Season 5 Episodes 33 and 34 of the Chasing MacNaughton Podcast from Tech Hockey Guide; Matub Let’s Talk and AI Talking Points. This week, Tim Braun, Dustin Lindstrom, Rob Gilreath and Matt Cavender were joined by the host of the Reporting As Eligible podcast Matt “Matub” Matonich. With Matub, the guys discussed Bell Let’s Talk Day (which occurs this year on Wednesday, January 24th), Matub’s story about losing a close friend and Matub’s advice for those who may be struggling with mental health. Once Matub left, the guys discussed Michigan Tech’s series against Bemidji State, Michigan Tech’s position in the CCHA standings and Michigan Tech’s upcoming series against Lake Superior State.
Matub Let’s Talk
Tim started off by asking Matub why he always ends his podcast episodes with the line “call your best friend, tell them you love them, it’s not too late until it actually is, open your best bottle, life is short”. Matub told a story about a friend of his who recently passed away from cancer, and how they had grown distant in recent years due to various life circumstances. Matub talked about visiting his friend in the hospital and the two picking up right where they left off when they used to hang out in the basement of Matub’s dad’s house. Matub talked about dealing with the survivor’s guilt since his friend passed and how he has been working through it.
Tim brought up the fact that there are many options to care for mental health these days, ranging from sessions paid for by employers to online therapy. Tim also talked about the stigma that exists in many people’s heads behind getting mental health treatment. The guys discussed how important it is to be oneself no matter who their friend group is, rather than hiding behind a façade. Matub gave an example of this by telling a story about his friend loving Golden Girls and spreading that love to others. Tim outlined how the Mitch’s Misfits are an important outlet for many to express their quirks and be themselves.
Matub continued the conversation about his friend, telling the story about his original cancer diagnosis which included chemo treatment, followed by a second diagnosis after being declared cancer free. Matub talked about his friend’s love of music, specifically making and playing guitars which he did right up until he passed. Matt talked about the importance of taking an inventory on life to see what’s going well and focus on those aspects.
Football tangent
Once Matub left, the guys turned their focus to football for a few minutes. Tim did some talking about the Green Bay Packers that was largely ignored by Matt and myself (#ONEPRIDE always and forever). However, Tim insisted that the videos he was talking about be included in this week’s liner notes. If you’re a Packers fan, first off I’m sorry, and I hope you enjoy these. If you’re not a Packers fan, count your lucky stars and don’t torture yourself and leave these videos unclicked.
Bemidji State series review
After getting the football talk out of Tim’s system, the guys turned their attention to Michigan Tech’s series last weekend against Bemidji State. The guys expressed their frustration at the number of times Michigan Tech has managed to make the opposing goaltender look like a All-Star. They discussed Michigan Tech’s power play and Matt thought that it looked awesome and talked about seeing the seeds of creativity showing up.
The guys talked about Michigan Tech losing on Saturday, despite looking like the better team for most of the game. Tim brought up the shot totals for both games and wanted to see the expected goals for Michigan Tech on the weekend. There was a discussion on Kyle Kukkonen being injured and the guys talked about Chase Pietila emerging as the top defenseman for Michigan Tech.
CCHA Standings
Mixed in with the Bemidji State talk was a conversation about the CCHA standings. Matt talked about Michigan Tech needing to avoid looking past Lake Superior State and Tim talked about Minnesota State winning the Points Per Game race in the conference. Later in the show the guys talked about many of the teams below Michigan Tech in the standings winning.
Lake Superior State Predictions
There wasn’t much conversation on the upcoming series against Lake Superior State. The guys dove straight into predictions with Matt picking a Michigan Tech sweep by 4-2 and 6-3 scores on the weekend. Dustin kept his streak of being a downer and picked a Lake Superior State sweep. Rob thought that the wheels were back on the Michigan Tech bus and picked a Michigan Tech Sweep. Tim pointed out the need for Michigan Tech to sweep this weekend if they wanted home ice in the CCHA playoffs, but ultimately picked a split for the weekend.
Cut for time
This week’s cut time for Patrons is approximately 34 minutes long. The guys discussed the amount of snow that falls in Houghton/Hancock and Matt provided his metric on how he determines if it’s “snowing” or not. There was extended conversation about networking within a cheese making facility and the guys discussed some of the worst smelling jobs they’d been on. Dustin asked Matub if he’d had an increase in Detroit Lions fans reaching out to his podcast after the controversy around a Lions player “reporting as eligible” in a recent game. Matt shared his feelings on Stonehill University hockey after watching one of their recent games.
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 140 minutes.
RAW AUDIO: This post is for patrons at the Silver Level ($25/ mo) or above which includes unedited audio and usually drops the night the podcast is recordeded.
RAW VIDEO: This post is for patrons at the Gold Level ($10/mo) or above which includes unedited video and usually drops the morning after the podcast is recorded.
EXTENDED AUDIO: This post is for patrons at the Black Level ($5/mo) or above which includes extended audio content and usually drops the night after or 2nd morning after the podcast is recorded.
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Check out Tech Leadership 4.0: Leading in a Technologically Driven World and The Power of Deduction: Failure Modes & Effects Analysis for Design: Second Edition written by our very own Old Dog, Mike Anleitner
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, Mike Anleitner’s Old Dog in Texas column every Wednesday, Zach Aufdemberge’s Analytics With Augie and Nathaniel Brose’s nationwide hockey columns. Also, keep an eye out for new recruiting articles that Nathan Cima writes. 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.
