Season 6 Episodes 8 and 9 of the Chasing MacNaughton Podcast from Tech Hockey Guide; Collection of Beards and Lifehousing. This week Tim Braun, Rob Gilreath and Matt Cavender were joined by sports reporter for Sioux Falls Live, Trent Singer. In this episode they discussed the CCHA pre-season ballots, Michigan Tech’s outlook in the upcoming season, predictions for the final CCHA league standings, streaming on Midco Sports and the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame inductees.
Pre-season ballot circle of fun
The conversation started with the guys bemoaning the fact this was another year where a team made a splash in the transfer portal after the pre-season ballots had already been submitted. Trent talked about Minnesota State looking good in their first game against Michigan and Tim brought up the seemingly east/west split in the CCHA league scheduling this season. The guys talked about how well the CCHA did during out of conference play in the opening weekend and Matt continued to praise Augustana.
Trent talked about his pre-season ballot in which he had St. Thomas winning the league, Bemidji State second and Michigan Tech third. The guys all agreed that the only consistent outlook for the CCHA this season was Ferris State and Northern Michigan finishing at the bottom of the standings. Matt and Tim both credited Northern Michigan for looking better than expected in their exhibition game against Michigan Tech.
The guys talked about how the lofty expectations might have affected Michigan Tech last season. Trent thought Michigan Tech might perform better this year with some of the expectations off their back. He also thought the league would be very competitive with plenty of parity between the teams.
Michigan Tech season outlook
The guys switched their focus to Michigan Tech and Trent had two points of emphasis he discussed. The first was to remind Michigan Tech fans to reset their expectations for goaltending this season, since none of the goalies on Michigan Tech’s roster is likely to replicate the play of Blake Pietila. Trent’s second point was wondering how Michigan Tech will replace the every night forwards who departed after last season. Rob talked about how important it is that Isaac Gordon avoids a sophomore slump.
Tim talked about being happy that Owen Baker made it onto the scoresheet during Michigan Tech’s game against Northern Michigan. Tim also praised Elias Jansson’s play on the power play. The guys talked about Michigan Tech’s fifth line from the game which was consistently talked up by head coach Joe Shawhan. Tim didn’t think that Lauri Raiman or Philip Fankl would get much playing time this season but expected that Alex Nordstrom would get playing time on the fourth line.
The guys looked at some of the upcoming games for Michigan Tech. Tim talked about the Cactus Cup happening in Palm Springs and all of the guys hoped that Michigan Tech would get off to a better start this season compared to last. Trent talked about Michigan Tech being weak on defense last season due to lack of experience. He thought the defense would be a strength for them at the start of this season now that the main defensemen had a year of experience under their belts.
Midco Sports streaming
The guys talked about the broadcast for the Michigan Tech game this past weekend. Rob thought the stream looked good and Tim also credited Ferris State’s stream for improving over last season. The guys re-hashed some of the fans complaints about the price point for the Midco Sports service, but also pointed out some positives for the fans. The guys discussed the condensed games that will be published along with the highlight packages the CCHA will be putting together. Trent brought up a Friday night highlight show that Perry Laskaris (Director of Strategic Communications & Brand Advancement for the CCHA) will be putting together this season. Tim and Rob were both very excited for the condensed games.
Shoutouts
With the recent gutting of many employees from The Rink Live publication, Trent wanted to be sure to shout out Sydney Wolf. He believes that she is a fantastic reporter, and any publication would be lucky to have her. Please give her a follow Here @sydneyisawolf.
End of show miscellaneous whatevers
As usual, the guys continued on with the episode for several minutes after saying there was nothing else to talk about. They discussed the upcoming class being inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame and Tim continued his campaign to get inducted as well in the future. Trent plugged his podcast “Reporters’ Corner” that he hosts with Jared Rubado of the Bemidji State Pioneer. Matt talked about his new job driving a Zamboni.
Cut for time
This weeks cut time for Patrons is approximately 8 minutes. Tim got angry at the sport of baseball. Tim talked about farting in a movie theater. The guys discussed Shohei Ohtani, betting on baseball and the baseball Hall of Fame.
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 91 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, and Psychobob on Whatnot.
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.
