Season 4 Episode 20 of the Chasing MacNaughton Podcast from Tech Hockey Guide; The CCHA Show. This week Tim Braun, Dustin Lindstrom, Rob Gilreath and Matt Cavender were joined by Director of Strategic Communications & Brand Advancement for the CCHA Perry Laskaris for a crossover episode with The CCHA Show Pocast. In this episode they discussed the Pairwise rankings, possible home ice clinching scenarios for CCHA teams, last weekend’s CCHA games, the Joe Shawhan Hour and Michigan Tech’s upcoming series against Bowling Green.
Pairwise
The guys started the Pairwise conversation by comparing it to KRACH and Rating Percentage Index (RPI). All of the guys agreed that it was nice to have the Pairwise system in place to choose the tournament field rather than a committee in a “smoke filled room”. There was a discussion on the NCAAs recent decision to not include Stonehill College in the selection considerations. Tim talked about Tech’s series against Alaska Fairbanks in October and how different results would have resulted in a drastically different position for Tech in the current rankings. The guys discussed some ideas on how the selection committee could play a bigger role in the NCAA Tournament process. There was a discussion on some of the drawbacks to the Pairwise and RPI rankings.
CCHA home ice and league parity
According to Perry, Lake Superior State is the only CCHA team that is mathematically out of contention for home ice in the CCHA playoffs. Perry talked about Northern Michigan and St. Thomas having a very difficult road to get home ice and emphasized the fact that there is only one point separating fourth and fifth in the conference standings. The guys talked about St. Thomas and how well they’ve played in the last couple weeks. Tim talked about Tech having a great shot at winning the MacNaughton Cup in the last weekend against Minnesota State. The guys discussed the CCHA playoffs and they all agreed that it would not be surprising to see multiple first round upsets.
The topic of which teams the guys would want Tech to see in the conference playoffs came up again this week. Tim wanted didn’t want to see Lake Superior State or St. Thomas and said he’d rather Tech play Northern Michigan. Matt said he wanted no part of Ferris State and talked about losing his mind when St. Thomas beat Minnesota State last weekend. Tim shared some stats on where Blake Pietila ranks nationally among goaltenders and made a case that Blake should be a Richter Award front runner. Perry talked about about the league awards that Blake has won and thought that Blake had a good shot at being the national goaltender of the month for January.
Bemidji State series review
The Bemidji State series review started with Tim talking about his anger at the linesman for not dropping the puck at the end of the game which lead to a Michigan Tech faceoff violation penalty. Perry came to the officials defense and reminded Tim that refs aren’t perfect. Tim commented that the Friday game wasn’t a terribly exciting game to be at and also talked about never feeling threatened by Bemidji State during the game. Dustin shared the same thoughts for the Saturday game when he was in attendance. The guys discussed some of the broadcast issues from the Friday game and Rob got on his soapbox and put in a request to the camera operators to zoom out and show him the whole zone. Tim talked about Tech’s power play unit and how they’ve looked more improved lately.
Happy Birthday to The Misfits!
On Monday, The Misfits officially turned 19 and Tim filled Perry in on how The Misfits came to be. Rob also brought up the Bemidji State broadcast crew getting an education on The Misfits history during the weekend.
The Joe Show
The guys briefly discussed this week’s Joe Shawhan Hour. Tim was surprised at a couple of Joe’s answers to listener questions and Rob mentioned being happy to hear Joe give praise to assistant coaches Jordy Murray and Tyler Shelast. Tim talked about Joe demonstrating his growth as a coach by being able to put trust in his younger assistants.
Bowling Green series preview
The guys almost forgot to preview the upcoming Winter Carnival series against Bowling Green, but Matt saved the day and reminded them they needed to get predictions in. Matt took his usual homer roll and picked a full six point sweep for Tech. Rob predicted the same and added that the weekend would look completely different than last weekend against Bemidji State. Dustin predicted a split and Tim predicted that Tech will get four points via a shutout win on Friday and a shootout loss on Saturday. Perry predicted that everyone would have a good time.
After the predictions were completed, the guys gave Perry a rundown of Winter Carnival and all that it entails.
Cut for time
This week’s cut time for Patrons is approximately 27 minutes long. Matt and Rob talked about their non-engineering degrees. There was extended discussion on donations to St. Thomas University and Tim told a story about a love fest. The guys discussed the rough broadcast from the Friday game at Bemidji. Tim talked about participating in the Teddy Bear toss and Rob told a story about his one Teddy Bear toss experience. The guys discussed the Beanpot tournament, which was being played while they were recording. There was a discussion on the GLI and the gaps between some of the teams playing each other at it. Dustin gave a restaurant review from his trip to Bemidji and Tim gave a food review from his trip too. There was a discussion on driving to Bemidji. Tim talked about being pissed off at Jay Cuda on Twitter about a couple of Venn Diagrams Jay made. The guys discussed wanting the BIG to add more hockey schools.
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 117 minutes.
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Follow us on twitter at ChasingMacPod. Join our Discord server for discussions covering Michigan Tech hockey and more. 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 and Zach Aufdemberge’s Analytics With Augie. Also, keep an eye out for new recruiting articles that Tim Braun writes occasionally. 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.
