things that need to
- 33:30be discussed and figured out, and maybe some feelings that need to be you
- 33:40know, working on throughout that whole process too. Yeah, it just it
- 33:45felt sort of like a rabbit hole that once I started thinking about it,
- 33:49it was like, okay, but what about this and what about that?
- 33:51And there's approximately a million questions and details that need to be taken care of,
- 33:55so you know, this is all I mean, I very much want
- 34:00the PWHLD to still be happening as we know it and love it one,
- 34:06you know, when we're talking about Olympic centralization, but that's all predicated on
- 34:08that being the case as well too. There's just so many variables and unknowns
- 34:15and it would be very interesting. I would have to assume that means that
- 34:17like whoever sort of making these decisions, and I would assume USA and Canada
- 34:22are having ongoing discussions of it, because one isn't going to centralize without the
- 34:27other sort of thing, right, But uh, there's yeah, there's just
- 34:32there's a million and one things that need to be considered, and there has
- 34:36to be contingency plans for you know, if this or that, and yeah,
- 34:40an organization on this and all the different players. I would have to
- 34:45imagine the conversations have to be have to be happening already. So I definitely
- 34:50wanted to think about it. My wild idea for this would be that would
- 34:54be really cool and this would probably never happen, but for the twenty five
- 34:59twenty six p w HL season leading into the Olympics, you have a team
- 35:07USA, you have a Team Canada that are part of the league, and
- 35:09that's your centralization group. Essentially they operate as a team in the p w
- 35:15h L. Now at that point, you're talking about something completely different financially
- 35:21and involving more entities than we're even talking about before, and and changing up
- 35:28structures and who's playing on which what contracts, and so you're talking about something
- 35:32that's probably undo, not possible, but sounds like a cool idea though,
- 35:37doesn't it It does, And then that would be reised the question of like
- 35:42collegiate players, right, but if they're yeah, if they're veeration teams,
- 35:49yeah, there's a that certainly is interesting. We're thinking about for sure,
- 35:55well put a pin in that discussion, because I think we'll be coming back
- 35:59to that at some point. But we're gonna move on. When we come
- 36:01back. Like we mentioned before, it's the final weekend of the regular season
- 36:06in three of the conferences, and so we're going to get into what's at
- 36:09stake in some of those conferences. When we come back on the podcast.
- 36:17Welcome back to the podcast, Todd Maleski here along with Nicole Hasey and all
- 36:22Right, last weekend of regular season coming up in ECAC, Hockey, the
- 36:28CHA, and the New HA. A lot of things left to be played
- 36:31for in those conferences. Also, big things happening in Hockey East and the
- 36:37WHA. We'll get to that a little later, but let's start with ECAC.
- 36:45Everyone's got two games left. Cole Gates in first place by three and
- 36:51a half points over Clarkson, then Sat Lawrence and Cornell in the top four,
- 36:55and that's the top four are booked, I believe correct. Yeah,
- 37:00us, yes, are going to finish in the top four and get the
- 37:06first round by and host in the second round. Uh. You've got a
- 37:10little bit of you know, moving around possible though in those middle sections,
- 37:15and it's you know, the next four are also said. It's gonna be
- 37:22Quinnipiak, Yale, Brown Princeton hosting first round series against the bottom four being
- 37:29Dartmouth, Renselaer, Union, Harvard in some order. Yeah, to be
- 37:35determined this weekend. That's a lot of ways of saying that Uh, let's
- 37:43let's check up on things after this weekend, because a few different things can
- 37:49can maybe surprise us after this weekend. But we do know who is in
- 37:52what bands. I guess as we go into the last weekend, a lot
- 37:57to play for within them, right, So Colgate, Clarkson, Saint Lawrence
- 38:00all in play for the title. Cornell can also still catch Saint Lawrence and
- 38:07Clarkson and could finish anywhere from second to fourth. Then obviously that means,
- 38:13you know, Clarkson and Saint Lawrence all all could finish anywhere in those top
- 38:16four as well. So really interesting. Colgate plays at Yale and Brown.
- 38:22They played they beat both of them when they played in November. Clarkson hosts
- 38:27Dartmouth and Harvard if they won five OHO over Dartmouth and nine went over Harvard
- 38:31in December. Saint Lawrence hosts Harvard, who they lost to one OHO in
- 38:35overtime in December, and Dartmouth, who they won against six five back in
- 38:39December. And Cornell plays at Brown and Yale, so just really interesting.
- 38:45You know, Saint Lawrence is a stronger team now than they were at the
- 38:49beginning of the year. Like I don't expect either of those games to be
- 38:52as close as they are. I mean, they lost in overtime to Harvard,
- 38:55who you know is the bottom team in the conference at the moment,
- 38:59so I expect different outcomes there. But yeah, it's really we have our
- 39:04like you said, our bands a foreset, but within those bands there's a
- 39:07whole lot of movement still that that can happen. And with the ecs DE
- 39:10tournament going over three weeks, so this opening round will be you know,
- 39:15nine at eight, ten at seven, eleven at six, and twelve at
- 39:19five, it's a single elimination game that will happen on February twenty third or
- 39:22twenty fourth. The one, two, three, and four seeds then come
- 39:27back into play the weekend of March first, and the winners of those opening
- 39:30round games will play at those teams, and the semifinals and finals were March
- 39:36eighth and ninth, hosted by the highest remaining seed after those quarterfinal games.
- 39:40So a long spread here. And then the other interesting thing when we've talked
- 39:45about how close NPI is is, you've got these top four seeds that'll be
- 39:50sitting next weekend when Wisconsin's playing Ohio State, and some of these other,
- 39:54you know, ranked teams are playing each other and have an opportunity to kind
- 39:58of gain some ground. Yeah, I think that's one reason why I would
- 40:04I don't know that the inside discussions here, but why you stick with the
- 40:07best of three in the quarterfinals so those teams can, you know, if
- 40:12they take care of business so they get two wins out of that weekend instead
- 40:15of just getting the one, because then you go into you know, a
- 40:21one game semi final, one game championship weekend. So having that does give
- 40:29you a little bit more chance to get you know, when the points do
- 40:32matter, you know, down to the to the decimal, you know,
- 40:36past the decimal, having more opportunities to play sometimes even if you're not getting
- 40:45a lot of points, you're getting some points each win. So it's it's
- 40:50definitely worth it for for that that part of it anyway. But I was
- 40:54critical of the c AC earlier about the suspension. I do have to say
- 40:58this in their favor. All games on Saturday, the final day of the
- 41:00regular season, start three pm Eastern, so nobody knows. It's kind of
- 41:06like soccer where you go into the lost, say everyone is playing at the
- 41:08same time, so no one goes in thinking they don't really have to play,
- 41:13or they don't have to you know, that they're locked in anything like
- 41:15that. Nope, you're you're not going to know what the rest of the
- 41:20conference is doing. Right, And you know, we've picked on the format
- 41:23here, but it is really important that every team is making the postseason and
- 41:28every team has an opportunity to hear. It's something that I have been you
- 41:31know, critical of in the past that we saw those those bottom four teams
- 41:35not making the postseason. So you know, there is that necessitated a reworking
- 41:40of the tournament. I'm not sure that we'll we'll see this particular format carry
- 41:45on, particularly if we see the NPI is really affected. But I you
- 41:50know, it's still super important that all of these teams are getting a chance
- 41:54to play in the postseason. So like major props for that. I just
- 41:58think they might regret this setup when it comes down to it. On the
- 42:02other hand, there's a cha which this is the last weekend for two of
- 42:07the teams. Because there are six teams in the conference, only the top
- 42:09four make the the postseason, and that leaves a race for the fourth spot,
- 42:16where right now r T and Lynden would both have fourteen points and are
- 42:21tied in fourth place. This sets up to be a really challenging spot for
- 42:29rit though, because they play at Penn State, who is pretty close to
- 42:35wrapping their three points up on Mercehurst and you know, can wrap up the
- 42:39regular season championships, so they obviously have something to play for. RT needs
- 42:45points because they can't just get zero points and hope to have any chance of
- 42:50getting into the fourth spot because linden Wood has the the tie breaker, had
- 42:54had tie breaker if they finish even linden Wood hosts Robert More, which is
- 43:00a really great story this season. I think you really can't be told enough
- 43:02that, you know, in their first year back as a program, they're
- 43:07they're in the CHA playoffs, So kudos to them. But this is an
- 43:12interesting setup then for fourth place in the CHA, right, and the fact
- 43:16that Syracuse has ten points means that they also, I mean, if they
- 43:21went out they are then ty. It gets I don't know, I gu
- 43:24it's really complacated the tie breakers, I suppose, but it's just it's really
- 43:30cool to see. I don't know, I love that in like, even
- 43:31in this smaller conference where so much has already been decided. There's still a
- 43:36lot up for grabs on this final weekend. And I will say too,
- 43:38like arit definitely has their uphill battle, but they they won an overtime against
- 43:43Penn State a month ago, so it's not like them getting points for them
- 43:46attempting to beat Penn State is just sort of out of the realm of possibility,
- 43:51right, So and Linnen when and Robert Morrise they split their last series,
- 43:54so I just, yeah, I think it's it's pretty cool that there's
- 43:58still so much to play for. I appreciate I had to go ask for
- 44:00it, but c CHA provided us with these tiebreakers. So yeah, linden
- 44:05Wood has the first tiebreaker against both ri A T and Syracuse. But considering
- 44:12that we we have this one, we can left. So Penn State Mercer
- 44:14so clean clinched the playoff berth and home ice. Robert Morris has definitely clinched
- 44:17a play up birth but that's all up in the air for where they will
- 44:22play when when the postseason starts. And yeah, just for a program that
- 44:25has like several players that just didn't play last year because the program attempted their
- 44:30university to try to fold their program just like major props to to that team
- 44:35and what they've been able to accomplish and show why they why they're a team
- 44:39that that deserved to be sticking around, right and new how long Island is
- 44:45the champion? They clinched had a few weeks ago. Everyone gets into the
- 44:51tournament there and you did the math and found that five of these spots are
- 44:53set. I want to go through which, uh, which teams are we
- 45:00know where are finishing where? Yeah, so lau Will, as you said,
- 45:04finished first with their forty eight points, Saint Anselm is set at second
- 45:07with their thirty seven points, and stone Hill is set at third with their
- 45:14thirty two points. And then the bottom half of the bottom two teams are
- 45:19set post in seventh. They have fifteen points and Saint Moncael's has one point,
- 45:22so they are in eighth. So one, two, three, seven
- 45:25and eight are set, meaning we have, you know, our top two
- 45:29matchups. Number eight at number one is set, number seven at number two
- 45:32set, So Saint Michael's will play at lu Post, will play at Saint
- 45:38Anselm's. Stonehill has clinched home ice but does not yet know who they will
- 45:43play. Sacred Heart plays at post this weekend. Last time, Sacred Heart
- 45:49won three to oh and then lost three to two. Franklin Pleeers plays at
- 45:52Assumption and they split their last meeting, each team winning a game for nothing.
- 45:57So definitely no clear favorite in either of those two weekend matchups, and
- 46:04how those play out will help us decide and figure out the quarterfinals for New
- 46:07Hut. They are playing a best of three starting the weekend of February twenty
- 46:13to twenty third through twenty fifth, and the semi finals are single and elimination
- 46:17at the site of the highest two remaining seeds on March second, and their
- 46:21championship game is a week later. The highest remaining seed also hosts that rankling
- 46:28peer's Sacred Hard are both at twenty six points high for fourth place, Assumption
- 46:34three points back. So there's yeah, there's there's a bit that can happen
- 46:37there in these last couple of games, and a lot on the line in
- 46:39terms of getting that last last spot to host in the first round. Yeah,
- 46:45I mean, I just I always say I am Team Chaos. I
- 46:49like it's going to be madness, like all those ECC games happening at the
- 46:52same time. Like, man, I am going to struggle to pay attention
- 46:57to everything. But it's the most fun, best for the sport, it's
- 47:01best for the fans watching having everything matter. It's no fun when it's all
- 47:06decided before we get to this point. So I'm excited, and I'm excited
- 47:09that we're not just talking about, you know, like who's gonna win first
- 47:12or second, but that you know, it's the fight for some of these
- 47:14other positions that were that are really kind of at the forefront. Right,
- 47:20Let's move into Hockey East and the two conferences that don't finish regular season played
- 47:25this weekend have another week after this or Hockey East and wha Hockey East.
- 47:30Shout out to Brian Smith or whoever at Hockey East does the actual playoff permutations
- 47:36every week and kind of goes through everything of what's to come, what the
- 47:40tiebreakers are, sends us out every week. Hats off to whoever that is
- 47:45in Hockey East, and Brian Smith sends it out so fiercely the most love
- 47:50because all this other stuff I went and compiled Hockey East. I literally just
- 47:53had to open up an email like such an amazing resource, cannot like these
- 47:59other conference and says, take note, yep, interesting result last weekend,
- 48:05Yukon who is leading in Hockey East and has a pretty comfortable lead seven points
- 48:10over BC in Northeastern. Northeastern had a chance to cut into that but only
- 48:16got a two two tie and then want to shootout to get the extra point
- 48:22for that one. So they did gain a little bit of ground there,
- 48:24but not a ton, and it's still looking like Yukon can really essentially can
- 48:30wrap things up this weekend. Yeah, they you know it's they're playing at
- 48:40Merrimac and at Vermont. They are in a pretty comfortable position. I feel
- 48:45like, you know, it definitely is is theirs to lose at this point,
- 48:49but as you mentioned last week, Northeastern is coming on right like now.
- 48:53They're now tied for second with Watson College with forty five points. So
- 48:58certainly an interesting mac up in think the scheduling gods, because we'll have a
- 49:04split this weekend where Boston College in Northeastern play each other at home and home,
- 49:07and then Yukon's very last game is against Northeastern. So love to see
- 49:12these games that matter and that they're going head to head. The quirk that
- 49:20happens in Hockey East is that all of their playoffs is single elimination, so
- 49:23no quarterfinal series or anything like that. It's an opening round on a Wednesday,
- 49:29February twenty eighth, with the bottom four teams and the standings playing off
- 49:36to join the top six in the quarterfinals for a one game on March second.
- 49:40The Saturday semifinals happened midweek. These are all hosted by the higher seed,
- 49:46so with Hockey East kind of being in the smaller geographical footprint, they
- 49:51can get away with this more than the other conferences can with travel semifinals Wednesday,
- 49:55March sixth, and the final Saturday, March ninth. Just like I
- 50:02believe four of the other conferences or the the three of the other four conferences
- 50:07have their final on March ninth, if I remembering everything right. Yeah,
- 50:14and shout out that that conference championship for Hockey East will be on espn U.
- 50:20So yes for more televised inaccessible hockey women's college Hockey Hockey East has headed
- 50:28bunch on Deestined, which is great for folks in the Northeast, not for
- 50:31those of us not in the Northeast, but anytime that call it women's hockey
- 50:37is televised, I'm excited about it, so I'm only just a little bitter
- 50:39about nesson. All right, Well, let's wrap this up with the wha
- 50:45then, where there's a border battle happening this weekend. Minnesota is at Wisconsin
- 50:52for games Friday and Saturday. That's obviously that's kind of the race for second
- 51:00and the third. It seems like right now because Ohio stated seven points up
- 51:04in first place and can wrap up the WA championship with two regulation wins at
- 51:08home against Saint Thomas this weekend, regardless of how Wisconsin does in its series.
- 51:15Uh, there's there's also a really fascinating series for my perspective, The
- 51:22battle for fourth is between Minnesota Duluth and Saint Cloud. The Luth is eight
- 51:27points up on Saint Cloud, so it seems like a pretty comfortable margin.
- 51:30But they play this weekend in Saint Cloud, and if Saint Cloud comes away
- 51:34with two wins there, suddenly that's a two point margin. Duluth finishes at
- 51:37Minnesota, Saint Cloud at Bamidgie, so that's you know, there's a chance
- 51:44here for Saint Cloud if they can turn around what you know, you talked
- 51:47earlier about how it it kind of looked like these last few weeks have been
- 51:52getting to them. They have a chance to turn it around here and still
- 51:55get into a top four spot and host in the playoffs. It might take
- 52:00an awful lot, given given what's happened in these last few weeks. But
- 52:06I think if you're if you're you know, playing for the Huskies or coaching
- 52:08for the Huskies, you're you're looking at as hey, there's a possibility here,
- 52:13we have to go at it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean I
- 52:15think the important part to point out right with two weekends left is there's twelve
- 52:19points up for grads. So that just like at eight points or the a
- 52:23point lead that Minnesota Luth has, some point lead that sat Ohio State has,
- 52:29like those are those are big leads. But there's a ton of points
- 52:31still available in this conference. And I think, you know, particularly with
- 52:35Saint Cloud State, they they know they can beat Minnesota Duluth, right,
- 52:38they know that they have the ability to come out of this game this weekend
- 52:44with six points. Obviously, Minnesota Duluth is not only pointing uh goodness today.
- 52:51Now Minnesota Duluth is not only fighting for conference position, but for you
- 52:54know, national position, and they need those points in the overall innings for
- 53:00pairwise, but uh yeah, I just there's there's still something to fight for
- 53:05here for Saint Cloud, and they're They're a team that I in any one
- 53:08game playoff like, I would be nervous any team in the country playing Saint
- 53:13Cloud in a one game elimination style. There aren't a team that I would
- 53:16want to face in that situation. They've they've shown themselves to be an amazing
- 53:20defense, amazing goaltending, really adaptable. I just I hope that they can
- 53:28they can kind of find dig a little deeper and find that that motivation.
- 53:32Just I do not at all blame them for where they're they are mentally and
- 53:37and how difficult this has been. But I think they're the kind of team
- 53:39that if they can force themselves into the national conversation and in a possible tournament
- 53:45bid, they have sort of a makeup that I would not bet up.
- 53:50I bet against right. And obviously Minnesota Wisconsin that that week always means for
- 53:55us here in Madison, we get there. Mark Johnson talk about his experiences
- 53:59playing Minnesota back in the day, which is always fun because he he has
- 54:02stories about his first game as a freshman at Minnesota at Old mary Goos Arena,
- 54:07Williams Arena. Then they had to come up steps to get to the
- 54:12ice, and you know, things are raining down upon them as a visiting
- 54:15team, and he says that after scoring the overtime goal, walking out was
- 54:21a lot better than coming into the rink. It's great stories there, but
- 54:24you know, the Badgers and the Gophers and women's hockey makes some pretty good
- 54:29stories on their own on the ice. And I think that there's a pretty
- 54:31good chance of more good, good things happening this weekend between in that rivalry
- 54:39between those two teams. Yeah, I you know, not only the classicness
- 54:44of the rivalry, but the fact that Mark Johnson and Brad FoST have been
- 54:47the coaches for pretty much all of it. I mean, there just aren't
- 54:51any secrets of surprises between those two right like there, It's an ongoing chess
- 54:54match for longer than some of these players have been alive. And so I
- 55:00that's part of what makes it fun. In my opinion, think it's just
- 55:02did you never know what's gonna happen? You could have a zero zero game,
- 55:07you could. I mean last year, this second to last weekend Minnesota,
- 55:12the two teams tied to two in the first game and then the second
- 55:15game was seven five. It just like you'd never quite know. And I
- 55:21just I think that's what makes this fun. And the fact that those two
- 55:24like they're not going to go out there and like outstrategize the other, and
- 55:29neither one of those coaches is sort of heavy handed in the way that they
- 55:31they guide their team. But the fact that you've got sort of two of
- 55:36the most decorated, most successful coaches in women's college hockey who respect each other
- 55:43and who know each other really well, leading you know, two talented teams.
- 55:46It's it's what makes it fun. And then it's just always so extra
- 55:50because the teams dislike each other so much, right Like there is that rivalry
- 55:52and there there will be that extra level and the Badgers will be trying to
- 55:57trip up Abby Murphy and go to a little and she'll be trying to do
- 56:00the same back to player to Bretta up probably and it's yeah, like it's
- 56:06just gonna you can't make any mistakes in a game like this. It really
- 56:08will come down to small stuff. And then the other thing that's fun for
- 56:12me, I think is that neither team gets to play their own game,
- 56:15right like this isn't like when they go out and dominate a game and sort
- 56:19of assert their will on the other team. Like, it's not necessarily pretty
- 56:22hockey, but it sure is fun. It's going to be fast, it's
- 56:25gonna be chippy, it's gonna be about you know which way the puck bounces
- 56:30and which one of them adapts to the the fact that the other team is
- 56:35gonna try and break them up so much I will laugh. Arlen, who
- 56:37used to be the women's hockey writer at usc h O before me, he
- 56:42made a joke on our fan for him that usually what the Badgers do to
- 56:45to hold Minnesota up is is intercept their passes, and well, passing has
- 56:50not been a strong suit for the Gophers this year, so he was joking
- 56:52that he wasn't sure what the Badgers would come with to try and shake Minnesota
- 56:58up. Obviously he was being a little unkind to the Gophers, but it
- 57:02did make me laugh that he was, like, that just means they have
- 57:06to come up with a different strategy, so like, maybe that works in
- 57:07the gophers favor. Arlen has watched many of these games more than you or
- 57:14I I think at this point, and having his little bit of input made
- 57:17me smile. Oh, any last thoughts before we adjourned for the week.
- 57:22It's another weekend of a lot of games out there that we saw last week,
- 57:29a lot more games going to overtime. I would imagine we're getting in
- 57:30that point the season out where it's just there's finding that difference means an awful
- 57:37lot when you get down to this point in the season. Yeah, I
- 57:39mean, I just I don't know, women's hockey has never been more popular,
- 57:45right, and everybody watching the PWHL, But like, man, for
- 57:47my money, do I love the college game. I think there's just there's
- 57:50so many storylines we could talk for a couple more hours and not run out
- 57:53of things to talk about. Just from the last week or two, right,
- 57:57there's just there's so many points up for grabs, so many players to
- 58:01watch that are you know, gonna make big plays like Abby Hustler did last
- 58:07weekend? Right, So I just I'm s excited. I would say,
- 58:09you know, I know some of the games are behind paywalls and things like
- 58:14that, but like I know, you can get a big ten plus monthly
- 58:16subscription for one school for ten dollars for the month, and if you like
- 58:22really good games, I might, you know, suggest getting the Badgers and
- 58:24you would get the two games against Minnesota and the two games against Ohio State
- 58:29next week, or however you want to break that down. Minnesota would have
- 58:32the two games against Wisconsin and then two games against Minnesota the loose. So
- 58:36definitely lots of options out there and ways to watch it. I understand that
- 58:39the different streams are hard to do, but I think you can't go wrong.
- 58:44You can watch some pretty amazing hockey over the next two weeks. And
- 58:47the ESPN Plus feed too with the Oh yes, I just assume everybody's doing
- 58:52that. Sorry, I had six dollars a month or whatever it is.
- 58:55I think everybody should be doing that, so I was talking about them more
- 59:00so I'm sorry. Yes, please, also, if you don't already,
- 59:04do the ESPN Plus for the minimum of the month, because you will get
- 59:07an access to a to a ton of hockey that is Grade A and again,
- 59:14all of the players, all but I think five players and the p
- 59:16WHL played it in NCAA. Schools like these are the stars now and they
- 59:22are the stars of the future, and it's pretty exciting to get to watch
- 59:24them like they could comp you your subscription now for your for your would be
- 59:30nice endorsement, right yeah, all right, Well, we hope you enjoy
- 59:36this week's hockey. We know we will join us back here next week.
- 59:38We'll talk about all that that will look forward to the start of the playoffs
- 59:43and three conferences and the final weekend of the regular season for two others,
- 59:46and everything else that's going on in women's college hockey for Nicole hose On,
- 59:52Todd Mluski, thanks for joining us on the podcast.