Season 4 Episode 26 of the Chasing MacNaughton Podcast from Tech Hockey Guide; Loser Claims… This week, Tim Braun, Dustin Lindstrom, Rob Gilreath and Matt Cavender were joined by Connor Earegood who covers the University of Michigan hockey team for The Michigan Daily. In this episode they discussed the upcoming NCAA Tournament, the CCHA Tournament championship game between Minnesota State and Northern Michigan, and who each regional winner will be.

How the cookie crumbles

The guys started off by briefly discussing the NCAA Tournament bracket and the seeding results. They talked about the Minnesota Golden Gopher fans being angry at their draw and why the selection committee may have made the decisions they did. They discussed what to possibly do on the day off between games and there was also a discussion on where to get the best Philly cheesesteak.

Choke job

The guys talked about the CCHA championship game between Minnesota State and Northern Michigan. Tim thought it was an interesting game and enjoyed getting live Joe Shawhan updates from the THG Discord. Dustin thought that Northern Michigan had the game in the bag after killing off a five-on-three penalty and Rob was frustrated to see Minnesota State win the title again.

Scouting report

Connor talked about Michigan is trending upwards at the right time and thought that they would have no problem against Colgate in their opening NCAA Tournament game. Connor has watched Penn State play a number of times this season and talked about their play style, which Tim dubbed the “shoot first and ask questions later” style of play. Connor also talked about Penn State having a poor second half of the season. Tim gave kudos to Penn State for going undefeated in their non-conference schedule but did add the caveat that all the wins were against weaker opponents. Later in the show, Connor pointed out a couple of Penn State players to watch out for and Tim thought that the game would be winnable for Tech.

Looking ahead to the possible Michigan Tech versus Michigan matchup, Connor talked about Michigan being a young team that sometimes makes a lot of coverage mistakes and shared some ways in which the Wolverines can be beaten. Rob was curious to see how different officials call the games and Connor talked about Michigan being a heavily penalized team.

Regional picks

The guys started with the Fargo regional. Matt picked Minnesota to advance. Dustin mostly agreed with Matt but ended up picking St. Cloud State. Tim thought it would be Minnesota as well with St. Cloud State not far behind. Connor picked Minnesota and talked about the team having something to prove after their Big 10 Conference Tournament loss to Michigan. Rob picked the winner of the St. Cloud State versus Minnesota State game to advance.

The Manchester regional was next. Matt initially picked Denver to advance, but after hearing the arguments from the other guys decided to flip his pick to Western Michigan. Tim picked Western Michigan citing their play against Tech in the GLI as the reason for the pick. Rob didn’t fall for the western (geographically speaking) hockey bias and picked Boston University to advance. Connor agreed with Rob’s pick of Boston. Dustin went against the rest of the grain and picked Cornell to advance.

The guys picked the Bridgeport regional next. Matt picked Ohio State to advance. Rob thought Harvard would move on. Dustin picked Quinnipiac. Connor picked Ohio State. Tim picked Merrimack.

Saving the Allentown regional for last, Matt decided that he was going to pull a John Buccigross and called our beloved university “Michigan State”. After recovering from that blunder, he picked the winner of the Michigan Tech versus Michigan game to which he then endured an appropriate amount of ridicule from the other guys. Rob thought that Tech would break their first round voodoo and get to play Michigan. The rest of the guys did not provide picks for the regional as they got distracted by Rob talking about his work schedule.

Meet the THG podcast crew

At the end of the show, the guys discussed some of their plans during the regional. They will be at the alumni gathering ahead of the game and are hoping to record some live podcast segments both pre- and post-game, and Tim said they might try and get some fan reactions if Tech wins against Penn State.

Cut for time

This week’s cut content for Patrons is approximately 15 minutes long. The guys talked about how staff turnover at the Wolverine hockey program has affected this year’s players. There was a discussion on hockey cultural issues. Rob talked about his travel struggles if Michigan Tech reaches the frozen four. The Joe Show was discussed and the guys talked about their plans on the off day in New York.

Learn More

For additional information and more episode liner notes, check out our episode overview on Tech Hockey Guide. To make sure we can afford all our fancy equipment we purchased for the podcast and the THG website in general, please check out our Patreon page and consider joining. Patrons at our Black Level or above receive an authentic MTU jersey patch and access to extra podcast content including extended versions of our other episodes. This week’s extended version is about 75 minutes.

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Follow us on twitter at ChasingMacPod. Join our Discord server for discussions covering Michigan Tech hockey and more. You can submit questions through our email address, ChasingMac@techhockeyguide.com. Don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Please rate and review to help us reach more people, and tell your friends. Please check out Jonathan Zamaites’ series previews every Friday, Mike Anleitner’s Old Dog in Texas column every Wednesday, Zach Aufdemberge’s Analytics With Augie and Nathaniel Brose’s nationwide hockey columns. Also, keep an eye out for new recruiting articles that Tim Braun writes occasionally. As always, special thanks to our patron saint Doc McResin for his generous donation to get this thing running, we hope you enjoy. Also, thanks to The Thank You Notes for all the bumpers in today’s episode. If you like what you hear, check them out at thethankyounotes.bandcamp.com.