Season 3, Episode 27 of the Chasing MacNaughton Podcast from Tech Hockey Guide: Say Their Name. This week, Tim Braun, Dustin Lindstrom, Rob Gilreath and Matt Cavender were joined by Matt Wellens from the Duluth News Tribune. In this episode, they discussed the Women’s Frozen Four, the University of Minnesota Duluth, the Loveland regional, the NCAA selection show, the mayhem in Mankato, and NCAA Tournament predictions.
Women’s Frozen Four
Wellens talked about being at the Women’s Frozen Four for the last week while covering the Minnesota Duluth women’s team. He said that it’s been a fun week for him and talked about the amount of skill he saw in the players. Wellens also talked about the increased parity that is happening in women’s hockey currently and said that it’s been fun to watch.
Streaming games
The guys talked about some of the issues they’ve had with streaming and the way broadcast companies stack events so close together. Wellens talked about a recent article he wrote talking about regular television not working anymore when games are stacked together. Tim talked specifically about ESPN having issues with trying to fit too many games in too tightly together. The guys talked about their hopes for all of college hockey to move to one streaming platform in the future, but also talked about the difficulties of the logistics in getting that accomplished. Tim thought that the NCHC model would be great where a fan could pick a team or league and half of revenue goes to that institution and half goes to the streaming company.
Minnesota Duluth play style
Tim asked Wellens for his thoughts on Minnesota Duluth this season. Wellens said that the regular season had to be thrown out to this point, as they have a number of Olympic players that have come back and have re-adjusted to college life. He also talked about Minnesota Duluth and how to beat them. He said teams can’t let Duluth get the lead and if your team does get a lead you’d better keep your foot on the gas and bury Duluth. Wellens also talked about Duluth not allowing teams to get established offensive zone time and how they do a very good job at chipping the puck into the neutral zone. Tim talked about the luck that Minnesota Duluth has had in recent NCAA Tournaments.
Michigan Tech versus Minnesota Duluth predictions
Wellens thought that the game would be low scoring and wouldn’t be surprised if it goes to overtime. He had a hard time picking against Duluth given their history in the Tournament. Wellens also talked about Minnesota State being the number one team all season for him and Rob chimed in to say that hearing Wellens talk good about Minnesota State made him feel better about Tech’s chances. The guys then talked about how the refs can affect the game too and Wellens talked about the massive difference he’s seen between east and west refs in the women’s side. Wellens said that he was happy to hear that the Michigan Tech pep band and Mitch’s Misfits were travelling to the game in Loveland.
NCAA selection show
The overwhelming sentiment on the selection show was that it was a joke. The guys discussed the fact that the show did not do an in-depth analysis of every other regional except for Loveland. Even more egregious, did not even say “Michigan Tech” once during the broadcast. Matt Cavender commented that he couldn’t imagine the experience of the watch party at the John MacInnes Student Ice Arena when the team wasn’t even mentioned. Tim thought it was a joke that American International College got more air time that Tech and also said that this is bulletin board material for Tech. All of the guys agreed that the only thing left for Tech to do is to go out and win a bunch of games and force ESPN to keep saying Tech’s name. The guys also briefly talked about how nice it was to have Tech 99% into the NCAA Tournament following their loss to Bemidji State.
Frozen Four picks
The guys went through and gave their Frozen Four picks in each regional. In the Allentown regional Dustin picked Quinnipiac, Rob and Tim picked Michigan and Matt picked AIC. In the Worcester regional Matt and Rob picked Western Michigan and Dustin and Tim picked Minnesota. In the Albany regional everyone picked Minnesota State. In the Loveland regional Tim and Matt picked Tech, Dustin picked Minnesota Duluth and Rob picked Denver. The guys decided to hold off on picking further games in the tournament until next week’s podcast.
Mayhem in Mankato
Overall, all of the guys agreed that this was a no-win situation for the CCHA, but they all also agreed that the league did what was right and made the best of a bad situation. They talked about the NCAA rule which states that reviews have to be initiated while all players are on the ice and whether that rule was broken or not. Rob talked about the video being very conclusive that the goal was a bad goal to which Tim countered that Dustin didn’t see what the issue was initially when Dustin saw the video Tim posted. Tim shared his assumption that the replay official’s mind was tricked and thought it was a good goal. The guys discussed the need to have all of the camera angles available to replay officials right away, rather than them getting angles after the fact. Matt said that the CCHA handled a bad situation well and was glad to see that Minnesota State’s winning goal was uncontroversial.
Cut for time
This week’s cut time for Patrons is approximately 37 minutes long. The guys talked about the tickets for the regional games and the time between the games. They talked about streaming becoming everything cable used to be. They discussed where Minnesota Duluth would be ranked if they had decided to pull a “Michigan” and skipped their series against Northern Michigan. They talked about looking forward to the possibility of Western Michigan playing Michigan in the tournament and the media field day that would come from that matchup. Wellens talked about Minnesota Duluth’s recent tournament successes. The guys talked about the Loveland regional being played in an arena that can’t be mentioned on the broadcast and Tech leaving early for the Loveland regional due to inclement weather in Houghton. A listener question was answered. Tim talked about the response he received from Dave Starman about not talking about Tech during the NCAA selection show and he also got very angry at ESPN and Starman for their lack of mentioning Tech during the show. Rob talked about the lack of care that ESPN has for college hockey. Matt Cavender talked about the difficulties of planning Misfits trips to regional games on short notice. The guys discussed what referees might be at each regional. Tim talked about how many times the WCHA tournament format changed and how he has blacked out Denver sweeping Tech historically. The guys discussed Tech getting the monkey off their back and winning a game in the Tournament. There was an extended talk about the mayhem in Mankato.
Learn More
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