January 20, 2025 • 47 mins
Hosts Jim Connelly (@jimmyconnelly), Derek Schooley (@derekschooley), and Ed Trefzger (@EdTrefzger) review games of the weekend and news of the week.
They look at Boston College's impressive three-win week leading up to challenging games ahead, Western Michigan's excellent form, and BU's return to form are examined in depth. The analysis extends to the disappointing weekend for Providence and the need for a quick recovery. They also touch on Minnesota State’s prospects, Arizona State’s climb, and the Cinderella story of Stonehill's upset win. The episode concludes with a buy-or-sell segment on potential NCAA rule changes, including a fifth-year eligibility discussion and whether a Major Junior player could win next year's Hobey Baker Award.
Times are approximate:
00:15 Introduction
01:12 Boston College's impressive week
03:11 Providence's tough weekend
05:19 Western Michigan's winning streak
11:31 Arizona State's surprising success
18:01 UConn's rise in Hockey East
20:51 Stonehill's upset victory
24:35 Historic Weekend for Army hockey
26:38 Celebrating the Army/Air Force rivalry
28:35 Buy or Sell: NCAA tournament predictions
32:19 Debating conference strengths
35:31 Perennial powers in the NCAA tournament
38:37 CHL Players and the Hobey Baker Award
41:29 Fifth Year eligibility?
47:24 Conclusion and wrap-up
They look at Boston College's impressive three-win week leading up to challenging games ahead, Western Michigan's excellent form, and BU's return to form are examined in depth. The analysis extends to the disappointing weekend for Providence and the need for a quick recovery. They also touch on Minnesota State’s prospects, Arizona State’s climb, and the Cinderella story of Stonehill's upset win. The episode concludes with a buy-or-sell segment on potential NCAA rule changes, including a fifth-year eligibility discussion and whether a Major Junior player could win next year's Hobey Baker Award.
Times are approximate:
00:15 Introduction
01:12 Boston College's impressive week
03:11 Providence's tough weekend
05:19 Western Michigan's winning streak
11:31 Arizona State's surprising success
18:01 UConn's rise in Hockey East
20:51 Stonehill's upset victory
24:35 Historic Weekend for Army hockey
26:38 Celebrating the Army/Air Force rivalry
28:35 Buy or Sell: NCAA tournament predictions
32:19 Debating conference strengths
35:31 Perennial powers in the NCAA tournament
38:37 CHL Players and the Hobey Baker Award
41:29 Fifth Year eligibility?
47:24 Conclusion and wrap-up
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Usccho dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome to us Echo weekend review from Monday, January twentieth,
twenty twenty five. I met Trefsker alongside Jim Connolly and
Derek Schooley. It was a really good weekend of college hockey,
and I could tell how good a weekend it was
as far as splits and so forth. When it came
time to put together my poll ballot for today, Boy,
(00:42):
there's some teams flying away with it in a lot
of mediocrity in the middle.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
That's just I ta see you. Yeah that I got
to see you. What more could happen on a weekend?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
There you go? Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Everybody was great, great hospitality, terrific staff there at Robert
Morris made it. We were broadcasting two women's games and
two men's games. The league needs to do more double hitters.
But anyway, let's get back to the big storylines for
this weekend, or are the ones that followed the biggest one,
which was that one. Well, let's start out with Boston College.
(01:16):
They had a three win week, sweeping Number six Providence
three nothing and four to one, and the Eagles also
beat Harvard on Tuesday three to one. After we were
wondering about a little stumble against Merrimack a week ago.
Things are really looking up there in Chestnut Hill.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
You know what it was, really that is really impressive.
To get three wins in a week is hard. And
we're in the midst of five games in eight days,
and three wins at a weekend no matter what, is
just really difficult to play Tuesday and win, to play
Friday and Saturday and win. And usually you go with
(01:56):
most of the same lineup because they we want to
beat the harv do you want to beat your rival?
And then you got to play non conference games against
a tough Providence That's a big three wins for Boston
College after their weekend against Merrimack.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Yeah, it's five games in eight days. You start that
out blowing a two nothing lead against Merrimack, losing five two.
I could imagine if you're a coach in that situation, you're.
Speaker 6 (02:24):
Like, oh boy, here we go. We've got a really
tough schedule ahead.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Here, We've got Providence coming in a week from now,
and we're not playing well against a team we should
have beat and we had the lead. But credit to
Greg Brown his staff of getting this team turned around.
They get to win the second night. Then they play
that midweek game and I don't think they looked fantastic
against Harvard, but they did what they had to do
(02:48):
to win. Then they played two really good games against
an excellent Providence team. So I feel like Boston College
really has taken their finding their groove after or one
bad game and maybe we'll even call it a slow start,
a couple of not ideal games for them out of
(03:09):
the gate in the second half, but they're finding their stride.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Now, what about the Friars with the two losses.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
I don't want to say that you go into that weekend,
I think as a coach thinking, wow, it would be
unbelievable to get six points, three, four or five. Will
definitely take that zero, one, two. That's when the bad
scenarios come in. So that's the wrong scenario for Providence.
But you're if you're thinking about that, three probably would
(03:38):
have been acceptable. Again, Starry, believe it's the best team
in your conference and one of the best teams in
the country. I guess only being one game off in
that is fine. You'll bounce back. It's a tough road though.
Now they have to play UMass Low, another team that
will get to them. They're reeling a little bit as
well this weekend. But in Hockey East right now, there's
(04:01):
just no easy roads. You've got to jump right back
on the horse, no matter which team you are and
what happened to you.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
You know what, It's interesting you talk about Providence. Those
are two three goal losses. So it wasn't like maybe
in throw an empty net in there somewhere, I didn't
look deep in the box score. But Providence right now
has fallen down in the standings. Granted they got some
games in hand, but if you look at it, they're
basically tied for fifth with Mole in their say the
(04:32):
winning percentage, So there's a lot of people tied at seventeen.
So they're going to have to start seventeen points and
a five to one to five winning percentage. They're going
to have to start hitting some wins here or you're
going to start looking at on the road in round two.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Are on the road a little bit.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
When that was a team that Providence we thought we'd
be seeing challenging for the league title, and they still may.
But right now it's a tough weekend.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Yeah, and getting back on the horse is the big
part about this.
Speaker 6 (05:06):
You know that as a coach schools, you've.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
Just got to Monday probably has to almost be a
white to slay clean. We'll show you some video of
some mistakes and stuff like that, but you can't spend
a lot of time having and horn on the last
weekend is now, it's about what's ahead of you.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Derek.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
You're alma mater number four. Western Michigan won twice over
North Dakota three two and overtime and five to one.
Four Street wins for the Broncos five of six and
seven of ten. They were on a tear and North
Dakota go in the opposite direction.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yeah, you got Miami coming to Lost and Arena this weekend,
and that's going to be They cannot afford to drop
points there. They've set them self up beautifully to potentially
be a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament. We're
getting to the point where this could be the best
(05:59):
Western Michigan team of all time. And I think they
were a two seed one year. I think they lost
they when they lost the Aaron Forscher. Maybe they were
a one seed, a low one seed, but this could
this is setting up for him and they end with
a lot of home games and they got Miami four times.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Those are absolutely.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Twelve points they have to have if they want to
win this league championship. They've got the two games in
hand on Arizona State and pretty good things going on
in Kalamazoo. Right now, they got there are only one
point down with two games in hand. That could be
a big They got two games in hand on everybody
except Denver, and they're seven points up on Denver.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Yeah, right now, technically they are the first place team
when you look at a week percentage. Yeah, I know
everybody look will look and say Arizona State's in the
first place. But you're right, the games in hand. You
have to win games in the camp. We say that
all the time. But everything about their record is great
right now, not even close either.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
They get eight percentage eight.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
One on one record in the league, play fifteen to
four and one overall, you can almost make them a
lock for the NCAA Tournament. Their whole priority right now
should be, as you just you alluded to, Derek, They've
got to find a way to get themselves into number four,
number three in the pair. Wise you get past Minnesota,
(07:21):
get past Denver. It's all possible.
Speaker 6 (07:23):
It certainly is.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
Denver's non conference schedule is what really boosted them to
where they are on the pairwise. But you go on
a conference run here. Now, if you're Western, sky's the limit.
This team, this is a legit. We've seen this building
under Pat Firstweiler, and now this team is legit. They
will challenge for an NCUBLEA tournament and NCAA championship.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Speaking of Pat Firstwiler, his name has been bandied about
by some as a possible coach for next year's World
Juniors Championship team.
Speaker 6 (07:53):
Good selection if so.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Obviously, David carl It was a fantastic coach He's last
two seasons of Nate leaven Before that, he was fantastic.
Well remember well you always remember the coaches that win
gold medals, right, Bob motsco you'd throw these names always
that they stick with you, right. But Pat Verstweiler has
proven in the n that he is a formidable coach.
(08:21):
I wouldn't hesitate to think that he would be a
great coach of a World junior team.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
You know what, when you're you'd offer to get to
David Carlf, he wants to do it. But I know
Pat's been doing the some of the sixteen, or some
of the seventeen, some of the eighteens. I know he
coached a whole link of team this summer. So I
think you'd offer to get to David Carlf he wants
to do it. It's a lot of time, and who knows,
maybe David Carl's at a higher level next year.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I think David Carl has already said that he won't
be back for a third I thought I saw that
come through. But in any case, what else does he
have to prove, which for the US has won three
in a row. But other than that, I think right
now you don't even want to ask him about it
until after April because he's got something else in mind,
(09:10):
which is back to back for Denver once again. In
the National Championship, Let's go back East. Number eleven BU
Boston University swept number twenty New Hampshire six to three
and then two to one in overtime. So now BU
sits a top Hockey East. They're two points ahead of
number two BC, and those two longtime rivals play this weekend.
(09:34):
Things turned around a bit for Boston University. A rocky
stretch there in the middle, and meanwhile New Hampshire, which
kind of was blazing from the gate, is heading in
the wrong direction in hockey East.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
Hey, you know what, Jack Parker has been out of
Boston University for more than a decade, but it's his
line that kind of brings through my ears.
Speaker 6 (09:55):
He said, my.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
Team always really the good team at the bean Pot,
which is the beginning February. And he said, my team's
always good in the bean Pot, and we are always
peaking at that time of year. Toward the end of
the season. He said, that's when I realize I've screwed
up the team so much. I just have to get
out of their way somewhere around January. It almost feels
that's the way Ja Pandolpho is taking things. He's got
(10:18):
his team playing their best hockey right now. They've turned
things around. They were really struggling down the stretch in
that first half end of November early December. Then they
lose that game against Yale when they were missing players.
Now they just seem to be a team possessed and
now in league played, They've run off eleven out of
(10:39):
a possible twelve points over the last two weekends and
hockey's played.
Speaker 6 (10:43):
That's a good formula to move to the top.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
And we talked about it last week.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
We talked about how this was going to be a
challenging week for New Hampshire and we'd find out a
little bit more of what Beu was made of. Don't
look now New Hampshire is in the last place, but
they're still sixteenth in the Pairwise they bost four in
a row, one and overtime. But they've got to get
right quickly. They're going to keep keep on their drop.
(11:09):
And I think that's where we were talking about. Would
they have or was it six teams of the NCAA
charter at that time, but New Hampshire was seven. New
Hampshire was bubbles team. Now they're there. They went way
below the bubble. They need to get right in a
hurry in it. They got Vermont for two, then they
got bubc again and doesn't get any easier, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Arizona State, they're number thirteen in last week's poll, and
I guarantee they'll move up this week. They swept number
fifteen Saint Clouds State and did it on the road
five to three and six three. Now the sun Devils
are a point ahead of Western Michigan for first in
the NCC, though, as we mentioned, the Broncos have a
couple of games in hand. We thought Arizona State would
(11:55):
be good. I don't know how many people thought Arizona
State would be this good and well we said that
last week. But a great weekend for the Sun Devils.
Speaker 6 (12:03):
Yeah. I every week they opened my eyes.
Speaker 5 (12:07):
And maybe it's because I started to write them off
early when they were struggling, when they were had some
injuries and struggled in that first month of the season.
So I guess mentally, I've probably already checked. I had
checked them out somewhere around November first, and now everything
is going in the right direction. They are just running away,
not running away, but really impressive showing week after week
(12:30):
in NCC play. This is where I thought, I thought,
maybe they get to have a nice non conference start,
put up some early wins, then they get into conference
play and you'd see a lot of struggle. It's actually
been the opposite, and that's what's most impressive about this
Arizona State team is that if they keep building toward
the end of the season, you're talking about could they
(12:51):
win an NCC championship in their first season. That would
be crazy if they were the regular season or postseason champions.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
Obviously, they it's almost a lock that.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
If they're if they are were they're being bandied about
for either one of those titles, that they'll be in
the NCAA tournament.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
How far can they go there? This is an Arizona.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
State team that we all should be expecting to be
good by now, but it's still hard to accept that
they are.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
For some reason.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
If you go down there and you see the weather
and you see their building and you see that, and
you see their power Ford school now and all that
they have, it's not hard to believe that they're doing
what they're doing. They've assembled a great staff there and
with Mike Corbett coming on this year from Quinnipiac and
(13:43):
being a board just came in last year. But they've
hit home runs on the transfer portal kids. When you
look at their guys, and a lot of those guys
were hurt, but Noah Bexter leading score came over from Clarkson.
You got Slaine, who who was hurt a little bit
coming from Northern You got Lucius that's now healthy from Wisconsin,
(14:07):
and you got the Jackson twins that were hurt for
a while at the beginning of the year. Now they're
getting Now they're healthy. They came over from Northeastern and
now it's just you're adding pieces that you like. Kyle
Smolen and Shimmick was a came in as a grad transfer,
(14:28):
and you got Ryan Kerwin from Penn State. It's they've
hit a home hit home runs with their grad transfers,
and Shimmick came from prominence. So if hit home runs
on their transfers, because why wouldn't you want to go
play in warm weather, Why wouldn't you want to go
play in a beautiful new building.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Why wouldn't you want to play in.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
The NCCHC there, It's not it's not hard to put
something together there pretty quickly, and they've done that. The
biggest problem I think they've had in previous years, and
one besides not being an elee you're gonna having to
play a lot of road games, is meshing those transfers together,
because it is hard to get them together. And they've
done a great job of it this year of meshing
(15:09):
that group together. And you got and don't forget about
Potter too, He's legit he's going to be a number
a number one pick, a first rounder here next year.
Is just an O seven and he got an O
seven played college hockey. Let's think about that seven. He's
just seventeen years old and he's putting up points.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
He's got thirteen points in twenty two games.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
There's some two thousands playing college hockey and he's an
oh seven.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Well, when you think about Arizona State and you look
at what Greg Powers has done there, he's really played
the long game on all this transition from club to
Division one, the years at Ocean Side, the building of Mullet,
getting that arena in place, selling people on the program,
(15:59):
making the tournament is an independent working through COVID and
having to be on the road the whole season with
a Big ten, and now with the arena and getting
the staff there and everything. It really seems like this
has just been steady progress. Maybe it seems slow at
the time, but in retrospect, it has been a really
(16:21):
good process year after year to get to this level.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
But they made they This is the thing that I like.
They made the NCAA tournament. This is the thing that
I actually not that I like. I find funny because
I should give great about it. They've got a tournament
banner up and they've got two tournament banners up in
they're building, one from twenty nineteen and one from twenty twenty.
(16:47):
Obviously the twenty didn't happen, but they would have got in,
but they put a tournament banner up for it. And
so it's it's been coming. Like you said, they've been
building and it's been coming, and now they're reaping the
rewards of that and the facilities that the locker room
space they have. They if we forget that they've got
(17:10):
besides their area, they've got two NHL area annex is
built on the outside of it that the Coyotes just
had to leave for them. They've got some big time.
They had zero issues hosting hosting the Desert Classic because
of locker room space. I'm going to go out on
a limb. They're hosting the Icebreaker next year. I bet
(17:33):
you eventually they will bid if you bid for a regional.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
Reaching them if when they allow campus ranks speak built
but they have the Notre Dames had it before they had,
but it's been for a long time now.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Yeah, we'll see. So I think that one I'll probably
be let back in.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
Yeah, that's what I see being changed.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Eventually, everything is on the table these days when it
comes to the NCAA, and.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
We're going to talk about that and buy and sell. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Number seventeen Yukon. They went on the road to number
five main Alphon. Who were the games at Alphond Yes, yeah,
both of them. There a tough place to play and
the Huskies won four to two on Friday, a two
to two tie on Saturday, Maine took the point in
the shootout, So four out of six points on the
road against Maine. For Connecticut, Mike Kavanaugh has got to
(18:27):
be thrilled with that. They're climbing. They're going to be
moving up in the poll for this week and certainly
moving up in the pair wise. It seems like Yukon
came out of nowhere, but probably not out of nowhere.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
We're a couple of weeks from moving from them being
twentieth in the pairwise, they're now nine at the pairwise.
They've done this in a short amount of time. Obviously,
the sweep of New Hampshire last weekend was big, but
then going on the road, you could say four of
six and maybe that doesn't sound impressive. Four of six
and or No is unbelievable. And the fact that they
(19:03):
were down. They scored early on Saturday after winning on Friday,
scored early on Saturday, take the one nothing lead, but
then they it gets tied, and then Maine takes leading
in if Maine and Orno they get the lead, they
go into the third period, that's it. And they got
the lead early in the third. Yukon then found a
(19:25):
way back though and they got that equalizer, held on,
got into overtime, couldn't win the shootout to get the
extra point. But to go up to or and oh
take four or six really impressive.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Absolutely, And you're just look and you look at where
they've been and where they're going, and it's still six
teams in the top third deeper Hockey East, and that's
you go on a couple of little runs against some
of these teams that are up there. It doesn't really
affect the team you're beating that bad, but it allows
you to climb quickly.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
That's happened. Then, Do I still think they're going to
get six in?
Speaker 6 (20:04):
No?
Speaker 4 (20:04):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I just I don't think six is going to happen.
I think they'll be five, and we'll talk about that
a little bit later. But great run at Yukon's on.
But another one, how should that surprise us? Brand new,
gorgeous building on the state, the flagship campus in Connecticut.
Unbelievable setup in stores. Shouldn't surprise us when you're putting
(20:27):
all that money into a new building and everything. The
women's team at U come with Chris McKenzie.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
I saw him out.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I was watching my daughter, my youngest daughter play in there,
and they just they've they've got a great setup there.
Now they don't have to go to Hartford, they don't
have to get on the bus to travel there.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
This is a This isn't surprising.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
They're going to have to change their name from Ice
Bus to Ice Shuttle Bus. If they're playing on campus,
then yeah, that's right. Stone Hill, how about stone Hill?
Last year they won one game? They one just one
d one game. A year ago they got their first
win over a nationally ranked opponent, number nine. You mass
Lowell three to two in overtime. Eighth win of the
(21:09):
year for head coach David Barrard and his Skyhawks team.
He was able to keep some players who were going
to transfer out. Seems to have them believing and playing well.
First question I want to ask, and I really hate
this question because sometimes I think it's just throwaway, but
is this a case in Jim, you called the game,
(21:30):
you broadcast the game. Is this a case of a
team maybe looking past or maybe overlooking the possibilities of
its opponent a little.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
I don't want to say that Lowell looked past it
because they had just lost two to Maine and they
knew that they needed this game, but I think they
thought it would be easier. I talked to Dave Barrard
before the game and he said, listen, the one thing
I'll promise you is you're going to see one of
the hardest working teams that you'll see all year. We
(22:02):
don't have skill, so we can't match many teams on
their skill level, but we can work hard. And I
will tell you they outworked Loll for that first period.
Loll finally matched them in the second, had it going
early in the third, never extended a two to one lead,
and then that hard work started to really show again
for stone Hill.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
They pulled the goalie really lated.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
They didn't get the goalie out till maybe forty five
seconds left, but then with I think it was thirty
four seconds left. They end up scoring the tying goal
and then win the opening face off of overtime, go
in control the puck and win a one on one battle.
Next thing the pucks in the back of the net
and stone Hill.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
That's a big week.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
That's a single game, but a big game for them
to beat the number nine team of the country. But
this program looked helpless last year, a part time coach
playing in a youth hockey arena, getting smoked, sometimes only
getting one Division one.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
Win by the end of the season.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Now they've won three games against Hockey East teams at
this point, two against Merrimack, won against Lowell. That's pretty
darn and impressive. And pats off to Dave Berard his staff.
They do a really great job with this. He only
has one full time assistant coach right now, trying to
get that second one for next year and then hopefully
(23:24):
of building three four years down the road.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
You worried about Lowell, give me you were there, Yeah,
worried a little because because I'm looking at their schedule,
they're going to get an angry Providence team this week.
Ye then Boston College, Merrimack vermad I'm northeastern. I mean
this could be a they need to rate the ship
because this when did this take them from the parawise
where they were last week?
Speaker 4 (23:47):
This week, that's a big drop is.
Speaker 6 (23:49):
The last two weekends.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
I can tell you the last two weekends they have
gone from seven to thirteen in the pairwise and that's
a span of three games. This loss took them down
two spot, from eleven to thirteen.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
So let me so, is this a loss that you
can look at and go if they don't right the ship,
this could be the one that at cost them theer
an NCAA tournament.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Sure, yeah, I think sewing. Yeah, if they end up
being around the bubble, then yes. Losing that game at home,
even though you got a little bit, you got eighty
percent three percent not much so you got a little
bit in terms of credit for that one, but in
(24:33):
terms of what you lost.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
That was a pretty big loss.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
One more before we go to break Army West Point,
they had scored seven goals in eight games, scored twenty
two goals against Mercyhurst in two games, and then won
three to two and four to three in overtime against
Air Force. It was the first weekend sweep of the
Air Force Falcons since twenty fourteen, in the first on
(24:58):
home ice at West Point since January of two thousand
and eight, and it's the last time that Brian Riley
will have a regular season series at home against their
huge rival of Air Force Boy Army has found a
way to score all of a sudden and I'm not
surprised because I've seen the weapons they have, but you
(25:20):
got to feel good.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
And maybe if.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You're an opponent of them in the league, you don't
feel as good, but you got to feel good to
see Brian Riley have some fun wins and some success
on his way out and his Swung Song season.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
I saw what you did there with the weapon thing.
Yeah you didn't even touch that. I'm like, oh, look
at that being created. But yeah, you know what you
like to see Brian. Brian's one of the great guys.
And I hope they're really confident coming into their next
weekend series and take the team that they're playing.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Really lightly and really they used up all their goals too.
Speaker 7 (26:01):
I would hope what happened on on Friday and Saturday
night that they've used up all their goals and they
go back to their ways of scoring seven and eight games.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
That's all I have to say about that one.
Speaker 6 (26:14):
I guess I don't have to look at or to
see this is incredible.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
And I got to watch the highlights from Saturdays when
they were down three to one going to the third,
get a couple of timely goals force it to overtime
the game when it was incredible, and that building. When
that rivalry series happens against air Force, that Tate Rink
(26:39):
becomes one of the best places to watch college hockey
because you have the cadets who are just they look
great in their dress, dress suits and all of that
sort of stuff. I'm not even sure with the right
words architela. I never served a day in the in
the uniforms. Yeah, dress uniforms, and they look fantastic, but
they want to go nuts.
Speaker 6 (26:59):
And did they get to celebrate?
Speaker 5 (27:02):
And then all the pageantry playing the Alma maters and
the captain standing at center rice both teams together. I
think that's there's something fantastic about that series. And then
knowing that was Brian Riley's last time doing it at home.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
I'll get to do it one more time in the
Springs in a few weeks.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
What a way to go out for Brian Riley and
the Riley family that has been there sixty plus years.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Big time goal. The second goal was big time goal.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Yeah, I walked, walked the d and stucked it, stuffed
the short side and lost a big time goal.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
We're going to take a break in.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
We're going to have a round of buyer cell and
Jim's holding us to some really tight parameter series buy
or cell, no hold, no equivocation. We got to stand
up and make a decision, and we'll do that when
USCCHO Weekend Review can and we'll do that when US
Echo Weekend Review continues. Welcome back to us e h
(28:16):
O Weekend Review. We're gonna play buy or sell no
hold in. Jimson in his email with the list of
what we're going to go through, he said to us,
make a decision and defend it. I may have to
waffle on one of them a little bit because of
lack of public knowledge, but let's start out with this one.
Three conferences will have only one team in the NCAA
(28:39):
tournament by or sell.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
Oh, suppose you can go first bye.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
And I believe that because I think that if these
teams keep winning, they're gonna they'll put themselves in the tournament.
By we're talking quite miss I State right now. A
lot of cockey will get one. If they do, they
will fall out of the top fourteen are thirteen if
need be.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
I'm actually going to sell them, but I'm going to
be very specific, and this is not going to be
very popular with Quinnipiac fans.
Speaker 6 (29:13):
Quinnipiack's going to go on a run.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
They're going to move themselves up and be probably somewhere
around nine eight in the pairwise when the ECAC tournament starts,
they will get to Lake Placid and they will lose
in the semifinals like they do every year. Ooh, yes,
so we're going to get We're going to get Quinnipiac
in as an at large team, and then whomever whatever team,
whether it's Dartmouth or Cornell or Princeton or Harvard, whichever
(29:39):
team decides to go on a run, they're going to
get the automatic bid from the ECAC and bump out
somebody that's currently inside the bubble right now.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
That would be mass Low.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I'm going to buy on this one, and I think
what's going to happen. We know Atlantic Cocky is going
to get one in. I think in the CCHA if
Minnesota State is still within the bubble, if they don't
win the league.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
They'll be pushed out of the bubble. So it'll be.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Whoever wins that league and then easy AC. I don't
know that Quinnipiac goes on a run. I think they're
going to be tenuous in the bubble too, so I
think if they lose before winning the league championship, they
end up pushed out too. So I think in those
three leagues that you either have the team that's already
(30:29):
in the bubble winning the league or you have them
dropping out of the bubble if somebody else wins. But
I could buy your scenario to Jim, if Quinnipiac goes
on a role, you'll have two from that league.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
But you got They got Yukon, which is a big
one coming up here, and then the Yale Sacred Heart
for both those Yukon. That's a big game for both
those for both both Quinnipiac and Yukon, right they can
can you imagine if Yale and Sacred Heart finish one
and three, Quinnipiac and can the unic finished two and four.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
But that's going to do to the freaking apple cart.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
It wouldn't be it wouldn't be great.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
And you know what, if either of those teams are
considering this, you almost you need to find a way
to get to your championship game in that tournament. And then,
I guess more importantly, even if you lose, try to
get doing in overtime or doing a tie where you're
losing a shootout. You don't want to. You need pairwise
(31:30):
points from this weekend. No, no conference points at stake.
Pairwise points are next one.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
I'm going to go first on this. When Big ten
is the strongest conference top to bottom, buy or sell,
I'm going to sell its Hockey.
Speaker 6 (31:43):
East I'll go. I can go second this. So this
is one I said. I put in the buy sal.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
And there was no hold because I'm not I want
to waffle on this a little bit, but.
Speaker 6 (31:53):
I'm not going to.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
I'm actually if you're going to say top to bottom,
so all seven teams, I say, all seven of the
teams in that conference are very strong and can be
one another. I think Michigan State in Minnesota or among
the top two teams in the country, top four teams
in the country, I'll buy.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
I think Hockey East has some really.
Speaker 5 (32:17):
Good teams, but I think at the bottom of that
conference right now or some are teams that are not
as strong down in the nine to ten range. I
think New Hampshire eleventh is stronger than people think. But
so I work in Hockey East. I do a lot
of work around that league. But I still think seventeams.
(32:41):
Seven teams are definitely those seven teams are stronger as
a whole than the entire eleven are in Hockey East.
But I think there's probably more than seven great teams
in Hockey East. There's my head on that bet.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yeah, and I'm going to completely disage agree with you.
So I'm going to I guess I would sell on that.
I'm a big fan of the big ten. But when
you look at the whole Hockey East in the top
thirty two and Vermont is the lowest one, and then
you look at Notre Dame at thirty six, I'm going numbers,
(33:18):
straight numbers. You got eleven in the top thirty two.
You don't have seven in the top thirty six.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Boom cool.
Speaker 6 (33:26):
I like your math. Okay, Mike Drop, are you starting
to You're starting to sway.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Me all right, next one, buy or sell whether each
or any of these perennial powers make the NCAA tournament.
I'll name the four and then we'll go quickly one
by one. Quinnipiac, Minnesota State, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Let's start
with Quinnipiac.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
I'm going to obviously buy on them. I've said that
they're going to go on a little conference run here,
get out of non conference games, and then they'll find
a way to get up to around eight nine before
their conference tournament.
Speaker 6 (33:59):
They'll be in field.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Sell because I think they're gonna what Jimmy says is
they're gonna go on a little bit of a run.
They're gonna put themselves in the fourteen fifteen, so they're
gonna lose. When Jimmy says they're gonna lose, it's gonna
knock them out. The other team wins. So I'm gonna sell.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
I'm gonna sell.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Also, I think you see a dark horse from ECACP
the only team in and even that they've stumbled, I
could see somebody like a Dartmouth or a Clarkson be
in there in that tournament too.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
A Minnesota State.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
I'm gonna buy because I don't know if there's anybody
maybe August Stana, but I are they eligible? Yes, maybe
I'm gonna buy. I would have held on this, but
I'll buy. And I got no reason why other than
I think that right now they're the I'm gonna go
off my hockey's theory that they're the best team and
it's not really even that close.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
I think I'm gonna buy too. Are there teams that
can pull off the upset in the tournament? Bowling Green certainly,
and don't forget they are the host in Toledo, so
that would they get to play a home game or
Michigan tac Listen, I'd like Tech a lot this season.
That said gone to my head. Michigan's Minnesota State. They
(35:17):
just win, They win games, and they'll win the big
games in the tournament.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, I'm gonna buy on Minnesota State. I think they
either get in well, I like we were saying before that
they may get moved out of the bubble, but I
think they're the team to beat in there. Wisconsin, I
am going to I am going to sell on Wisconsin.
They're not going to be able to get in as
at large. They might sneak over five hundred, which would
(35:43):
help them. Right now, they couldn't be in the tournament
as an at large because they're below five hundred. Early
losses are going to come back to bite them, and
I don't think they win the big ten. So I'm
going to say sell on Wisconsin.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Yeah, I'm going to sell as well. Too much ground
to make up, too big of a hole for themselves.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
So I sell, I sell because I don't think they're
going to get the five hundred. I think they're gonna
They're two below right now, and their schedule is not easy.
Michigan Minnesota. You go one and three, two and two again,
sad you're still below. Then you got to go down
to you got to start winning. You got to make
up two games somehow and just to get where you're at.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
So I'm gonna sell ten regular season opportunities though left Yeah,
I just you to think they have to go.
Speaker 6 (36:33):
They have to go five and six and four.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
If they go six and four down the stretch, they
could make themselves eligible. But I don't think six and
four is enough to pull them up from where they
are at seventeen. I think you have to get to
you have to be thinking twelve thirteen this year. I
don't see seventeen to twelve.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
And maybe you better look at seven and three if
you don't think you're going to win the Big Ten,
because then you need to go five hundred in the
Big ten tournament. So it's a it's a big hill
to climb, Michigan. I'll go first on that. I'm buying
on that one.
Speaker 6 (37:08):
Oh bye as well. They don't have a lot of
room for arra though. That's the only thing I'll say.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
They have to find ways to they They're a team
that probably has to play six hundred hockey the rest
of the way to make sure they stay where they are.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
There are ten I'm gonna buy that's I think technically eleven. Yeah, okay,
tied for tenth, don't wanna.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
Don't want to give that shrug if you're tied for
thirteenth right now.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
No.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Whatever next one has to do with awards, and this
one is an interesting one. I scratched my head a
bit when I saw this one. Jim, next year, next
season five or twenty five, twenty six?
Speaker 4 (37:47):
What decade am I in? Oh five? Those are the
players that's their birth year.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
I guess a current player from the HL Major Junior
in Canada will win the Hoby Baker Award in twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Buy or sell.
Speaker 5 (38:03):
Regretting the way I worded this, I should have said
it would make the Hobi hat trick, because actually saying
that they'd win the award is actually pretty That's a
big step to climb right away. But if I did
say when I'm going to sell, and I'm going to sell,
and I'm going to say that there was a bias,
there's going to be a bias against the player. So
(38:24):
you might have a player come in and put up
seventy points next year, but they'll probably be a bias
against that player. He won't get the votes needed to
win the Hoby Baker board. And that's the reason that
you could have a seventy point score not win the Hoby.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Yep, And that's exactly what I was going to say.
I wouldn't talk about it. You're not going to get
the votes because people are going to refuse to vote
for a major junior kid in their first year.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
It know, right side itself. After year two or three,
I agree with it.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
The weird thing is we're going to see and I
think Greg Carvel said it an interview, everybody's taking major
junior kids. Everybody's got to remember, these kids didn't want
to go to school, so now they're going to have
to dive back into school and do all this and
see we'll see how things play out in two years
and see where it goes. I think this is going
(39:15):
to be a two year deal, and I don't know. Hey,
we're dealing with major junior kids and we're going to
try to.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
See where that plays out.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
But sooner or later there will be a bias against
major junior kids, if there isn't already.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
So I agree with Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I'm going to agree with you both. Having this is
my third year and my second time around, I can
disclose that on the committee and I'm going to sell
on that one too, although I won't be one of
the people voting during that year. There's a couple of
things interesting in there. I'm going to agree with disagree
rather with carvellon on one thing. Yeah, these were kids
(39:53):
who didn't want to go to school, but they thought
that it was an either or, And now that those
kids are going to be available for college, all of
a sudden, the NCAA becomes an even more compelling, better
route for development than it used to be. And like
when we talked a couple of weeks ago, Jim with
Chris Peters from Flow Hockey. He made the point that
(40:15):
people are going to look at Adam van Tilly or
Maclin Celebrini and say, hey, I get to play against
some older players and develop along that way. And then
you're going to see the kind of the bifurcation between
the seventeen eighteen year olds who decide to leave major
junior and go the NCAAA route for a year or two,
and then the nineteen twenty year old the over agers
(40:36):
who decide, hey, I can keep my development going and
maybe have an opportunity I wouldn't have had before. That's
a little tangential, but I guess we all sell on
that one last one. The NCAA will vote this season
to make a fifth year option for student athletes permanent.
Buy or sell.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
I'm going to buy on this, and I don't know
that it'll comfort vote this year. And that's the way
I wrote the question. Maybe I should have been a
little more bag. We're going to get there. If it's
being talked about as a reason, it's being talked about.
Speaker 6 (41:07):
It's because it's going to happen.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
We've seen everything that's gotten talked about, whether it's the
transfer portal, whether it was the COVID year, whether it
was Major Junior, or whatevercrit might be. Anything that's been
talked about has come true. So if it's out there
the rumors are that it's going to happen, it's going
to happen.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
And do you want to go because I know you
were going to ask you some questions about it. There's
a couple things in there.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
They're talking about making a fifth year eligible for a
player who's a freshman, who who only plays in thirty
percent of the games, as you pointed out before we
went on, like they do with football. But you made
an argument that I thought was pretty compelling, and I
don't want to take away your whole argument, but the
(41:52):
NCAA has not been super proactive on things lately. Things
like Major Junior have been reactive. There's a lot lawsuit
and then they do make the change. So I don't
think they're going to rush to make a change on
this till somebody pushes the issue. So I'm going to
say sell.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
So you're say and it's never going to happen or
is this nobody It's not going to happen this season. Okay,
I'm going to buy because I think that there's enough
chatter about it. There's an article where they talk to
the one of the chairs of the I think from
Brigham Young, I think for the president of Brigham Young
and something they're really looking at in depth.
Speaker 4 (42:31):
All you got to do is.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Google fifty year of eligibility and you get a whole
bunch of articles on it. I think because the football
there was a football player at Vanderbilt that sued and
got the fifth year. I think they're going to end
up making a fifth year eligible, no waivers, no red shirts.
You have five years to play five whether you play
(42:53):
two games, whether you play thirty two games, you have
five years. And if you get hurt, sorry, that was
one of your years. And I think that is going
to lead that direction. The more people that want to
sue to get their nil money to get all of that,
I think they end up just making no waivers, nothing,
(43:14):
and you have five years to play five. I also
heard the silly one that is larger full time student.
You can be a college athlete, like can you imagine having.
Speaker 6 (43:24):
The Division III type of rule.
Speaker 4 (43:25):
Yeah, you're here for six seven years.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
If you just keep taking different degrees, Brobb me danger
fielding back to school, you become.
Speaker 5 (43:33):
A professional hockey player that goes to school during the day.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, so let me ask you this. I probably should
have had the clarification beforehand. Voting this season, do you
mean voting by April twelfth, or do you mean voting
by the end of the College World Series, which is
like in June.
Speaker 6 (43:55):
Right, Yeah, I didn't write that question very well.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
I think it's just not going to happen before the
end of the season. But somehow it's going to happen.
So that's why I say cel.
Speaker 5 (44:05):
Yeah, it's my lack of thought into how to work
that question is going to make this a little ambiguous.
But we all think it is going to happen, is
what I guess.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
I think with freshman at sophomores right now, you're going
to see maybe not the current fourth year seniors.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
They may not get it.
Speaker 5 (44:23):
Yeah, it's strange to think that four consecutive classes had it.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
One class doesn't then propose you.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Might get it after they are.
Speaker 5 (44:33):
There's just going to be one the class of twenty
twenty five. It's sorry, we screwed you over.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
But how much does this mess up opportunities for players?
Because oh gosh, it's already you're adding in major junior
and they're players getting the college hockey offers for next
year who would not have been eligible at all. So
it's pushing some people out. And then if you add
a fifth year, there's twenty or twenty five perc of
(45:00):
the spots being taken up possibly in there too. Then
you've got teams going away, and then the possibility of
limiting roster spots to twenty six. You could lose one
hundred spots for college hockey players, even before looking at
a fifty year of eligibility.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
But imagine do you imagine if they all of a
sudden say okay, everybody gets a fifth year next year
because that one class. So now I've got these other
guys that heyl they were just close to graduating. Now
they're going to take a masters I pool. It'll throw
a big branch. I'm a firm believer is that after
(45:40):
your fourth year, you'll as a after your fourth year
as a coach and as a player, you don't owe
that school anything because when people started to make the
schools they committed for four years.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
It's a four year process.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
But it's actually what it's turned into, and it's unfortunate
as a year to year process because if you've got
to go to twenty six, people have to won't be
able to You won't be able to keep all your players.
If you add a fifth year, you won't be able
to keep all your players.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
It's become from.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
A four year process to a one by one and
talked about with Arizona State. They did a great job
with their transfers, but they're they're gonna have there's gonna
have to be some players that leave that team if
they go to twenty six because of being a power
for school, they carry twenty nine right now.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
It's it's an interesting time to be an athlete.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
You're getting all these rights, but the rights are hurting
people as well.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
With that, we're going to wrap up this marathon episode
of usc CHO Weekend Review. I'man Trevsker for Jim Connolly
and Derek Schooling. We'll see you next time.
Usccho dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome to us Echo weekend review from Monday, January twentieth,
twenty twenty five. I met Trefsker alongside Jim Connolly and
Derek Schooley. It was a really good weekend of college hockey,
and I could tell how good a weekend it was
as far as splits and so forth. When it came
time to put together my poll ballot for today, Boy,
(00:42):
there's some teams flying away with it in a lot
of mediocrity in the middle.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
That's just I ta see you. Yeah that I got
to see you. What more could happen on a weekend?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
There you go? Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Everybody was great, great hospitality, terrific staff there at Robert
Morris made it. We were broadcasting two women's games and
two men's games. The league needs to do more double hitters.
But anyway, let's get back to the big storylines for
this weekend, or are the ones that followed the biggest one,
which was that one. Well, let's start out with Boston College.
(01:16):
They had a three win week, sweeping Number six Providence
three nothing and four to one, and the Eagles also
beat Harvard on Tuesday three to one. After we were
wondering about a little stumble against Merrimack a week ago.
Things are really looking up there in Chestnut Hill.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
You know what it was, really that is really impressive.
To get three wins in a week is hard. And
we're in the midst of five games in eight days,
and three wins at a weekend no matter what, is
just really difficult to play Tuesday and win, to play
Friday and Saturday and win. And usually you go with
(01:56):
most of the same lineup because they we want to
beat the harv do you want to beat your rival?
And then you got to play non conference games against
a tough Providence That's a big three wins for Boston
College after their weekend against Merrimack.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Yeah, it's five games in eight days. You start that
out blowing a two nothing lead against Merrimack, losing five two.
I could imagine if you're a coach in that situation, you're.
Speaker 6 (02:24):
Like, oh boy, here we go. We've got a really
tough schedule ahead.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
Here, We've got Providence coming in a week from now,
and we're not playing well against a team we should
have beat and we had the lead. But credit to
Greg Brown his staff of getting this team turned around.
They get to win the second night. Then they play
that midweek game and I don't think they looked fantastic
against Harvard, but they did what they had to do
(02:48):
to win. Then they played two really good games against
an excellent Providence team. So I feel like Boston College
really has taken their finding their groove after or one
bad game and maybe we'll even call it a slow start,
a couple of not ideal games for them out of
(03:09):
the gate in the second half, but they're finding their stride.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Now, what about the Friars with the two losses.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
I don't want to say that you go into that weekend,
I think as a coach thinking, wow, it would be
unbelievable to get six points, three, four or five. Will
definitely take that zero, one, two. That's when the bad
scenarios come in. So that's the wrong scenario for Providence.
But you're if you're thinking about that, three probably would
(03:38):
have been acceptable. Again, Starry, believe it's the best team
in your conference and one of the best teams in
the country. I guess only being one game off in
that is fine. You'll bounce back. It's a tough road though.
Now they have to play UMass Low, another team that
will get to them. They're reeling a little bit as
well this weekend. But in Hockey East right now, there's
(04:01):
just no easy roads. You've got to jump right back
on the horse, no matter which team you are and
what happened to you.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
You know what, It's interesting you talk about Providence. Those
are two three goal losses. So it wasn't like maybe
in throw an empty net in there somewhere, I didn't
look deep in the box score. But Providence right now
has fallen down in the standings. Granted they got some
games in hand, but if you look at it, they're
basically tied for fifth with Mole in their say the
(04:32):
winning percentage, So there's a lot of people tied at seventeen.
So they're going to have to start seventeen points and
a five to one to five winning percentage. They're going
to have to start hitting some wins here or you're
going to start looking at on the road in round two.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Are on the road a little bit.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
When that was a team that Providence we thought we'd
be seeing challenging for the league title, and they still may.
But right now it's a tough weekend.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Yeah, and getting back on the horse is the big
part about this.
Speaker 6 (05:06):
You know that as a coach schools, you've.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
Just got to Monday probably has to almost be a
white to slay clean. We'll show you some video of
some mistakes and stuff like that, but you can't spend
a lot of time having and horn on the last
weekend is now, it's about what's ahead of you.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Derek.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
You're alma mater number four. Western Michigan won twice over
North Dakota three two and overtime and five to one.
Four Street wins for the Broncos five of six and
seven of ten. They were on a tear and North
Dakota go in the opposite direction.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Yeah, you got Miami coming to Lost and Arena this weekend,
and that's going to be They cannot afford to drop
points there. They've set them self up beautifully to potentially
be a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament. We're
getting to the point where this could be the best
(05:59):
Western Michigan team of all time. And I think they
were a two seed one year. I think they lost
they when they lost the Aaron Forscher. Maybe they were
a one seed, a low one seed, but this could
this is setting up for him and they end with
a lot of home games and they got Miami four times.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Those are absolutely.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Twelve points they have to have if they want to
win this league championship. They've got the two games in
hand on Arizona State and pretty good things going on
in Kalamazoo. Right now, they got there are only one
point down with two games in hand. That could be
a big They got two games in hand on everybody
except Denver, and they're seven points up on Denver.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Yeah, right now, technically they are the first place team
when you look at a week percentage. Yeah, I know
everybody look will look and say Arizona State's in the
first place. But you're right, the games in hand. You
have to win games in the camp. We say that
all the time. But everything about their record is great
right now, not even close either.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
They get eight percentage eight.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
One on one record in the league, play fifteen to
four and one overall, you can almost make them a
lock for the NCAA Tournament. Their whole priority right now
should be, as you just you alluded to, Derek, They've
got to find a way to get themselves into number four,
number three in the pair. Wise you get past Minnesota,
(07:21):
get past Denver. It's all possible.
Speaker 6 (07:23):
It certainly is.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
Denver's non conference schedule is what really boosted them to
where they are on the pairwise. But you go on
a conference run here. Now, if you're Western, sky's the limit.
This team, this is a legit. We've seen this building
under Pat Firstweiler, and now this team is legit. They
will challenge for an NCUBLEA tournament and NCAA championship.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Speaking of Pat Firstwiler, his name has been bandied about
by some as a possible coach for next year's World
Juniors Championship team.
Speaker 6 (07:53):
Good selection if so.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Obviously, David carl It was a fantastic coach He's last
two seasons of Nate leaven Before that, he was fantastic.
Well remember well you always remember the coaches that win
gold medals, right, Bob motsco you'd throw these names always
that they stick with you, right. But Pat Verstweiler has
proven in the n that he is a formidable coach.
(08:21):
I wouldn't hesitate to think that he would be a
great coach of a World junior team.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
You know what, when you're you'd offer to get to
David Carlf, he wants to do it. But I know
Pat's been doing the some of the sixteen, or some
of the seventeen, some of the eighteens. I know he
coached a whole link of team this summer. So I
think you'd offer to get to David Carlf he wants
to do it. It's a lot of time, and who knows,
maybe David Carl's at a higher level next year.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I think David Carl has already said that he won't
be back for a third I thought I saw that
come through. But in any case, what else does he
have to prove, which for the US has won three
in a row. But other than that, I think right
now you don't even want to ask him about it
until after April because he's got something else in mind,
(09:10):
which is back to back for Denver once again. In
the National Championship, Let's go back East. Number eleven BU
Boston University swept number twenty New Hampshire six to three
and then two to one in overtime. So now BU
sits a top Hockey East. They're two points ahead of
number two BC, and those two longtime rivals play this weekend.
(09:34):
Things turned around a bit for Boston University. A rocky
stretch there in the middle, and meanwhile New Hampshire, which
kind of was blazing from the gate, is heading in
the wrong direction in hockey East.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
Hey, you know what, Jack Parker has been out of
Boston University for more than a decade, but it's his
line that kind of brings through my ears.
Speaker 6 (09:55):
He said, my.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
Team always really the good team at the bean Pot,
which is the beginning February. And he said, my team's
always good in the bean Pot, and we are always
peaking at that time of year. Toward the end of
the season. He said, that's when I realize I've screwed
up the team so much. I just have to get
out of their way somewhere around January. It almost feels
that's the way Ja Pandolpho is taking things. He's got
(10:18):
his team playing their best hockey right now. They've turned
things around. They were really struggling down the stretch in
that first half end of November early December. Then they
lose that game against Yale when they were missing players.
Now they just seem to be a team possessed and
now in league played, They've run off eleven out of
(10:39):
a possible twelve points over the last two weekends and
hockey's played.
Speaker 6 (10:43):
That's a good formula to move to the top.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
And we talked about it last week.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
We talked about how this was going to be a
challenging week for New Hampshire and we'd find out a
little bit more of what Beu was made of. Don't
look now New Hampshire is in the last place, but
they're still sixteenth in the Pairwise they bost four in
a row, one and overtime. But they've got to get
right quickly. They're going to keep keep on their drop.
(11:09):
And I think that's where we were talking about. Would
they have or was it six teams of the NCAA
charter at that time, but New Hampshire was seven. New
Hampshire was bubbles team. Now they're there. They went way
below the bubble. They need to get right in a
hurry in it. They got Vermont for two, then they
got bubc again and doesn't get any easier, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Arizona State, they're number thirteen in last week's poll, and
I guarantee they'll move up this week. They swept number
fifteen Saint Clouds State and did it on the road
five to three and six three. Now the sun Devils
are a point ahead of Western Michigan for first in
the NCC, though, as we mentioned, the Broncos have a
couple of games in hand. We thought Arizona State would
(11:55):
be good. I don't know how many people thought Arizona
State would be this good and well we said that
last week. But a great weekend for the Sun Devils.
Speaker 6 (12:03):
Yeah. I every week they opened my eyes.
Speaker 5 (12:07):
And maybe it's because I started to write them off
early when they were struggling, when they were had some
injuries and struggled in that first month of the season.
So I guess mentally, I've probably already checked. I had
checked them out somewhere around November first, and now everything
is going in the right direction. They are just running away,
not running away, but really impressive showing week after week
(12:30):
in NCC play. This is where I thought, I thought,
maybe they get to have a nice non conference start,
put up some early wins, then they get into conference
play and you'd see a lot of struggle. It's actually
been the opposite, and that's what's most impressive about this
Arizona State team is that if they keep building toward
the end of the season, you're talking about could they
(12:51):
win an NCC championship in their first season. That would
be crazy if they were the regular season or postseason champions.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
Obviously, they it's almost a lock that.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
If they're if they are were they're being bandied about
for either one of those titles, that they'll be in
the NCAA tournament.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
How far can they go there? This is an Arizona.
Speaker 5 (13:11):
State team that we all should be expecting to be
good by now, but it's still hard to accept that
they are.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
For some reason.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
If you go down there and you see the weather
and you see their building and you see that, and
you see their power Ford school now and all that
they have, it's not hard to believe that they're doing
what they're doing. They've assembled a great staff there and
with Mike Corbett coming on this year from Quinnipiac and
(13:43):
being a board just came in last year. But they've
hit home runs on the transfer portal kids. When you
look at their guys, and a lot of those guys
were hurt, but Noah Bexter leading score came over from Clarkson.
You got Slaine, who who was hurt a little bit
coming from Northern You got Lucius that's now healthy from Wisconsin,
(14:07):
and you got the Jackson twins that were hurt for
a while at the beginning of the year. Now they're
getting Now they're healthy. They came over from Northeastern and
now it's just you're adding pieces that you like. Kyle
Smolen and Shimmick was a came in as a grad transfer,
(14:28):
and you got Ryan Kerwin from Penn State. It's they've
hit a home hit home runs with their grad transfers,
and Shimmick came from prominence. So if hit home runs
on their transfers, because why wouldn't you want to go
play in warm weather, Why wouldn't you want to go
play in a beautiful new building.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Why wouldn't you want to play in.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
The NCCHC there, It's not it's not hard to put
something together there pretty quickly, and they've done that. The
biggest problem I think they've had in previous years, and
one besides not being an elee you're gonna having to
play a lot of road games, is meshing those transfers together,
because it is hard to get them together. And they've
done a great job of it this year of meshing
(15:09):
that group together. And you got and don't forget about
Potter too, He's legit he's going to be a number
a number one pick, a first rounder here next year.
Is just an O seven and he got an O
seven played college hockey. Let's think about that seven. He's
just seventeen years old and he's putting up points.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
He's got thirteen points in twenty two games.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
There's some two thousands playing college hockey and he's an
oh seven.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Well, when you think about Arizona State and you look
at what Greg Powers has done there, he's really played
the long game on all this transition from club to
Division one, the years at Ocean Side, the building of Mullet,
getting that arena in place, selling people on the program,
(15:59):
making the tournament is an independent working through COVID and
having to be on the road the whole season with
a Big ten, and now with the arena and getting
the staff there and everything. It really seems like this
has just been steady progress. Maybe it seems slow at
the time, but in retrospect, it has been a really
(16:21):
good process year after year to get to this level.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
But they made they This is the thing that I like.
They made the NCAA tournament. This is the thing that
I actually not that I like. I find funny because
I should give great about it. They've got a tournament
banner up and they've got two tournament banners up in
they're building, one from twenty nineteen and one from twenty twenty.
(16:47):
Obviously the twenty didn't happen, but they would have got in,
but they put a tournament banner up for it. And
so it's it's been coming. Like you said, they've been
building and it's been coming, and now they're reaping the
rewards of that and the facilities that the locker room
space they have. They if we forget that they've got
(17:10):
besides their area, they've got two NHL area annex is
built on the outside of it that the Coyotes just
had to leave for them. They've got some big time.
They had zero issues hosting hosting the Desert Classic because
of locker room space. I'm going to go out on
a limb. They're hosting the Icebreaker next year. I bet
(17:33):
you eventually they will bid if you bid for a regional.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
Reaching them if when they allow campus ranks speak built
but they have the Notre Dames had it before they had,
but it's been for a long time now.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Yeah, we'll see. So I think that one I'll probably
be let back in.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
Yeah, that's what I see being changed.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Eventually, everything is on the table these days when it
comes to the NCAA, and.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
We're going to talk about that and buy and sell. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Number seventeen Yukon. They went on the road to number
five main Alphon. Who were the games at Alphond Yes, yeah,
both of them. There a tough place to play and
the Huskies won four to two on Friday, a two
to two tie on Saturday, Maine took the point in
the shootout, So four out of six points on the
road against Maine. For Connecticut, Mike Kavanaugh has got to
(18:27):
be thrilled with that. They're climbing. They're going to be
moving up in the poll for this week and certainly
moving up in the pair wise. It seems like Yukon
came out of nowhere, but probably not out of nowhere.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
We're a couple of weeks from moving from them being
twentieth in the pairwise, they're now nine at the pairwise.
They've done this in a short amount of time. Obviously,
the sweep of New Hampshire last weekend was big, but
then going on the road, you could say four of
six and maybe that doesn't sound impressive. Four of six
and or No is unbelievable. And the fact that they
(19:03):
were down. They scored early on Saturday after winning on Friday,
scored early on Saturday, take the one nothing lead, but
then they it gets tied, and then Maine takes leading
in if Maine and Orno they get the lead, they
go into the third period, that's it. And they got
the lead early in the third. Yukon then found a
(19:25):
way back though and they got that equalizer, held on,
got into overtime, couldn't win the shootout to get the
extra point. But to go up to or and oh
take four or six really impressive.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Absolutely, And you're just look and you look at where
they've been and where they're going, and it's still six
teams in the top third deeper Hockey East, and that's
you go on a couple of little runs against some
of these teams that are up there. It doesn't really
affect the team you're beating that bad, but it allows
you to climb quickly.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
That's happened. Then, Do I still think they're going to
get six in?
Speaker 6 (20:04):
No?
Speaker 4 (20:04):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I just I don't think six is going to happen.
I think they'll be five, and we'll talk about that
a little bit later. But great run at Yukon's on.
But another one, how should that surprise us? Brand new,
gorgeous building on the state, the flagship campus in Connecticut.
Unbelievable setup in stores. Shouldn't surprise us when you're putting
(20:27):
all that money into a new building and everything. The
women's team at U come with Chris McKenzie.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
I saw him out.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I was watching my daughter, my youngest daughter play in there,
and they just they've they've got a great setup there.
Now they don't have to go to Hartford, they don't
have to get on the bus to travel there.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
This is a This isn't surprising.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
They're going to have to change their name from Ice
Bus to Ice Shuttle Bus. If they're playing on campus,
then yeah, that's right. Stone Hill, how about stone Hill?
Last year they won one game? They one just one
d one game. A year ago they got their first
win over a nationally ranked opponent, number nine. You mass
Lowell three to two in overtime. Eighth win of the
(21:09):
year for head coach David Barrard and his Skyhawks team.
He was able to keep some players who were going
to transfer out. Seems to have them believing and playing well.
First question I want to ask, and I really hate
this question because sometimes I think it's just throwaway, but
is this a case in Jim, you called the game,
(21:30):
you broadcast the game. Is this a case of a
team maybe looking past or maybe overlooking the possibilities of
its opponent a little.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
I don't want to say that Lowell looked past it
because they had just lost two to Maine and they
knew that they needed this game, but I think they
thought it would be easier. I talked to Dave Barrard
before the game and he said, listen, the one thing
I'll promise you is you're going to see one of
the hardest working teams that you'll see all year. We
(22:02):
don't have skill, so we can't match many teams on
their skill level, but we can work hard. And I
will tell you they outworked Loll for that first period.
Loll finally matched them in the second, had it going
early in the third, never extended a two to one lead,
and then that hard work started to really show again
for stone Hill.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
They pulled the goalie really lated.
Speaker 5 (22:23):
They didn't get the goalie out till maybe forty five
seconds left, but then with I think it was thirty
four seconds left. They end up scoring the tying goal
and then win the opening face off of overtime, go
in control the puck and win a one on one battle.
Next thing the pucks in the back of the net
and stone Hill.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
That's a big week.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
That's a single game, but a big game for them
to beat the number nine team of the country. But
this program looked helpless last year, a part time coach
playing in a youth hockey arena, getting smoked, sometimes only
getting one Division one.
Speaker 6 (23:00):
Win by the end of the season.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Now they've won three games against Hockey East teams at
this point, two against Merrimack, won against Lowell. That's pretty
darn and impressive. And pats off to Dave Berard his staff.
They do a really great job with this. He only
has one full time assistant coach right now, trying to
get that second one for next year and then hopefully
(23:24):
of building three four years down the road.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
You worried about Lowell, give me you were there, Yeah,
worried a little because because I'm looking at their schedule,
they're going to get an angry Providence team this week.
Ye then Boston College, Merrimack vermad I'm northeastern. I mean
this could be a they need to rate the ship
because this when did this take them from the parawise
where they were last week?
Speaker 4 (23:47):
This week, that's a big drop is.
Speaker 6 (23:49):
The last two weekends.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
I can tell you the last two weekends they have
gone from seven to thirteen in the pairwise and that's
a span of three games. This loss took them down
two spot, from eleven to thirteen.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
So let me so, is this a loss that you
can look at and go if they don't right the ship,
this could be the one that at cost them theer
an NCAA tournament.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Sure, yeah, I think sewing. Yeah, if they end up
being around the bubble, then yes. Losing that game at home,
even though you got a little bit, you got eighty
percent three percent not much so you got a little
bit in terms of credit for that one, but in
(24:33):
terms of what you lost.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
That was a pretty big loss.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
One more before we go to break Army West Point,
they had scored seven goals in eight games, scored twenty
two goals against Mercyhurst in two games, and then won
three to two and four to three in overtime against
Air Force. It was the first weekend sweep of the
Air Force Falcons since twenty fourteen, in the first on
(24:58):
home ice at West Point since January of two thousand
and eight, and it's the last time that Brian Riley
will have a regular season series at home against their
huge rival of Air Force Boy Army has found a
way to score all of a sudden and I'm not
surprised because I've seen the weapons they have, but you
(25:20):
got to feel good.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
And maybe if.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You're an opponent of them in the league, you don't
feel as good, but you got to feel good to
see Brian Riley have some fun wins and some success
on his way out and his Swung Song season.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
I saw what you did there with the weapon thing.
Yeah you didn't even touch that. I'm like, oh, look
at that being created. But yeah, you know what you
like to see Brian. Brian's one of the great guys.
And I hope they're really confident coming into their next
weekend series and take the team that they're playing.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Really lightly and really they used up all their goals too.
Speaker 7 (26:01):
I would hope what happened on on Friday and Saturday
night that they've used up all their goals and they
go back to their ways of scoring seven and eight games.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
That's all I have to say about that one.
Speaker 6 (26:14):
I guess I don't have to look at or to
see this is incredible.
Speaker 5 (26:19):
And I got to watch the highlights from Saturdays when
they were down three to one going to the third,
get a couple of timely goals force it to overtime
the game when it was incredible, and that building. When
that rivalry series happens against air Force, that Tate Rink
(26:39):
becomes one of the best places to watch college hockey
because you have the cadets who are just they look
great in their dress, dress suits and all of that
sort of stuff. I'm not even sure with the right
words architela. I never served a day in the in
the uniforms. Yeah, dress uniforms, and they look fantastic, but
they want to go nuts.
Speaker 6 (26:59):
And did they get to celebrate?
Speaker 5 (27:02):
And then all the pageantry playing the Alma maters and
the captain standing at center rice both teams together. I
think that's there's something fantastic about that series. And then
knowing that was Brian Riley's last time doing it at home.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
I'll get to do it one more time in the
Springs in a few weeks.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
What a way to go out for Brian Riley and
the Riley family that has been there sixty plus years.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Big time goal. The second goal was big time goal.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Yeah, I walked, walked the d and stucked it, stuffed
the short side and lost a big time goal.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
We're going to take a break in.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
We're going to have a round of buyer cell and
Jim's holding us to some really tight parameter series buy
or cell, no hold, no equivocation. We got to stand
up and make a decision, and we'll do that when
USCCHO Weekend Review can and we'll do that when US
Echo Weekend Review continues. Welcome back to us e h
(28:16):
O Weekend Review. We're gonna play buy or sell no
hold in. Jimson in his email with the list of
what we're going to go through, he said to us,
make a decision and defend it. I may have to
waffle on one of them a little bit because of
lack of public knowledge, but let's start out with this one.
Three conferences will have only one team in the NCAA
(28:39):
tournament by or sell.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
Oh, suppose you can go first bye.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
And I believe that because I think that if these
teams keep winning, they're gonna they'll put themselves in the tournament.
By we're talking quite miss I State right now. A
lot of cockey will get one. If they do, they
will fall out of the top fourteen are thirteen if
need be.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
I'm actually going to sell them, but I'm going to
be very specific, and this is not going to be
very popular with Quinnipiac fans.
Speaker 6 (29:13):
Quinnipiack's going to go on a run.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
They're going to move themselves up and be probably somewhere
around nine eight in the pairwise when the ECAC tournament starts,
they will get to Lake Placid and they will lose
in the semifinals like they do every year. Ooh, yes,
so we're going to get We're going to get Quinnipiac
in as an at large team, and then whomever whatever team,
whether it's Dartmouth or Cornell or Princeton or Harvard, whichever
(29:39):
team decides to go on a run, they're going to
get the automatic bid from the ECAC and bump out
somebody that's currently inside the bubble right now.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
That would be mass Low.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I'm going to buy on this one, and I think
what's going to happen. We know Atlantic Cocky is going
to get one in. I think in the CCHA if
Minnesota State is still within the bubble, if they don't
win the league.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
They'll be pushed out of the bubble. So it'll be.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Whoever wins that league and then easy AC. I don't
know that Quinnipiac goes on a run. I think they're
going to be tenuous in the bubble too, so I
think if they lose before winning the league championship, they
end up pushed out too. So I think in those
three leagues that you either have the team that's already
(30:29):
in the bubble winning the league or you have them
dropping out of the bubble if somebody else wins. But
I could buy your scenario to Jim, if Quinnipiac goes
on a role, you'll have two from that league.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
But you got They got Yukon, which is a big
one coming up here, and then the Yale Sacred Heart
for both those Yukon. That's a big game for both
those for both both Quinnipiac and Yukon, right they can
can you imagine if Yale and Sacred Heart finish one
and three, Quinnipiac and can the unic finished two and four.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
But that's going to do to the freaking apple cart.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
It wouldn't be it wouldn't be great.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
And you know what, if either of those teams are
considering this, you almost you need to find a way
to get to your championship game in that tournament. And then,
I guess more importantly, even if you lose, try to
get doing in overtime or doing a tie where you're
losing a shootout. You don't want to. You need pairwise
(31:30):
points from this weekend. No, no conference points at stake.
Pairwise points are next one.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
I'm going to go first on this. When Big ten
is the strongest conference top to bottom, buy or sell,
I'm going to sell its Hockey.
Speaker 6 (31:43):
East I'll go. I can go second this. So this
is one I said. I put in the buy sal.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
And there was no hold because I'm not I want
to waffle on this a little bit, but.
Speaker 6 (31:53):
I'm not going to.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
I'm actually if you're going to say top to bottom,
so all seven teams, I say, all seven of the
teams in that conference are very strong and can be
one another. I think Michigan State in Minnesota or among
the top two teams in the country, top four teams
in the country, I'll buy.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
I think Hockey East has some really.
Speaker 5 (32:17):
Good teams, but I think at the bottom of that
conference right now or some are teams that are not
as strong down in the nine to ten range. I
think New Hampshire eleventh is stronger than people think. But
so I work in Hockey East. I do a lot
of work around that league. But I still think seventeams.
(32:41):
Seven teams are definitely those seven teams are stronger as
a whole than the entire eleven are in Hockey East.
But I think there's probably more than seven great teams
in Hockey East. There's my head on that bet.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yeah, and I'm going to completely disage agree with you.
So I'm going to I guess I would sell on that.
I'm a big fan of the big ten. But when
you look at the whole Hockey East in the top
thirty two and Vermont is the lowest one, and then
you look at Notre Dame at thirty six, I'm going numbers,
(33:18):
straight numbers. You got eleven in the top thirty two.
You don't have seven in the top thirty six.
Speaker 4 (33:24):
Boom cool.
Speaker 6 (33:26):
I like your math. Okay, Mike Drop, are you starting
to You're starting to sway.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Me all right, next one, buy or sell whether each
or any of these perennial powers make the NCAA tournament.
I'll name the four and then we'll go quickly one
by one. Quinnipiac, Minnesota State, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Let's start
with Quinnipiac.
Speaker 5 (33:46):
I'm going to obviously buy on them. I've said that
they're going to go on a little conference run here,
get out of non conference games, and then they'll find
a way to get up to around eight nine before
their conference tournament.
Speaker 6 (33:59):
They'll be in field.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Sell because I think they're gonna what Jimmy says is
they're gonna go on a little bit of a run.
They're gonna put themselves in the fourteen fifteen, so they're
gonna lose. When Jimmy says they're gonna lose, it's gonna
knock them out. The other team wins. So I'm gonna sell.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
I'm gonna sell.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Also, I think you see a dark horse from ECACP
the only team in and even that they've stumbled, I
could see somebody like a Dartmouth or a Clarkson be
in there in that tournament too.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
A Minnesota State.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
I'm gonna buy because I don't know if there's anybody
maybe August Stana, but I are they eligible? Yes, maybe
I'm gonna buy. I would have held on this, but
I'll buy. And I got no reason why other than
I think that right now they're the I'm gonna go
off my hockey's theory that they're the best team and
it's not really even that close.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
I think I'm gonna buy too. Are there teams that
can pull off the upset in the tournament? Bowling Green certainly,
and don't forget they are the host in Toledo, so
that would they get to play a home game or
Michigan tac Listen, I'd like Tech a lot this season.
That said gone to my head. Michigan's Minnesota State. They
(35:17):
just win, They win games, and they'll win the big
games in the tournament.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, I'm gonna buy on Minnesota State. I think they
either get in well, I like we were saying before that
they may get moved out of the bubble, but I
think they're the team to beat in there. Wisconsin, I
am going to I am going to sell on Wisconsin.
They're not going to be able to get in as
at large. They might sneak over five hundred, which would
(35:43):
help them. Right now, they couldn't be in the tournament
as an at large because they're below five hundred. Early
losses are going to come back to bite them, and
I don't think they win the big ten. So I'm
going to say sell on Wisconsin.
Speaker 5 (35:56):
Yeah, I'm going to sell as well. Too much ground
to make up, too big of a hole for themselves.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
So I sell, I sell because I don't think they're
going to get the five hundred. I think they're gonna
They're two below right now, and their schedule is not easy.
Michigan Minnesota. You go one and three, two and two again,
sad you're still below. Then you got to go down
to you got to start winning. You got to make
up two games somehow and just to get where you're at.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
So I'm gonna sell ten regular season opportunities though left Yeah,
I just you to think they have to go.
Speaker 6 (36:33):
They have to go five and six and four.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
If they go six and four down the stretch, they
could make themselves eligible. But I don't think six and
four is enough to pull them up from where they
are at seventeen. I think you have to get to
you have to be thinking twelve thirteen this year. I
don't see seventeen to twelve.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
And maybe you better look at seven and three if
you don't think you're going to win the Big Ten,
because then you need to go five hundred in the
Big ten tournament. So it's a it's a big hill
to climb, Michigan. I'll go first on that. I'm buying
on that one.
Speaker 6 (37:08):
Oh bye as well. They don't have a lot of
room for arra though. That's the only thing I'll say.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
They have to find ways to they They're a team
that probably has to play six hundred hockey the rest
of the way to make sure they stay where they are.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
There are ten I'm gonna buy that's I think technically eleven. Yeah, okay,
tied for tenth, don't wanna.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
Don't want to give that shrug if you're tied for
thirteenth right now.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
No.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Whatever next one has to do with awards, and this
one is an interesting one. I scratched my head a
bit when I saw this one. Jim, next year, next
season five or twenty five, twenty six?
Speaker 4 (37:47):
What decade am I in? Oh five? Those are the
players that's their birth year.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
I guess a current player from the HL Major Junior
in Canada will win the Hoby Baker Award in twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Buy or sell.
Speaker 5 (38:03):
Regretting the way I worded this, I should have said
it would make the Hobi hat trick, because actually saying
that they'd win the award is actually pretty That's a
big step to climb right away. But if I did
say when I'm going to sell, and I'm going to sell,
and I'm going to say that there was a bias,
there's going to be a bias against the player. So
(38:24):
you might have a player come in and put up
seventy points next year, but they'll probably be a bias
against that player. He won't get the votes needed to
win the Hoby Baker board. And that's the reason that
you could have a seventy point score not win the Hoby.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Yep, And that's exactly what I was going to say.
I wouldn't talk about it. You're not going to get
the votes because people are going to refuse to vote
for a major junior kid in their first year.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
It know, right side itself. After year two or three,
I agree with it.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
The weird thing is we're going to see and I
think Greg Carvel said it an interview, everybody's taking major
junior kids. Everybody's got to remember, these kids didn't want
to go to school, so now they're going to have
to dive back into school and do all this and
see we'll see how things play out in two years
and see where it goes. I think this is going
(39:15):
to be a two year deal, and I don't know. Hey,
we're dealing with major junior kids and we're going to
try to.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
See where that plays out.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
But sooner or later there will be a bias against
major junior kids, if there isn't already.
Speaker 4 (39:31):
So I agree with Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I'm going to agree with you both. Having this is
my third year and my second time around, I can
disclose that on the committee and I'm going to sell
on that one too, although I won't be one of
the people voting during that year. There's a couple of
things interesting in there. I'm going to agree with disagree
rather with carvellon on one thing. Yeah, these were kids
(39:53):
who didn't want to go to school, but they thought
that it was an either or, And now that those
kids are going to be available for college, all of
a sudden, the NCAA becomes an even more compelling, better
route for development than it used to be. And like
when we talked a couple of weeks ago, Jim with
Chris Peters from Flow Hockey. He made the point that
(40:15):
people are going to look at Adam van Tilly or
Maclin Celebrini and say, hey, I get to play against
some older players and develop along that way. And then
you're going to see the kind of the bifurcation between
the seventeen eighteen year olds who decide to leave major
junior and go the NCAAA route for a year or two,
and then the nineteen twenty year old the over agers
(40:36):
who decide, hey, I can keep my development going and
maybe have an opportunity I wouldn't have had before. That's
a little tangential, but I guess we all sell on
that one last one. The NCAA will vote this season
to make a fifth year option for student athletes permanent.
Buy or sell.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
I'm going to buy on this, and I don't know
that it'll comfort vote this year. And that's the way
I wrote the question. Maybe I should have been a
little more bag. We're going to get there. If it's
being talked about as a reason, it's being talked about.
Speaker 6 (41:07):
It's because it's going to happen.
Speaker 5 (41:10):
We've seen everything that's gotten talked about, whether it's the
transfer portal, whether it was the COVID year, whether it
was Major Junior, or whatevercrit might be. Anything that's been
talked about has come true. So if it's out there
the rumors are that it's going to happen, it's going
to happen.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
And do you want to go because I know you
were going to ask you some questions about it. There's
a couple things in there.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
They're talking about making a fifth year eligible for a
player who's a freshman, who who only plays in thirty
percent of the games, as you pointed out before we
went on, like they do with football. But you made
an argument that I thought was pretty compelling, and I
don't want to take away your whole argument, but the
(41:52):
NCAA has not been super proactive on things lately. Things
like Major Junior have been reactive. There's a lot lawsuit
and then they do make the change. So I don't
think they're going to rush to make a change on
this till somebody pushes the issue. So I'm going to
say sell.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
So you're say and it's never going to happen or
is this nobody It's not going to happen this season. Okay,
I'm going to buy because I think that there's enough
chatter about it. There's an article where they talk to
the one of the chairs of the I think from
Brigham Young, I think for the president of Brigham Young
and something they're really looking at in depth.
Speaker 4 (42:31):
All you got to do is.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Google fifty year of eligibility and you get a whole
bunch of articles on it. I think because the football
there was a football player at Vanderbilt that sued and
got the fifth year. I think they're going to end
up making a fifth year eligible, no waivers, no red shirts.
You have five years to play five whether you play
(42:53):
two games, whether you play thirty two games, you have
five years. And if you get hurt, sorry, that was
one of your years. And I think that is going
to lead that direction. The more people that want to
sue to get their nil money to get all of that,
I think they end up just making no waivers, nothing,
(43:14):
and you have five years to play five. I also
heard the silly one that is larger full time student.
You can be a college athlete, like can you imagine having.
Speaker 6 (43:24):
The Division III type of rule.
Speaker 4 (43:25):
Yeah, you're here for six seven years.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
If you just keep taking different degrees, Brobb me danger
fielding back to school, you become.
Speaker 5 (43:33):
A professional hockey player that goes to school during the day.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, so let me ask you this. I probably should
have had the clarification beforehand. Voting this season, do you
mean voting by April twelfth, or do you mean voting
by the end of the College World Series, which is
like in June.
Speaker 6 (43:55):
Right, Yeah, I didn't write that question very well.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
I think it's just not going to happen before the
end of the season. But somehow it's going to happen.
So that's why I say cel.
Speaker 5 (44:05):
Yeah, it's my lack of thought into how to work
that question is going to make this a little ambiguous.
But we all think it is going to happen, is
what I guess.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
I think with freshman at sophomores right now, you're going
to see maybe not the current fourth year seniors.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
They may not get it.
Speaker 5 (44:23):
Yeah, it's strange to think that four consecutive classes had it.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
One class doesn't then propose you.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Might get it after they are.
Speaker 5 (44:33):
There's just going to be one the class of twenty
twenty five. It's sorry, we screwed you over.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
But how much does this mess up opportunities for players?
Because oh gosh, it's already you're adding in major junior
and they're players getting the college hockey offers for next
year who would not have been eligible at all. So
it's pushing some people out. And then if you add
a fifth year, there's twenty or twenty five perc of
(45:00):
the spots being taken up possibly in there too. Then
you've got teams going away, and then the possibility of
limiting roster spots to twenty six. You could lose one
hundred spots for college hockey players, even before looking at
a fifty year of eligibility.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
But imagine do you imagine if they all of a
sudden say okay, everybody gets a fifth year next year
because that one class. So now I've got these other
guys that heyl they were just close to graduating. Now
they're going to take a masters I pool. It'll throw
a big branch. I'm a firm believer is that after
(45:40):
your fourth year, you'll as a after your fourth year
as a coach and as a player, you don't owe
that school anything because when people started to make the
schools they committed for four years.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
It's a four year process.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
But it's actually what it's turned into, and it's unfortunate
as a year to year process because if you've got
to go to twenty six, people have to won't be
able to You won't be able to keep all your players.
If you add a fifth year, you won't be able
to keep all your players.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
It's become from.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
A four year process to a one by one and
talked about with Arizona State. They did a great job
with their transfers, but they're they're gonna have there's gonna
have to be some players that leave that team if
they go to twenty six because of being a power
for school, they carry twenty nine right now.
Speaker 4 (46:32):
It's it's an interesting time to be an athlete.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
You're getting all these rights, but the rights are hurting
people as well.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
With that, we're going to wrap up this marathon episode
of usc CHO Weekend Review. I'man Trevsker for Jim Connolly
and Derek Schooling. We'll see you next time.
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