Season 4, Episode 2 of the Chasing MacNaughton Podcast from Tech Hockey Guide; Hockey-L. This week, Tim Braun, Dustin Lindstrom and Rob Gilreath were joined by longtime Minnesota Gopher hockey fan and Hockey-L user Erik Biever. In this episode they discussed how Hockey-L got started, what made Hockey-L special, good or heated threads that took part on Hockey-L, Michigan Tech hockey alums in NHL camps and the Mel Pearson situation.
Hockey-L beginnings
Erik talked about going to Gopher games starting in 1980 and having to use the newspaper for the next ten years in order to get news and scores from other games around the country. He then talked about the advent of email, followed shortly by list servers being created, one of which was the Hockey-L list serve. Erik also talked about Hockey-L discovering the Rating Percentage Index (RPI) and working on figuring out the formula. Tim talked about his struggles building his RPI/Pairwise model. The guys also talked about some of the differences between the KRACH, RPI and Pairwise models and rankings.
What makes Hockey-L special
Erik also talked about what made Hockey-L special. He talked about getting to know fans of other teams, traveling to the Frozen Four and bridging the gap between east coast and western hockey fans. The guys spent some time speculating on whether coaches were reading Hockey-L during its heyday. There was also a discussion on the time USCO updated their site and lost all of their archived threads. Erik said that people can still sign up for Hockey-L by sending an email to LISTSERV@lists.maine.edu and put “Subscribe hockey-l” in the body.
Turn the heat up
Rob asked Erik to talk about any good or heated threads on Hockey-L throughout the years. Erik said some of the best ones revolved around pep bands, but added that scholarship versus need-based aid discussions got hot too. Erik mentioned that there were always n+1 discussion on teams who were “screwed” by the committee and the guys discussed getting screwed by math. Tim revisited his gripe on the lack of bounces that Tech seems to get in their favor.
The Joe Show
Once Erik departed the guys talked briefly about the eleven Michigan Tech hockey alums that were in NHL camps this pre-season. They didn’t spend long on the topic and transitioned to Tim talking about the Joe Show from this week. He talked about wanting to ask Joe a USports question and how he expects Lake State and Lakehead to allow more players to be dressed than normal. Tim also thought that making Alex Nordstrom the QB of the second power play unit was a good fit. The guys revisited a topic from last week about Jordy being a good hire to boost recruiting of younger athletes.
A brief interlude: Thanks to the GLIAC conference partnering with FloSports, Tech hockey fans can sign up for FloSports at a discounted rate by following this link to FloSports and using a GLIAC school email address.
The Melephant in the Room
The guys revisited the Mel Pearson situation in light of Matt Cavender’s article published last week. The main question they discussed was “was this happening at Tech”? Dustin talked about Tech getting inadvertently lucky and how it was only a matter of time before something similar happened at Tech and put Tech in the headlines. Both Rob and Tim agreed with Dustin. Tim talked about Mel not caring about how he won, only that his legacy be that he did win. The guys talked about some of the differences between Mel and Joe as coaches and what that dynamic must have been like when Joe was an assistant under Mel.
Weekend Preview
The guys briefly previewed the upcoming exhibition games against LSSU and Lakehead University. Dustin hoped that someone would step up and become an obvious scorer, and Rob agreed that he would love to have a good threat start to work out. Tim talked about hoping to see Logan Ganie rise up to the occasion this year.
Cut for time
This week’s cut time for Patrons is approximately 21 minutes long. Dustin talked about his thought on the biggest loss of the USCHO archives and Tim told a story about being funny. Rob talked about finding and drinking Pigs Eye Pilsner. Tim told a story about the Misfits crashing at his house and them being abandoned at a restaurant. He also talked about the time he got kicked out of The Barry Event Center. They guys talked about some of the most recent news to appear on Hockey-L and Tim shared a story about getting his betting money back. The guys provided more thoughts on college hockey and Hockey-L and the effects those two have on them. Rob had audio troubles in his headphones and he and Tim planned out when they might be able to go to a Tech game in Houghton together. There was further discussion on the Mel Pearson situation.
Learn More
For additional information and more episode liner notes, check out our episode overview on Tech Hockey Guide. To make sure we can afford all our fancy equipment we purchased for the podcast and the THG website in general, please check out our Patreon page and consider joining. Patrons at our Black Level or above receive an authentic MTU jersey patch and access to extra podcast content including extended versions of our other episodes. This week’s extended version is about 88 minutes.
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Follow us on twitter at ChasingMacPod. You can submit questions through our email address, ChasingMac@techhockeyguide.com. Don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Please rate and review to help us reach more people, and tell your friends. Please check out Jonathan Zamaites’ series previews every Friday and Mike Anleitner’s Old Dog in Texas column every Wednesday (you should definitely read this week’s column). Also, keep an eye out for new recruiting articles on Tuesdays. As always, special thanks to our patron saint Doc McResin for his generous donation to get this thing running, we hope you enjoy. Also, thanks to The Thank You Notes for all the bumpers in today’s episode. If you like what you hear, check them out at thethankyounotes.bandcamp.com
