Gopher Puck Live Podcast

We closed out season 15 of the Gopher Puck Live podcast with quite a bit of chaos happening in college hockey. Denver is the Champ again. The Transfer Portal was/is crazy. Minnesota will look completely different next season and will be a top contender. On top of all of that is the new 5 for 5 NCAA eligibility that is likely coming next fall!   We get in to all of it along with an interesting overtime with beverages! Another great Gopher Puck Live season is in the books!   Watch on YouTube

We had brand new Gopher Hockey Coach Brett Larson on the show. We spent about 20 minutes getting to know Brett and what some of his goals are for his first season behind the Minnesota bench. We also learned what he'd like to see for the NCAA regional format as well. Fun to have him on the show and cannot wait to have him on again!   We also recapped the regionals and preview the Frozen Four with Denver vs Michigan and Wisconsin vs North Dakota!   Watch on YouTube

Brett Larson has been hired away from St. Cloud and is your NEW Gopher Men's Hockey coach! How did this all come together? How does affect the roster? Who is coming and going? So many questions need to be answered.   It is NCAA Regional weekend, the best 4 days of hockey each season. We preview all 4 regions and give you our thoughts.   Watch on YouTube

New Gopher Men's Hockey coach was introduced to the media this afternoon. Took questions. Mark Coyle also took questions as well.

Audio of Minnesota Athletic Director, Mark Coyle, talking about the search to replace Bob Motzko as the Men's Hockey coach.

Minnesota and coach Bob Motzko have "mutually agreed to part ways." Some expected this and some did not, but we had Paul Caponigri on to help us figure it all out. Who will replace Bob? So far the two most prominent names are Garrett Raboin and Ben Barr. We expect a replacement to be named very quickly. Video on YouTube Post on Gopher Puck Live

The Gophers head to Penn State to keep their season going in a single game winner take all in the BigTen Tournament quarterfinals. We get in to that as well as the recently completely High School Hockey Tournament. YouTube Link GPL Link

A special episode at the Pulltab Sports booth from Let's Play Hockey Expo. Former Gopher Brian Bonin joined us to talk all things youth and college hockey. Brian is super passionate about community hockey support and how it has been a huge blessing for Minnesota Hockey.

Coach Motzko, Zach Wiese and Brodie Ziemer talk about the Shootout win over Michigan State.

Coach Motzko talks about the 7-1 loss to Michigan State.

We had Connor Eargood join the podcast from the Detroit News to catch up on Michigan State as Minnesota faces the Spartans for the final regular season series this weekend.

We celebrated double Gold medals for the US Hockey Teams at the Olympics with BTN's Ben Holden. 46 years in the making for the men's team and boy did it feel good! We also got in to what happened at Notre Dame a few weeks ago by the Gophers. Can they turn it around the next 2 weeks against the best 2 teams in the country?

USCHO.com’s Creator and President Tim Brule joined us on the podcast to talk about a season that has not gone well at all this year for Minnesota. We get in to that Ohio State sweep of the Gophers and preview this coming weekend with Notre Dame. But USCHO has been THE source for College Hockey in the internet for 30 years now due to the work Tim has put in over the years. We also get heavy in to the new NPI rankings as well.

BTN's Paul Caponigri joined the show as our guest as Minnesota gets a very encouraging sweep of Wisconsin. The power play is now the 2nd best in the country, are things finally coming together? What is happening with Gavin McKenna? Penn State or State Penn? We get in to all of that along with a preview of the Ohio State series this weekend.

Wisconsin State Journal's Todd Milewski made his 20th podcast appearance as we get ready for the Wisconsin Badgers this weekend. While Minnesota is on a 7 game losing streak, the Badgers are on a 4 game losing streak themselves. So it will make for an interesting weekend as the two teams will face each other for the first time in history with both teams having lost 4 or more games in a row.

Though the Gophers are not having a good season, especially here in January. We had fun celebrating our 300th podcast with Gopher Legend Pat Micheletti! But it did turn in to a what felt like a therapy session has the Gophers grabbed only a single point against the Wolverines. I HIGHLY recommend checking out the full show on YouTube. We had a 2 hour overtime that included Nate Well, Drew Cove, Eric Schierhorn, Craig Flor, Brian Deutsch and Ben Holden.

Not a great start for Minnesota in 2026 as they get swept by Penn State. We had former Gopher Nick Angell to survey the situation. Nick went in to detail on what it takes to turn a team around and he shared a lot of it with us on the show. We also got an update on the Golden Helmet Collective initiative from Nick. Oh... Number 1 Michigan is also in town this weekend as January looks to be a super tough road ahead for Minnesota.

After the long December break, we are back at full strength and ready for the 2nd half of the season! We recapped the OSU series in early December and got heavily in to the World Junior Tournament that just finished up. The Gophers are on the road at Penn State this weekend to kick off a very tough January schedule.

Dan Woog, the son of former coach Doug Woog, joined the GPL podcast to reminice about his Dad. Great stories about "Wooger" from "Boomer". We also got in to the big win over Denver this past weekend and previewed the road series with Ohio State.

John King is back on the show and he is a bit concerned with this years team. Last week did look a lot better with the split of Penn State. This week they head west to play Denver in the Hall of Fame game. We get in to all of that and more on the show this week.

This Gopher team has been nothing but ups and downs so far this season. We have BTN's Paul Caponigri on to discuss what has been a down season so far for the team. After splitting with LIU, Minnesota now faces Penn State on home ice. We get in to all of it this week.

We have former Gopher Sam Rossini on the show to recap the bounce back sweep of Notre Dame. No suspensions from the Wisconsin/Michigan series? How can that be? Who is Long Island University?

Swept by the Badgers in Madison makes it 4 losses in a row for Minnesota. They have not done this since the end of the Don Lucia era in 2018. So we needed a therapy session to help us work up our confidence for the coming weekend against Notre Dame.

The Wisconsin State Journal's Todd Milewski joins the show as we preview the upcoming series against the Badgers in Madison. But first we get in to the debacle that was the weekend sweep of the Gophers by Minnesota-Duluth.

Former Gopher goaltender, Eric Schierhorn, joined the show as we talked about the split at North Dakota. Still a lot of up and down with this young team so far this season. How will they do against Minnesota-Dululth? We get in to that as well.

The amazing shootout streak is OVER! We had Brad Schlossman from the Grand Forks Herald on to talk about that big streak and also talk about the series this weekend along with how much college hockey has changed. For those of you that watch on YouTube, we had an extended Overtime segment as well.

Former Gopher and current part time radio analyst, Jack Ramsey, is back on the GPL Podcast. We spoke about the very inconsistent play by the Gophers in the split with Michigan Tech. So we got in to the good and back of the weekend. We also previewed the big weekend with Boston College coming up!

We kicked off Season #15 of the GPL Podcast with a special guest as Frank Mazzocco joined the show! He will be calling the games on TV for the first time since 2010 this weekend and we are very excited to have him back! We had a bunch of topics for the first show of the season. New comers. NPI. B1G. Top 20. And of course we previews the series with Michigan Tech.

Former Gopher Nick Angell along with lawyer and 20+ year GPL'er Eric Brever joined the show to talk about NIL and their new collective, Golden Helmet Collective. With all the craziness with NIL and college hockey happening over the summer, it was a great learning experience to hear from the both of them. Much of the show was NIL related, but we did get in to some off-season hockey talk and things happening at the U.

The Gopher season ended with a big THUD as they were eliminated in the 1st game of the NCAA Tournament. What went wrong? Blame the refs? It is not that simple. 6 underclassmen players have left to sign pro contracts. 5 players have graduated. There are a lot of spots on the roster for next season. Portal add. New recruits. So much to talk about on the final show of the season.

Former Gopher Mike Carman joined the show as we previewed the NCAA Tournament regionals coming up this weekend. The big guns need to show up if the Gophers are going to advance to the Frozen Four. We cover that as well as the small things that are important to make that happen.

The Gophers not only get knocked out of the Big Ten playoffs by Notre Dame. They lose Senior Aaron Huglen for the season to a broken leg in the process. We have Pat Micheletti on to vent all of our frustrations on this weeks show.

The Gophers earn a share of the Big Ten Title, but also will not have to sit idol this week and will face Notre Dame at 3M Arena at Mariucci this weekend. We cover the 4 out of 6 points they earned at Penn State and also previewed the rest of the Big Ten Tournament as well.

A big sweep at home over Ohio State sets up and even bigger weekend at Penn State with a small 2pt lead over Michigan State for the Big Ten Title!

We did this show from a fish house on Fish Lake in Maple Grove for the Fiber to the Fish House event by Gateway Fiber and Pulltab Sports! BTN's Paul Caponigri was our guest to help us preview the big weekend with Ohio State.

We are back from the bye week and ready for the stretch run! We thought it was a great chance to get John King from Pulltab Sports on for his yearly appearance on the podcast! We've got BADger sweep. Gum Chewing. 3 class State Tournament. Just to name a few of the topics! Fun show as we also previewed the big weekend at Michigan!

It's BADger week, so of course we are going to have Todd Milewski on from the Wisconsin State Journal! We covered the terrible weekend in East Lancing against Michigan State. Is that rock bottom? Hope so! Beyond that, we get in to how much better Wisconsin is playing these days, will it be enough to get in the the NCAA Tournament? What happens between Minnesota and Wisconsin this weekend? We cover all of it!

A big series with Michigan State also means we need a big guest to cover all of it. So former Gopher and current TV & Radio analyst Pat Micheletti is on the show to cover all of it. We get deep in to the 4 points against Notre Dame. Penalty kill issues. Goaltending. And what Minnesota needs to do this weekend against MSU.

Former Gopher Jack Ramsey was back with us for the first time in a year! He helped us recap the OSU weekend and preview the home series with Notre Dame. He may have some answers to help the Gopher power play too!

We are back from our winter break to kick off the 2nd half of the season with BTN analyst and former Buckeye Paul Caponigri! We covered the MSU series from December. The Mercyhurst sweep. The World Junior's Gold Medal for Team USA! And of course the resurgent Ohio State Buckeyes.

Former Gopher goalie Eric Schierhorn is back on the show at the perfect time! Right after Minnesota pulls a double shutout SWEEP of the Wolverines of Michigan. But the injuries are stacking up right before the winter break as Minnesota faces #3 Michigan State just as the Gophers take over the #1 spot MSU just occupied.

This season former Gopher Sam Rossini is helping out as an analyst on the Gopher Radio broadcast. So we thought it would be fun to get him on the show! We talked about the big series with Michigan this weekend as well as the win and tie with Alaska.

Former Gophers Jordan Leopold and Nick Angell joined us for a special Thanksgiving episode of the podcast. Both Nick & Leo think they would not be good enough to make the current D for the Gophers when they were that age. The puck skills and the skating skills of the players these days has advanced a ton since they played. We did cover a little bit of the current team on the show, but this turned out to be story time from Nick & Leo.

Former Gopher Mike Carman is on the show to talk about his new podcast that talks about life after the game. It's called "When The Game Ends" podcast. We get deep in the a lot of issues that players can have after leaving the game. We did still get in to plenty of Gopher talk. The split with BSU. Vegoe's Top 20. All the recruits that signed their NLI. And of course we preview the Notre Dame series as well.

The Gophers get two 3-2 weekend wins in Madtown to extend their winning streak to 8 games! Jimmy Snuggerud was big on the weekend earning the BigTen 1st Star of the week! But not all the news was good. We talk about the loss of Påhlsson until what sounds like January. Falloon & Thomas still out for a bit as well. AIC is dropping from D1 to D2 hockey. So a lot is going on for this episode.

Todd Milewski from the Madison State Journal is back for a record 16th appearance on the GPL Podcast. He gives us the scoop on what appears to be a down year for the Badgers? But is it really bad? We will just have to wait and see.

Cappy is back on the GPL Podcast to give us his thought on the upcoming Big Ten season as well as this weekend against Penn State. He thinks Minnesota is the best team in the country right now, but there are a lot of good teams out there!

Former Gopher hockey TV announcer and current St. Thomas play by play guy Sam Ekstrom is on our show! He goes in to what happened when he was replaced by Fox9 in the booth, but also gave great insight on the Tommies and Gophers! We recapped the big sweep in Duluth which was a first since the 2011-12 season!

The Gophers started strong at the Ice Breaker Tournament in Vegas, but didn't finish well. We talk about the 54 shot, 2-1 loss against UNO as well as the win over Air Force. Also get in to the coming weekend in Duluth!

Pat Micheletti is back on the GPL Podcast as the team heads to Vegas for the Ice Breaker Tournament. We covered that along with the new rules for this season. The exhibition win over St. Cloud. Even got in Name Image Likeness (NIL) and how National Letter of Intent (NLI) may be going away as well.