Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
As we welcome to the program from the ground, boord Hero.
He's writing about racing, he's writing about tennis, he's writing
about hockey. He's got it all. Brad Schlossman, Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Brad, good morning guy.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
We were glad we got you. As like I had
already mentioned, had he turned on tennis yet he hadn't
quite done that for to start his day. Because they're
at they're they're playing at roll on garrows right now.
It's the French Open. If I'm not mistaken, right.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
That is correct. I was an entertaining tournament.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Have you have you ever played on clay surface yourself?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I have is unbelievably different that the spin is definitely
uh more prominent on clay. So if you hit a
ton of top spin, it's going to kick more. If
you slice it, it's going to drop more. Any other thing.
Like the first time you play on it, you have
to learn how to slide because you can't plant your feet.
(00:59):
If you plant your foot, you're just going to fall down.
So you have to learn how to hit it and
slide into your shots so you can pivot the other way.
And that was the biggest change for me. It took
like two days to learn how to slide. After that,
it was fine, But it's a process to learn how
to slide on clay.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
That's interesting. Yeah, it's got to be kind of fun
once you kind of learn, I guess basically, but there's
a whole skill in that. The reason we're calling you, Brad.
We've seen all your writings and jottings here in recent
days over the weekend, we've seen the social media postings.
Tim and I are a little bit limited as to
because everything has to be finalized. Being employees at the
(01:36):
University of North Dakota, can you tell us at least
first and foremost who these individuals are, because you get
to say it who, what positions they play, and are
they arriving on campus for this coming semester.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, so you indeed got verbal commitments from Coole Reshni
and Keaton Verhoff, two players who are in the Western
Hockey League. Players who played in the Western Hockey League
have been ineligible for decades, but there was a rules
change last November. The NCAA said starting in the twenty
(02:09):
five twenty sixth season, players who were in players who
played Canadian major juniors are now eligible for college hockey.
Nobody really knew how this would turn out. I think
there was a perception, especially in Canada, that the top
players would not come down to the US, they would
(02:30):
still stay there. I think that perception was shared by
a lot of college coaches. However, you indeed just went
out and got two of the big, big time players.
Cole Reshni is a forward. He is expected to go
in the back half of the first round of the
draft this upcoming year. Keaton Verhoff is a defenseman. He
(02:53):
is not draft eligible until twenty twenty six. He is
actually sixteen years old right now. I'll turn seventeen in
a couple of weeks. Both of them are coming this year.
Keaton Verhoff could wind up being the highest drafted player
to ever play at U and D. He is going
to be going somewhere around the Jonathan Taves or Jake
(03:16):
Sanderson range.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So they've got two just really prominent players. And because
these usually these Canadian junior players would be back for
a couple more years playing in these two playing Victoria.
Their head coach, by the way, is James Patrick, the
former Vender un D defenseman up there. So this is
(03:42):
like national news in Canada. Like there a lot of
people are in shock that these players are coming down
to college. I'm not I thought that this would happen.
I remember when I wrote a column eighteen months ago
or so that I thought this was going to happen.
I had almost every college coach tell me I was wrong.
But it's looking like that is going to happen, that
(04:04):
the top players are going to end up leaving Canadian
major juniors and coming to college. And these are just
two really prominent players, I feel a because they really
help you. And he's roster next year. In a year
after that, I'm assuming they're both going to be here
for two years. And b right now, I got a
(04:25):
text from a former NHL player up in Western Canada
and he said, I was in the rinks this weekend
and all anybody is talking about in Canada is North
Dakota right now. And now, all of a sudden, North
Dakota is right on the front of the raidar of
every player in Western Canada.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
So it's just a really big development.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Tim, How would you what would you ask of Brad
this morning?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Well? I was of the same thought press as Brad
that this was going to happen, and I even thought
that the young ones would be some of the top
level ones that would be coming. So it doesn't surprise
me at all. But North Cota has done a great job,
haven't they see?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
And if I can just interject and add on top
of Tim's comment as well, because here's my here was
my thinking, Brad, and you know, and maybe I was
kind of drawn into the CHL kool aid right in
the dub and the O and all those places, that
it would be the ones that would be aging out
that would be arriving to college hockey. And would you
say that the management and the ownership of those Canadian
(05:30):
Hockey League teams were thinking the same thing, that they
would retain their youth and their incoming youth players and
it would be the older players that would be aging
out that would making moves to college hockey. And it
hasn't gone that way, or at least this is the
first shoot a drop, is what you're saying, correct.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So they thought so like you HLT after your twenty
year old yeer, and they thought the guys that we're
going to be coming dowlling, we're guys that had expiring elligibility.
There I think the reasons why they'll come down two
or multi prong one. College is just a better level
of competition. You know, major juniors sixteen to twenty they
(06:09):
do not have. The guys are not as bigger and strong.
I mean, imagine you and D playing against guys who
are sixteen to twenty. Like we see how like eighteen
year olds sometimes struggle coming into college hockey. Imagine you know,
so it's just stronger. I think the you know, you
and D can go up there and do you want
(06:31):
to play in front of twelve thousand people a night?
Do you want these type of developmentals. Here's what the
weight room looks like. And a lot of the college
programs have these exceptional locker rooms and weight rooms and
nutrition programs and all these different things for development. So
I think that's the second thing. And the third thing
I think is college is really fun. And these the
(06:54):
first two guys who go, are going to be calling
back to their bodies and they're going to be saying
this is unbelievable, like you have to come next year.
And it's the things away from the rink that these
guys are. You know, you're living with your bodies. You're
going and hanging out with them and doing things with them.
I think there's that aspect too that everyone is underestimating,
(07:15):
and I think once a few of them come, they're
going to be calling back and saying this is great.
And to Tim's point, I mean, I would have had
a hard time believing they could have put together a
roster like this in the short amount of time they did,
with the number of spots they had to fill. And
this is kind of the cherry on top that. Oh,
(07:38):
by the way, you just pulled the two most prominent
Canadians to leave to this point. So it's pretty good
work by you know, Brain Chiswick and Dane Jackson.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Well, I was just going to say too. So you're
you're looking at players here and potential players in the
future that like, are scoring at ridiculous rates points per
points per game, that are turning heads, that are obviously
getting either going to be drafted high or future going
to be drafted high. And if they were to go
(08:11):
back to the DUB or the O or the Q
or whatever, you know, maybe they just continue to do that.
And yet you're saying there's motivation by these players to
come in early at seventeen, at eighteen, at nineteen, to
maybe challenge themselves to play against twenty three twenty four
year old men that are in the college ranks and
(08:31):
that will benefit them in the long term. Is that
what you're.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Saying, That's exactly it. You know, Cole Rashni in playofs
this year, he had twenty five points in ten games, Like, like,
what is this doing for you to go back there
next year? Like at this point he probably looks around
and says, Okay, I'm ready for the next thing. Like
and so I think I do think some of the
(08:55):
players that come down are going to be surprised how
challenging college is, right, really think some of them are
going to be in for a big surprise. But I
do think, you know, Rashnie and Whrhoff understand what the
jump is and they're eager to take that.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
On last question for me, and then I'll let Tim
ask one more if there's and this is just big
picture thinking, and I was thinking, and I said it
to you already offline, is that you know, one of
the things that I don't think major junior maybe contemplated,
And maybe I wasn't even contemplating because I've already said,
you know what the major junior opportunity now to college hockey.
(09:35):
Does that change things in the USHL? Does that change
things in the NAHL? Does that make the HL more
like the USHL more than ever before to college hockey?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Now? I think so. And the reason the CHL had
these high end players for longer is because there was
nowhere for them to go. So there's an agreement with
the NHL. If you don't make the NHL roster, they
can't put an eighteen or nineteen year old in the
American League and they're already ineligible for college. But these
(10:09):
guys were just stuck there. And like in the USHL,
when a kid is tearing it up at eighteen, he
just goes to college, goes to the next level. They
didn't have that option. They didn't have an option to
go anywhere. Now all of a sudden, there's the option.
So I do think that is correct. I don't think
every CHL player is going to be ready to play
college at eighteen. I think some of them will stay
(10:29):
till they age out. But the special ones, the Coole Rushnees,
he's ready at eighteen.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Tim, I was just going to say, Brad, what do
you think development? What part that plays in this? Because
when you're practicing basically four or five days a week,
You're only going to get better. Does that play into
it at all?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
It does. And I know there's a very very prominent
player in the chl who that is part of their
They're going to end up coming to college somewhere, and
that that was one thing that his can't mention to
me was he just had a fourteen day stretch where
he practiced one time. They were on the bus that
(11:15):
often and they said, you know, this isn't good, but
he's going to move on to college. I do think
they're you know, the strength programs. I'm watching Connor Badard
play for the Chicago Blackhawks. He could have used a
year at college. He could he could have used the
year to build strength and play against older players and
(11:36):
understand what the two hundred foot game is going to
be at the next level. So I think right now
the reason that players are going to choose is the
development of it, and I think the next few years
the reason players are going to choose is development plus
college life and lifestyles. Wow, so I always going to
be interesting.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
I always thought hockey. Dad's told me that we got
to play games. We've got to play lots of I
thought hockey. Dad's told me we got to play a
lot of hockey games.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Well, I think the I think some there's some reads
that there are some people who will tell you that,
But right now, I think there's a lot of re
examining of how big and strong you can be when
when you play a manageable number of games. And the
other thing is when you're playing not as many games,
(12:25):
the games are so much more intense and they're so
fast paced like these college You know, one thing I've
heard from a couple of guys who have left you
and d is they said they have to learn how
to manage their energy, like you can't just go like
you do in every college game. And that's one thing
that makes college hockey so great is that the pace
and intensity of every single game is it is even
(12:49):
better than pro hockey because they're playing two games a
weekend and they can have that energy to do that
they're not playing, you know, four games in the week.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Wow. Well, Brad, well, these guys, these guys will find
out when they run into Bennett's mullick, right.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
You know what. I watched the Memorial Cup final this
week and that was the one thing that was going
through my mind. I said, some of these young guys
are going to have a heart awakening when they when
they run into Bennett' mullock in the corner. It ain't
going to be fun. There aren't any Bennett's mullet in
the CHL.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Well, I was just gonna say, Brad, thank you for
joining us number one. Number two, Apparently you and Tim
are the only people that maybe foresaw this, because it
sounds like the CHL ownership management coaching maybe didn't see
it this way. Even college coaches in a lot of
ways and a lot of aspects didn't see it this way.
This is perhaps an Armageddon moment, and the shoe dropped
(13:47):
over the weekend and you were following it as we
always knew you would. But that's why I wanted to
get the story, because that you answered my questions expansively,
and I really appreciate that. And well, this is why
I tell people, and I Tom with us on Fridays,
they tell him, get your subscription to the Herald, get
you get these things. I appreciate Brad investigating these things
(14:07):
and him doing the deep digging and the deep dives.
So Number one, have a great vacation. Thanks for taking
your time today and we appreciate you drop it in
and giving us all the details on this being a
massive moment in the world of college hockey to the
chl Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Absolutely, thanks for having me on. Guys.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Hey, thanks, Brad, have a good vacane. We will maybe
pick your brain again sometime soon.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Okay, absolutely perfect, Thanks guys.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
All right, there goes Brad Schlassman. He is the you
indie hockey beat writer. Doesn't get much better than that.
And that's those are my questions. I don't know if
there were any of your questions out there, but I
think Brad did it and summarized it fantastically. We'll put
it up on the Complete Utter Nonsense podcasting area of
our show page there on the iHeartRadio app a little
later this morning, so it'll be available to you if
(14:55):
you only got in half of the way. So seven
fifty three News time from Eagles Chrescrill by the way,
large lavash for a price of a small special today
and Eagles Crest over at Kingswalk. There's your news on
the fan.