Season 6 Episodes 1 & 2 of the Chasing MacNaughton Podcast from Tech Hockey Guide; Toothpaste Back In The Tube and Third Fiddle. This week in Episode 1 Tim Braun and Rob Gilreath sat down in Houghton with former Huskies Brent Peterson and Jeff Mikesch. In this episode they discussed Brent and Jeff playing together at Michigan Tech, their roads leading to playing at Michigan Tech, the coaches Brent and Jeff played under and travelling to away games during their playing years. In Episode 2, Tim Braun, Rob Gilreath and Matt Cavender sat down with THG’s own recruiting guru Nathan Cima. In this episode they discussed all aspects of the 2024-2025 Michigan Tech Huskies hockey team including players to watch, their concerns for the season, potential lineup pairings and Mitch’s Misfits 21st birthday.
Mitch’s Misfits can (legally) drink!
On October 18, 2024 Mitch’s Misfits will turn 21. To celebrate this historic milestone, former Misfit’s president Matt Cavender is organizing a celebration during the series against Clarkson on October 25th and 26th. Tech Hockey Guide is working to secure a block of tickets for the games along with ice time after one of the games for a friendly pickup hockey game between students and alumni. Signup for the celebration can be found HERE.
The path to Houghton
The conversation with Brent and Jeff started with them talking about their journey to play at Michigan Tech. Brent talked about playing junior hockey in Thunder Bay, Ontario and being recruited to Michigan Tech to play. He talked about wanting play in the WCHA and how he grew to love the area. Jeff talked about growing up in the Upper Peninsula and playing high school hockey at Hancock High School. He talked about playing junior hockey in Dubuque, Iowa before coming to Michigan Tech.
Brotherly love
The guys talked about playing at Michigan Tech with their brothers and both said it was an awesome experience. This turned into a discussion about some of the current family connections that have been developed at Michigan Tech in the more recent years. Jeff talked about modern day coaches playing more of a General Manager role due to the ease players have in transferring to different schools. Brent talked about players putting pressure on themselves and needing a good opportunity to develop.
Tim pointed out that neither Brent nor Jeff had the same coaching staff for any of the four years they were each at Michigan Tech. Brent talked about the desire for players and coaches alike to improve themselves and move to better opportunities. Brent also talked about having to grow as a player both on ice and as a human.
The appeal of Michigan Tech
The guys talked about what appeals to Michigan Tech as players. Brent talked about the environment and the atmosphere of playing at the Mac and how important it is that the students and community want to be there watching the games. Tim talked about the free golf for students helping to attract players as well. Jeff talked about the Mac being a fun place to watch games and also shouted out the students and Misfit’s involvement of making the atmosphere fun.
Story time
There were a couple stories told by Brent and Jeff during the episode. One story involved former head coach Bob Mancini forcing the players to “reset” the season by turning in all their gear and having it re-assigned. Jeff talked about Michigan Tech beating Colorado College in the WCHA tournament after Colorado College had been ranked #1 all season long. Another story involved a trip to Alaska during Jeff’s freshman season. The story went that goaltender Luciano Caravaggio was being heckled by the Alaska fans and players and took a penalty after taking a skaters legs out. Later in the week during coach Bob Mancini’s radio show, Jeff called in and pretended to be a fan giving Mancini a hard time about his goaltending taking a penalty. Mancini, unaware it was Jeff calling, defended Caravaggio and ripped into Jeff and his play during the series. It wasn’t until Jeff’s senior year that he told Mancini it had been him calling.
Patron questions
Episode two started right out of the gate with Patreon questions. The first asked which of the new arrivals to the team the guys were most excited to watch. Tim made the guys pick one freshman and one transfer in their answer. Nathan’s answer for the fresham was Rylan Brown, though Nathan thought Rylan might not get much playing time. Nathan picked Stiven Sardarian as his most exciting transfer. Matt picked Tom Leppa as his freshman to watch based on Tech’s success in recruiting in Finland in recent years. Matt was torn between Tech’s two transfers from Michigan State University, Owen Baker and Viktor Hurtig as his transfers to watch. Rob admitted he was not as up to date on the newcomers as Nathan and Matt and said he was excited to see the foreign kids getting used to playing on campus and wanted to see what happened with the goaltending situation.
The second Patron question asked the guys to talk about their biggest concern for this season’s Michigan Tech team. Nathan gave the ever perpetual answer of “where’s the scoring going to come from”. He talked about the high potential for a couple of the players, but whether they achieved that potential remained to be seen. Nathan and Tim talked about whether Sardarian would be a good fit at the center position. Matt thought that goaltending would be a concern given the lack of playing time for the goaltenders on the roster. Rob echoed Nathan’s idea and wondered where the scoring would come from.
Other questions entering the season
Tim and Nathan talked for a bit about whether this years crop of defenseman would produce more scoring. Nathan thought it was a possibility and specifically called out Nick Williams as a player who could get on the score sheet more often. Nathan also pointed out freshman Tyler Miller as a player who moves the puck well and could get decent playing minutes this season. Later, the guys talked about Viktor Hurtig being the only true shut down defenseman on the roster.
Matt asked who on the roster was going to win faceoffs throughout the season. Tim pointed out the lack of team experience at center and Nathan provided stats showing that faceoffs aren’t that important over the large sample size of a season.
The guys discussed the goalie situation this season and Tim shared that he though Max Vayrynen would play 3/4 of the games. Nathan disagreed with this and thought it would be closer to 50/50 between Vayrynen and Derek Mullahy. Tim talked about needing to avoid burning out Vayrynen by playing him in too many games.
Lastly, the guys covered the forwards, noting that the biggest hole to fill would be at center. Nathan gave his thoughts on some possible line pairings, including where Jack Works best slots in. Tim brought up the change in roster size that is supposed to happen next season and how wondered how it might affect Michigan Tech.
New coach on the block
Tim shared some of his insider knowledge that the University was well into the process of hiring a third assistant coach for the hockey team. He thought that a name should be announced soon and speculated that the University wanted the position to have goaltender experience.
Misfits travel fund
At the end of the episode, the guys talked about the goal of setting up an endowment for the Misfits to use as a travel fund to future Michigan Tech hockey games. Tim shared his plans of asking former Husky Matt Roy to help with reaching the fundraising goal.
Get the word out about THG
The last thing the guys discussed was ideas on how to engage students more and get the word out about THG on campus. If any of you readers have thoughts or ideas, reach out to Tim or any of the THG staff on our Discord server and let us know!
Cut for time
This week’s cut time for Patrons is approximately 28 minutes long. In Episode 1, there was a conversation about Mancini recruiting goalies during Brent and Jeff’s playing days. Rob talked about running around the Mac as a kid. Brent talked about different playing styles with kids in current days and how coaches have to adjust. The guys talked about last seasons game in the NCAA tournament between Michigan Tech and Boston College. The guys talked about travelling to Colorado and Alaska during their playing days. There was a conversation about the Final Five in Milwaukee, Wis. Brent and Jeff talked about doing a two mile run on campus. In Episode 2 there was a conversation about pronoucing a Russian players name and the Ontario Super Hockey League. Matt talked about snubbing former Michigan Tech Hockey players on the invites to his wedding.
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 151 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 recorded.
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.
Mitch’s Misfits Amazon wishlist is still having items added as we figure it out, but you can take a look by clicking here and a reminder, if you rate the Podcast 5-stars, we’ll read your review on the podcast. Thanks again to our sponsors: Arcadia Insurance Group and Aaron Pieltia, Fiebke Dental in downtown Rhinelander, Wis. and Livonia Technical Services.
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.
