UND HKY- Dane Jackson 12-16-25

North Dakota Head Hockey Coach, Dane Jackson visits with Tim & Paul about the series win against Omaha, before the holiday break and more.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And we welcome to the program. The coach is the
U and D hockey team, Dan Jackson. Morning, Dane, thanks
for having with us.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Good morning man, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
That's great to hear from me. Coach, Go ahead, Tim, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
We kind of thought, isn't there some kind of showcase
down into the cities you might be at.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
You know what I'm gonna I'm going down a little
bit later in the week to do some recruiting, but
today I'll still back with the guys. We got to
free practice kind of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday here and then
all of our guys will take off and get to
go home and enjoy some time with the friends and
family and their hometown. So yeah, it's kind of a
lighter week guys at final this week, but we're still

(00:41):
getting some not a lot of mental work for the boys.
We'll just get them out there skating and moving tucks
and try to keep the lungs and legs.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Going, keep her going. Yeah, I mean, you had it
going again this weekend with the sweep of home behind,
including Saturday night. It was we talk about it not
being a beauty, but you did what you had to
do to get the win.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Right, Yeah, yeah, I was. You know, like we say,
there's not too many beauties in our league. There's a
lot of open space or high end place being made.
It's a lot of a lot of hand to hand
combat and just kind of earning your ice, and you know,
I thought other guys did a good job of, you know,
managing the fuck pretty well, not giving up too many

(01:27):
great A chances and yeah, just kind of stuck together
in battle Heart for another one hundred and twenty minutes.
Not easy to get tweets in our league. And no
proud of the boys for the I guess for the
overall first half they put together.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
It was interesting. We talked about it, yes, say, because
Paul had gotten some flack from some people about why
Homer was in goal on Saturday, and there's a very
good reasons. You outlined them that it was something you
wanted to do and that he deserved.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Right, Yeah, you know obviously, Uh, I'm sure for a
lot of people they'd go, why would you ever change
when when you entrepreneurs playing so well? And that's a
trust me. We didn't make the decision lightly. It'd be
easy to put you on back in and you probably
just say analytically, he had that your best chance to
win that game. I guess yeah, it's just kind of

(02:18):
going through it again. We just felt like, uh, you know,
it's so important to have depth and have other guys going.
Gibson Homer has been really sharp in practice and a
great teammate. We felt confident he would go in and
give us a good performance and it would just give
us two guys that were kind of ready for the
second half versus just shelfing one. If we had just
kind of said, hey, we're just going to play spoons wherever,

(02:40):
and then maybe he gets hurt or gets sick, and
then all of a sudden, you got a big weekend
and you haven't played Gibson Homer for two months, probably
not going to be very ready, you know. And uh,
it was two fold. We thought he could go in
and do a really good job, and we kind of
felt it was like kind of like buying insurance. You
keep keep everybody going, and you try to keep was

(03:00):
kind of sharp and engaged, and when you invariably will
need other guys to be ready to play that they're
sharp and kind of boys to go in there. Well.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, the interesting thing to me was it isn't like
he's been He's been good. Interest Yon has been a
little better, right.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, Jan men outstanding. Uh. And Gibby was We thought
he was good. We thought we had He had a
couple of games where we didn't play great in front
of him. Yeah, he wasn't perfect. He had a couple
goals you want back along the way. But I thought
I've always thought he's been strong. So it wasn't like
we were taking out Boonar who's really hot and putting
in a guy that we didn't think could do the job. So,

(03:39):
you know, that was kind of the thought fross behind it.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
You were without some guys obviously this weekend and changed
away things you do on the power play. What'd you think?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, well it shows that we got guys that could
do the job. You know, Ben streaming over there on
that flank, uh, you know ready one timer is impressive.
So that was a you know, sometimes the things you
you get a chance to see and look at when
you when you have new guys in new spots. So
that was really nice. You know, Rick Wood moves the
buck so well. He's on the other flank, and he

(04:15):
does a really good job of kind of finding seams
and so sometimes when you when you have these whatever
challenges with with with guys being out and you put
some new guys in spots and you actually you learn
some good stuff that you know, you have different options.
So Dylan Simpson has done a really good job of
having a lot of guys ready and that power play

(04:35):
has been outstanding.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Very nice to have Rickwood back in line a bit,
just just in the naked time, right, Yeah, that was huge.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
You know, Cole Reshnie has played so many big minutes,
taking big draws, penalty killing, power play five on five
and Rickwood kind of plays all those same minutes. So
that'll be, uh, that's exciting when we get you know,
all those guys back, when we'll have rick Wood and
Rashnie and and Kernan and Joseph kind of in the middle,
I think that'll be a real strong center group, which

(05:04):
is just kind of ironic. You know, when we took
over in the beginning of April this year, we kind
of looked at and we had lost so many centiment
with the drum last year with all these guys moving on,
it was kind of an area of weakness for us,
and uh, you know, we feel pretty fortunate for the player,
but we were able to recruit and get in there
to fill those spots.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, especially when they come in and play like Rick
Wood did and Saturday night it was it was pretty good.
He was pretty good. But you kind of knew that.
I see watching the UH or reading the stories coming
out of the Canadian World Junior Camp, it looks like

(05:44):
katon Verov has got a pretty good shot. Huh.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, I think so, you know, I think he's got to. Obviously,
he's a heck of a player, a young guy, you know,
who's going against the other best kids in Canada that
are a year or two older. And yeah, he's definitely
have a chance. You know, he's big, he does the coal,
he's smart, does a lot of so many good things.
So we're pulling hard for him. Would be a really
cool experience. There's not many guys over the history of

(06:10):
the World Juniors in Canada or the USA that have
made that team as a as an underager, so we'll
be uh pulling hard for him. We have a lot
of belief that he can do it. It'll be a
cool experience for him, for sure, if you could.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I was reading it him and the other kid
that's actually younger than Keaton have been ems. What's that?

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, Carson, Carl's the other from other Manitoba there. Yeah,
he's a he's a heck of a player too. Oh.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
I was just gonna say, coach, really just kind of
reframe everything you mentioned. Practices today important for the guys
that are remaining here in town that aren't off on
a US or Canadian World Junior camp, and then of
course guys heading off for the Spangler Cup as well.
But you touched on finals week and I wanted to
you know, for fans, we worry about the you know,

(07:03):
the wins and losses. Where are we in the standings?
That's being the fan. You guys as coaches throughout the lineup.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
Uh, when you.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Recruit these guys, you obviously have to tell them we're
going to emphasize that you you do good in the
classroom there and talk about that messaging that you and
your staff take. And then how has that been received
or accepted by the guys in your locker room when
they arrive and get to it and realize that it's
both school and hockey at the same time.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Tell us a little bit about that.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, well, that kind of goes back to I think
when I was a kid, I think, my mom, you
don't get to do uh, go to your big tournaments
or playing your fun games unless you're doing well in
school and getting your homework done. So it's kind of
the same idea we talk about no mats. Maybe has
a good line it's like how you do anything is

(07:55):
how you do everything right. So always talking our guys
about just saying, hey, like how you're handling your business
on the ice, off the ice, in the classroom, how
you treating people, how you live in your life. So again,
there's not many guys that I don't think that have
come through here and really slacked in the classroom and
been great players. It's usually guys that are, you know,
sharp young men that are taking care of business and

(08:15):
in all respects and doing what you got to do.
And we've been very fortunate here to kind of say
I have a lot of guys that care about everything.
You know, some of these guys are not gonna the
year four years and probably get their degree, but you know,
education is ever wasted. So if you can get a
couple of years of school done and you know, maybe
come back later and get the rest done. That's obviously

(08:38):
a huge deal. So we've been super fortunate to have
a lot of guys that are to sharp young men,
so they're taking care of all aspects of their life,
and education is certainly a big part of it, no doubt.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
A lot of guys do that, don't They that in
school for a year or two and when they're done
playing they will come back and get my degree. I
mean happens a lot, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, And it's one of our kind of things in recruiting.
We want guys to get degrees. You know, it's it's
a big part of your life to just say, hey,
you started something and you finished it, and you know,
we'll pay for those guys to come back and get
their classes. So I know, you know Jacob Bernard Docker
left after three years, but he hunkered through and got
his degree done. Just recently, an know Tucker Pulman did

(09:24):
the same. You know a lot of these guys that
are especially if you get three years at North Dakota,
you know you're just a year away and it's very attainable.
Andrews Freeman is one of our outstanding support staff people
in the athletic department. He works closely with our guys
right from getting applying to U and D all the
way through their time here. And he follows up with

(09:46):
guys afterwards too, and it's helping guys to say, hey,
if you want to do this and this, this is
how you do it. So he's always kind of been
there here and we're calling guys and trying to a
little bit with the call here or there to hand
him to say, hey, why don't you get to your
degree done and get that's what they address. So it's, uh,
it's something that we're really proud of guys when they
stick with it and get it done.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Here we are almost half way through and you're in
first place in the NCC. Kudos for sure. Congratulations.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Yeah, thanks, I'm sure appreciate that. A lot of the
boys they've been they've been digging in and working hard,
and lots of good kids in the locker room, not kids,
young men, but you know they're there. It's a fun
group to coach because they're they're accountable guys and they're
playing the right way, and you know, it's just a
good feeling and a good, good kind of group that
we have that's kind of I think, uh, living on

(10:35):
our culture and our things we're talking about day to day.

Speaker 4 (10:37):
Yeah, it's it's certainly on display, and we have enjoyed
the ride so far. I know so much work left
to do. All the best of your players that you
have away from the program right now, we want to
see them reach their attainable goals here with the world
junior teams and to the guys that you have in
camp currently still practicing a good few days before you

(10:58):
release them for their holiday break. So we'll see you tonight.
We'll talk more about that and we appreciate your time today.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
Thanks coach, all right.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Man, thanks for the support.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Appreciate it all right, there it goes. North Dakota head
hockey coach Dane Jackson