[Music] Welcome to Wednesday, the PHNX Hockey Podcast. And it's PD all alone again today. Leah is off to parts unknown. She was actually at the Paris Olympics. Did you see the 100 meter thing where the guy edges the guy out in the photo finish and they ring the bell? Leah was like right in line with the bell. How does that happen? She went to school abroad, by the way. And Craig is vacationing in the upper northeast in Maine today. And as always, I am at home. I'm not in the circle case studios today. I'm sitting at home. We got some, as you know, or may not know, I'm got a lot of housework going on. And if it gets noisy, I apologize. But today in the world of hockey, again, not much going on in the National Hockey League in Arizona. Matt Hsby has not purchased the team. Does not have a new building yet. Shane Dohn has not saved the day quite yet. Hoping to hear more from that soon, meaning the next five years. But as of now, the hockey we are looking forward to in the valley is the Arizona State Sun Devils. And I tell you what, it's two months away from opening night where they play Air Force in Air Force. And then they're going to come back the falling weekend and play the University of Michigan. We're going to talk all things hockey with ASU head coach Greg Powers. And I tell you what, if you're a hockey fan in the valley, you better get excited about this because if you saw yesterday on Twitter, season tickets for ASU hockey are sold out. That's correct. Season tickets are sold out. And I talked to Greg Powers this morning. I called him and we interviewed him earlier. So we're going to see a pre-taped interview, but I called him this morning to see what happens with tickets. First of all, if you can't get in, think about taking classes because students are first come, first serve, and they always sell out, by the way. So maybe you should take classes and then start getting in line or individual game tickets will start going on sale a month before the regular season starts. So that's one month from today. So like for the first week of September to look for a single game, tickets to go on sale for ASU hockey. And it's going to be the hottest hockey ticket in town unless you want to make the drive down to Tucson, in case the road runner is down in the valley. But before we get going, I want to mention Circle K, our favorite America's third stop and they are not just a third stop. They're a snack shop. And as everybody here knows, including Charles W. Pike, it is also a gas stop. Don't let that gas tank get too low. This is the PHNX Hockey Dad advice. Get your gas before it gets to a quarter tank and become part of the Circle K's free membership program, the inner circle where you save 25 cents per gallon on the first five Phillips, save three cents per gallon on every gallon after that. And see, Charles, this is what happens when Lee is not here. I'm never quite prepared. Enjoy your member exclusive beverage deals. And this happened to me. I just filled up with guests with Circle K. I clicked on my Inner Circle app free polar pop. And that is an absolute true story. You can get a polar pop or a froster every day for just 79 cents now through September 3 at any of their Arizona locations. Join the Inner Circle for free, but online Circle K app today. Terms and conditions apply at participating locations. Visit Circle K dot com for details and they take that money that you saved and go to desert financial credit union. By the way, I am going there because see these are an unbelievable deal right now at desert financial. Your credit unions can really help you out with CDs for more than 84 years. Dead or financial has been Arizona's largest, most trusted local credit union desert financial team are financial experts who are committed to help their members in the community offering real financial solutions to real financial problems. They can help you with their savings accounts, mortgages, loans, credit cards, investment options, and more. Join a current union of this committed to giving back to the community. When you open a free checking account online, you get $200 in bonuses. Get started today by visiting desert financial dot com slash 200. OK, yeah, Charles 100 miles as it was way too low on the circle. So without further ado, we're getting ready. Let's let's talk ASU hockey because I am truly excited. Everybody knows here. I'm a big college hockey guy. I played college hockey. I mean, I was a college hockey coach and I'm excited to see what this ASU Sun Devil team can do. And I believe in coach Greg Powers. I tell you what, he's a motivational guy. If you don't get excited, listen into this guy talk. I'm not sure you have a heartbeat. So without further ado, let's turn it over to Craig Morgan. With ASU hockey head coach Greg Powers. Thanks for joining us today. And I got to ask here we are in the middle of the heat in Arizona. So what has your summer look like between recruiting, hiring a new assistant coach, preparing for the season? You know, babysitting. I mean, running a coaching clinic and trying to have a family life. What's it all look like for you? Have you put it all together? You know, our summers are so busy. Our summers are honestly more hectic than than when we're in season because at least when when we're in season, wherever my team is, I'm at, right? So in the summer, I have, you know, stuff with my daughter, a lot of stuff with my son that we go and travel and do and tournaments, family trips, vacations, and then you tack on recruiting and then you tack on obviously hired a new coach. So it's been incredibly busy. I haven't been in Arizona that much with all the travel and obviously with how hot it is. I don't complain about that. So, you know, it's you have to embrace the off season, the chaos of it. And the, you know, it's not very predictable. The mean, it could be things that come up a week in a week's time that you don't know or coming up, that you need to go and take care of whether it's going to visit a kid and a family. And, you know, so it's hectic, but it's fun. It's all part of the job. And we're excited. Now we're in August. It's going to settle down and we can focus on our season. How was that coaching clinic, by the way, and how was that progressed? It was really good. And I think, you know, there's about 60 local coaches that showed up and it's something that we want to build and grow every year and and really turn into to a big time event for, you know, to give back to our local hockey community. But we got rave reviews on it. All the speakers prepared and incredibly well and I think the topics were really well appreciated. But the feedback we received was all very positive. And again, it's just things that we need to do as a program as we move forward to give back to our hockey community. It stinks that we lost the NHL. You know, nobody's more upset about that than me. Trust me, it's not good for a hockey community. It's not good for the kids that play hockey here. But we're taking on the responsibility to continue to move the rock forward as best we can and, and, you know, to, to, to, you know, help develop the hockey community in every way possible. So it was really good. Next year, hopefully we can get P to speak at it. Yeah, yeah, I know I got my summer kind of got away from me. We were just talking about the contracts with my house mess. I would really love to take part in that, especially with the local coaches. I think they, they, the more guidance they can get it. And, and the reality is Greg, you are the big dog on the pile right now. And then they ask you is, is got an important role in it and a torch to carry in this hockey community. And I think it's very important that they do connect with local coaches. I think it's a, it's a great, great idea that you have got going there. Yeah, I would question the wisdom of having PD speak. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I got a spot on the inside of the lead here. You officially joined the NCHC on July 1, I believe, was the date that they, they actually put out that announcement. We've talked about this a lot in the past, Greg. Is this the final piece of the foundation that you needed in place to really take this program to the next level? Yeah, it is. You know, I think the best analogy that, that I can use that, that I've used quite a bit in the last, you know, year or two is really for, for seven years, we were kind of fighting with both hands tied behind our back, right? We played in a community ice rink that sat 700 people where the puck would hit the ceiling and asbestos would fall in the ice three, four times a game if we were lucky. And, and then we got mullet, right? And, and then one hand became untied, right? And we're doing this and we made some big strides, beat programs like Minnesota and Denver and, you know, won the desert classic here and did some really good things, especially last season. And now we've kind of had that, that final hand on tide and we're fighting a fair fight, you know, where, where we, we are on a level playing field in every way and you could even argue we have more to sell here than really anybody because of your, our uniqueness as a, as an institution as it relates to college hockey. So we, we were recruiting at a level we've never recruited at before. We have, we're, we're in on conversations with literally anyone that we want to have conversations with. And that's reflected in our recruiting and the kids that are committed. And, and today's August 1st is the first day where you can offer juniors in high school. We have one of the top centers in the country visiting today. He lands at about an hour. And that's just a kid that previously would never have visited if you're an independent program. And so to the ability to develop those rivalries and to play, you know, consistently against the best programs in the country, which we will do now, it's what kids want. They want to compete for championships and all those things. And, and so it's really exciting to, to kind of start this next chapter in our program and in such a great league. Yeah, but you bring up a good point and winning is important and national championships are important and making it to the NCAA tournament is important. But this is to, to compare it. This is the SEC of football. I mean, this is, this is it. This is where the big boys play. And this is, you know, six of the last eight NCAA champions come from the NCHE, you've got Denver, you got Duluth, you got North Dakota. Like this is, this is a big boy NCAA hockey. What are your concerns and your challenges ahead for the next few years at ASU? I honestly don't have concerns. I feel very good about where we are and how we've prepared for, for this, this stage of our program. Does it mean I go, you know, and expected to, to win the NCHC in year one? I would like to, but I don't expect to be a bottom dweller. You know, in the last two seasons against that league, we've played, we've played 15 games. We're seven, six and two. Generally anybody that's at 500 over is an NCAA tournament team in that league. You know, the magic number is right at 20 wins. If you can get 20 wins in the NCHC, you're probably going to make an NCAA tournament. So we feel very good about where we are. We, our roster is, is exponentially more talented than it's ever been. So now we got to make sure that culture is great. And the guys are bought in to doing things the right way for the right reasons. And we believe that they will be. We're off to a great start. They're all here. They're all working on their own and, and, and gel in really well together. But, but our success against, you know, really everybody these last few years, you know, I, I think we're mentally ready for this challenge. And, you know, let me just take the last two years. We beat North Dakota and Vegas in front of 18,000 fans last year. We, we beat Denver at home. We beat Omaha for the desert classic. We went to CC, a very good hockey team and beat him and tied him on the road. So, you know, we feel ready for this challenge and, and with the roster that we have, it's better than, than any we've had because we're going into the league. And that's what happens when, you know, you have this to sell. You get Wisconsin's leading score. You get Penn State's leading score. And, and, and, and so the depth that, that we have to go into this season, we feel really good about it. And, and, and we understand that, that there's a lot of people out there that are going to say, it's going to take time and, and, and that's okay. We disagree. We're going to have a chip on our shoulder and our times now. Greg, the NCHE just released a new playoff format that will debut in 2027 when St. Thomas officially joins the conference making it a 10 team conference. But even before then, eight of nine teams will make the playoffs. You've been just dying for this opportunity. Let's discuss that a little bit and what this means to actually have a conference postseason tournament. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, and even say, like some of the transfers that would come in and that played in leagues and then they played the independent schedule, they, they would always comment on man every, every weekend, you're white knuckling, you know, like every weekend, you feel like you have to win. It feels like playoff hockey. So we don't want to lose that, that desperation that we go in every game with, but I think the adjustment for the staff and for, you know, the guys that have been here, it's going to be. It's not the end of the world. You lose a game. You got to get right back to work because that, that light at the end, the tunnel is always there playing in a league and you see like the best teams that have had success in the NCHE. Let's use the Minnesota Duluth, for example, you know, the year's they won national championships, they, they just go like this the whole season, right? And, and that's what Scott Sandlin does such a good job with. And there's been years where they've been a game over 500 and the last team in the NCAA tournament, they end up winning a national championship. So, you know, when you're in such a strong league, I think the message to our guys is there's always going to be light at the end of the tunnel. There's going to be ups and downs during the season. Like last year we, we, we play Cornell. We probably get a sweep or probably go to go to the NCAA tournament. Instead, we lose an overtime. We lose the next night and our guys just felt like the model is too high to climb, right? And we don't have that anymore. The mountains never going to be too high to climb because of the opportunity with the steep competition, you're always going to have a chance to really climb the pairwise and, and do things that we haven't had the opportunity to do. Well, Craig, we, we talked about it a little bit before too. And we talked about the portal and one thing, let's talk about some of the things you've done, additions and subtractions. And I want to talk about the portal specifically because, you know, we've talked on this show before I have strong connections with, with a smaller university in Minnesota, the mid-day state and unfortunately for mid-day state, they're one of those universities that when the portal opens, their top players leave and that's just kind of the nature of the business. And I think when you look at what ASU is doing at every state in the Sun Devils now, when that portal door opens, the guys are coming to ASU and you've got some pretty big guys coming in through the portal. And no, Craig, I just want to point this out. They are from Minnesota. Just saying, just happened to be a couple of Minnesota kids. Who just happened to know, tell us what the portal looks like and the guys coming to get coming in this year and what that means to your program. Yeah, we've done a great job, you know, utilizing the portal to build up our program and going into the league. We made a decision and we wanted to go in old and experienced and bring kids in that have been through the rigors of a conference schedule. And we did that, you know, and the portal has been very good to us. You know, we had a, I think you could say easily the most success in the portal out of any college hockey team this offseason. You had Cruz Lucius from, you know, Wisconsin, who was first two years, was their leading score at a blue blood program like that. And he went in as a true freshman. Was their leading score, you know, he's a fourth round pick. I think he's, he's protected. He's, he's Pittsburgh's property now. He got traded, but so a huge pickup, you know, big, strong kid that can really score Bennett Schimick, another Minnesota kid who was a providence, scored 13 goals as a freshman of Providence, big, strong, powerful, our Tim Schline fourth round pick got a New Jersey captain in Northern Michigan, Northern Michigan's leading score, big, strong sentiment, it's just a great leader than Ryan Kerwin is 62, 205 pound power forward that can really rip a puck. He was a leading goal score at Penn State. So just those four forwards alone, then you take Noah Beck, who is a fifth rounder with St. Louis, six, three, 210 big, strong D, best D and probably the ECAC. These are all kids. These are five kids that, you know, literally, you know, could have gone anywhere they want it out of the portal and it's not an exaggeration. It could have gone anywhere they wanted. And so to get those, those five kids, you know, it, it, it, and then you add, you know, the, the Lucas Cylinger coming back for his 50 kind Dylan Jackson coming back for his fifth year. It's, it's, we're going to be a handful, you know, so it's just now getting these kids to buy into to a common, you know, theme and what our culture is all about, and that's on me. And I'm very confident that we've already begun to do that. Those were not the only changes, obviously, with the program. I'll be O'Connell is out for a great opportunity that we can talk about now with the Canadians. I know that meant a lot to them. But as you, as you told me, right after that was going down, you had a lot of interest to fill that position. It wasn't going to be an issue. And as it turned out, you were able to tap the coaching staff of a recent national champion. So also a little bit about Mike Corbett, what he's going to bring and maybe discuss a little bit of Albie's exit and what he mentioned the program in that short tenure. We took a ton from Albie. You know, if I had to go back and do it over again and have him only for a year, I would do it. You know, he's a good friend. He's a good man. And I knew Montreal continued to to. I guess you could say and recruit him in a minute. They let that he left because he's just that good at talent evaluation. So look, you can't sometimes you just can't compete with the NHL, you know, and that you're not supposed to be able to and the money that they threw at him, the opportunity that they threw at him was not something that we could compete with. And as a good friend of Albie's, I encouraged him to go, you know, and we were very communicative throughout the whole process. So it didn't blindside me. I was prepared. I was able to do a little bit of work on the front end to prepare to get a quick hire done. And that's where Corbs came in. Corbs is just an unbelievable human being above all else. He is a college hockey guy through and through. He's been really everywhere. And I know he was on your show and did a great job talking to you guys, but you know, played at Denver, coached the Air Force with Frank Saratore for almost a decade and the knowledge and the things you can take from Frank are endless and Corbs did and has and then obviously went and led a program at Alabama Huntsville against incredible odds to even just keep the program alive the way Corbs did was really miraculous and had a lot of things working against them there, but learned a ton. And I love having what I loved about Albie was he was a head coach. So, you know, and tell your head coach, you don't know. You don't really know what you go through and the pressures and the decisions and everything. So to have a guy on your staff that's been through that before, I think I say, hey, I know what you're going through. Like today sucks, you know, and it was, it was nice and that's what I liked about Corbs as well as as he has that experience. But then he went to obviously Quinnipiac and was a part of their national championship team. And I'm good friends with Rand Pecknold and obviously when I called Rand and talked to him about my interest in Corbs, he was concerned because he did not want to lose him. You know, the biggest concern he had was was how upset his players would be if Corbs left because Corbs just connects with players that well. He makes everybody around and better just by being there. And it sounds cliche, but it's it's the truth. That's why I wanted to hire him. He's a great recruiter, but he's just a great coach and a great person. And in what I like about Corbs is he wants to come here and really put in the work and be here for a long time. He wants this to maybe even be his last job. He's a West Coast guy. He loves the fact that he gets to move back to the West Coast to be a part of this league. And he's been a good person to me from from day one. You know, he was one of the first guys that reached out to me when we went to vision one. I didn't know him when I went to Naples a few weeks later and didn't know anybody picked me up, took me out for coffee and we just shot the breeze and got to know each other and became friends and he's a guy that we're going to enjoy being around every day and he's going to make us better. Having played at the Yvonne Braun Civic Center in Huntsville like the challenge of trying to run a program down there. It's a wild experience. I want to read a quick text I got from Rand that just sort of backs everything that you said about Mike Corb. But this is Rand Pagnola. Of course, the Quinnipiac head coach and a guy I played against in college as well who was a pain in the ass. Here's what he said. Excellent coach. Well-rounded can coach can recruit so well-liked by our players, elite character. What else do you need in a coach? That's written about Mike Corbett. So that speaks volumes about what you're getting. I got to ask though, do you think in the end it was the wildlife in Arizona that actually drove out beyond the state? It might have been. It might have been me harassing him about the wild. I would send him pictures of bobcats on top of bars. He did not like the wildlife. But he's a city guy. He's an East Coast guy. Sometimes you got to move away to learn, you know, that that's what you are. And we talk all the time. We talk three times a week. What's nice to the best thing about Albie is that he really did truly enjoy his experience here. And we were able to build an even better relationship. And he's going to be, you know, an amateur director scouting in the US and North America for Montreal. He's going to be in rinks. That's a good thing for us. You know, and he's almost a free, a free set of eyes and and he's invested because he made such an impact. He'll continue to stay invested in our program. I will miss that Boston accent. I got to ask you about another change in goal position with which we are all quite familiar. TJ Semftifelter out, obviously talk about this position and what you hope to get from Givi others. Just let's evaluate this position now with TJ gone. Yeah, you know, Givi at the end of the day. Givi won the job last year. You know, and about three fourths of the way through the year. He took the TJ was in a rut for whatever reason and Givi took the reins and just didn't look back. I mean, he he was a tenth of a percentage away from leaving the country and save percentage. You know, and he actually qualified for that that award because he started enough games to do it. So he was just he was tremendous. He earned everybody's respect and trust and, you know, TJ had one year left and I think he he wanted to look for a place where where he felt more comfortable that he was going to get the lion's share of the starts. And he made a decision to leave kids have that that that option nowadays and as a as a coach in a program that's embraced bringing kids in from other programs when it hasn't happened a lot. But when you do have a kid that wants to go find another opportunity, that's the right. You can't take it personally. You have to support him and wish them all the best. And we do wish TJ all the best just not when when North Dakota is here. Yeah. Anyway, so but we feel very good about where we're at with Gold Ten and we brought in a really good goaltender from UMass Lowell and Luke Pavisich who's seasoned and he said starting, you know, he's he's been a starter in hockey East a couple of years and has done very well. He's a great kid. He's a good leader. He's going to be a really good guy for Givi to to lean on with his experience, but the depth will be there and then next year we have we have an unbelievable goalie committed. He's actually signed so I can talk to him, but he's going to be back in Sioux City this year and he'll be Slovakia's starter for the world juniors. Gee, Sam Urban. So he's a really good goal. He's probably ready to be here now, but the longer you can get goalies this season and and and develop before you bring them in the better off they are. So we're really well set in Lowell. Can you pronounce his name so that we don't already in Nevada and ask him Samuel or bond or bond. Okay, you talked about season goal tenders just just just throw it out there. I might have a year left of eligibility. I think I'd have to check with the. I love you. I've seen videos. I'm good. There are no butterflies or reverse VH. It's going to be a lot of skate saves. I promise. Okay, let's talk. We talked about how this program is progressed over the years and and your ability to get. You know, good caliber recruits, but now we look at a player that's coming this summer that that we can say is a blue chip recruit and this kid is got a pedigree from Minnesota. Again, the pedigree is he's not. He's from Wisconsin, but his mom is from Minnesota. Just just throwing it out there. But but maybe he's a blue chip recruit and let's let's talk about Colin Potter and how did that happen? Because he had he had committed somewhere else. How does Colin Potter one of the top players and top recruits in the country and up at ASU? Well, we needed there was going to be a first at some point, right? And we had a lot of conversations with kids like him and kids of his caliber and you end up at the 11th hour just, you know, finding kids not wanting to take that leap and be the first really blue chip kid to go be a sun devil. So we had a good recruiting experience with him when he was open and he went on the market. Obviously he ended up committing to Michigan State. And Colin just made the decision, you know, after a really good year at the NTDP that he wanted to play college hockey, he was expediting his school. Michigan State didn't have room. They just were a little bit over committed and didn't. I think probably want to add another young kid with us. It worked out really perfect because he's our only freshman forward. So he's going to be very effective from day one. Do you skate that well? You're going to be effective in college hockey. Is he going to make mistakes? Is he going to have awards? Absolutely. But we believe and we made the case with him and his family that we in his is his advisor Ryan Barnes that that we can insulate that and we will insulate that. We have a very old experience group, especially up front. And he's going to be only freshmen in the lineup. So he's going to be surrounded by experience and and and size and and and all the things that that you need to be successful as a young player in college hockey and the more we spoke, the more we laid out the opportunity and what that was going to be for him, what the developed plan for him was going to be, how we were going to do things every day with him to to get him ready and obviously, you know, up his draft stock as much as possible. And it just became a cleared, I think, to both sides. It was a great fit. Well, I want to to the people that are listening. This is one of the things about ASU that I find interesting. I want to follow the stories of the players and this is the player that I really think people need to keep their eye on. I think he's going to be and again, I not put pressure and set the bar too high for this kid. He hasn't played a game yet. But keep your eye on Colin Potter. And one of the things we talked about is mom Jenny. Jenny Potter, Olympic Olympic athlete for for team USA. And if you want to find out more about the kid because I do believe if you know more about the kids, you follow the program closer. So I want people. I really encourage people to go over to go PHNX.com and read an article that Craig wrote about Colin Potter. Find out who this kid is. Find out where his background is. Find out what makes this kid so special. And then I think he's a kid you're going to root for. So I really get over and jump and read Craig's article. We've already talked about your your entire roster. Now we're all excited. But we have something else happen over the summertime and your roommate, as it were, at Mullet Arena has has left what what is the landscape going to be like at Mullet now that it is officially just your building. Yeah, you know, you know, it's it's funny. You say that like it it's going to be interesting because there's going to be, you know, volleyball just released their schedule. They have six matches in Mullet. Oh, nice. We're going to play some women's basketball games in mullet. So I think that's exciting to see how that how that works for for our women's basketball program and will it be an environment that gives them kind of a shot in the arm to get the program going in the direction that we all want to see it go. So that's going to be cool. I think more ASU events wrestling. That's really what the building was built for, right? It was built for ASU and for ASU athletics. Obviously, hockey is the first tenant and we have priority for everything. But, you know, Don Mullet did this and invested in making this happen to benefit Arizona State, you know, and it was a great experience. It really was having the NHL in our building and I say that as the umbrella of the NHL in our building was unbelievable. It was really cool. It was a great experience. We're going to miss a lot of things about it. We're going to miss the ability to get off the ice on a Tuesday, come in, get lunch, go up in the stands and watch the Toronto Maple Leafs practice. We're going to miss the, you know, opportunity for Craig Barooby and his staff to pop in my office and say hi and shoot the, shoot the breeze for 15, 20 minutes. You know, those were things that will never happen again that we really enjoyed and embraced and it sucks that it's not going to happen. But what I'm most excited about to be very honest is, is when the ice is built back up, looking out on, on, on centre ice and seeing just a big old pitchfork that was supposed to ask you that very question. Yeah, that's the way it was supposed to be. And again, you know, certainly no offense to the coyotes but, but if there was one thing that, that, that, that pissed me off for how hard we were to, to get this building done and, and, and everything we went through to get this building done to, to not have our logo be the only one in centre ice, you can call me egotistical or selfish or whatever. I don't give a shit, but it pissed me off. I, I, I'm really looking forward to, to, to have an R logo and only R logo at centre ice. Is it basically the same? Are you, is it a redesign or is it the same just bigger? It's just going to be big. If you remember, when we opened, we, we did just have the pitchfork, one of those videos and pictures that they're going to last forever. So it's going to be just like that. Just a big pitchfork at centre ice and it's going to be exciting. I got to ask you about something else that you kind of inherit now. What's going to happen to the annex that the coyotes built? What's, what's going to be used, what's that can you use for? Well, remember the, the G League will play here too. So I think that the, the annex will be primarily, you know, kind of a turn style for, you know, all the ASU teams that, that utilize mullet when they use it, they'll use the annex. It's a great facility for them. And then obviously the G League will compete games in here. They're not going to practice. But so when they come here, the G League will be able to use it. So it's a great asset that we obviously inherit and own now because of the coyotes and it's going to make things a lot more manageable for the staff here to have that. Even when we have the desert classic to have two locker rooms now and then our visiting team set up to host tournaments here will be really special. And we actually host a really big tournament next year, the icebreaker at the start of the season. So just for things like that, to utilize the annex is going to be really nice. Will you be doing sort of additional work in the annex? Will it be attached to the arena at some point? Have you talked about any of that stuff? Yeah, I think at some point we will we will attach it through some sort of like vestual to make it a part of mullet. Originally, it couldn't be. We were we were capped at 115 million with the board of regions for the project. So that had to be considered a completely separate project and not connected to the arena. That's why it's not connected. Otherwise we would have to go back and get everything reapproved. So I think at some point, as you will probably connect it until then you've got to walk 10 feet outside. Yeah. And but it's like like you said, for tournaments and even like if we're for dreaming here, regionals right and NCAA, you know, whatever, USA hockey, you start to imagine all the possibilities that that could come into play for. Yeah, there's a lot of things. And we've talked to USA hockey about hosted a ton of events and like you said, I mean, next year we host two tournaments here, you know, outside of our NCHC schedule. So, you know, it's a great venue that people really want to come play in. We're talking about maybe even doing a division one women's hockey tournament here in the next couple of years. I mean, you look at like this, this year over Thanksgiving, there's a men's division one basketball tournament here. ASU is not even in it, you know, like Butler and I'm an indie boy. So I'm excited the Butler Bulldogs are going to be playing in the ball in arena and it's a big time college basketball programs are going to be here. So it's really cool to see what's coming in and out of our facility. Well, here we're sitting in the beginning of August right now that the NCAA hockey season is two months away. It is coming so fast. And again, I'm getting excited now because your season starts October 5th at Air Force against Frank's territory. But then the final weekend you come home to play at Molot October the weekend of October 11th. And by the way, people listen to pH and X get ready and you might want to open that weekend because there might be a bunch of us going to that game. Just just saying that we might be going to some of the games that weekend. What happens now beginning of August through October? What what is the rest of this offseason look like for you and your players? Yeah, I mean, it's pretty much like they've been here for about a month and a half and so next week, most of them will go home for about a week just to see their families one last time before we really get after it. First day classes are August 22nd and that weekend we'll take the boys up the flagstaff. We do an annual team building trip up there where we go and we grant these cabins in the middle of nowhere and take their phones for the weekend and we just team built, you know and the goal is to go up there and come back a tight knit family and never look back and we're going to have a like I said, a very deep, talented roster. So, you know, my biggest focus is his culture and making sure that these guys are are bought in to represent an ASU the way we expected to be represented and and making some noise in our first year in this league. Sun Devil hockey coach Greg Powers join us. Thank you as always Greg for the great insights always great to talk hockey with you and we are. I know PD and I can both say this. We're really, really looking forward to this season. So are we thanks and we appreciate all your coverage and all you all the things you guys do for for all of us in hockey here. Thanks Coach Powers. We'll talk to you soon. Well, that's going to ramp it up for the interview portion of today's show. I tell you listening to Coach Powers, you do get excited. He's the guy that's incredible motivator with this with his club. He's a great recruiter to the ASU hockey program and you look back how he started this. He started as a goaltender for a club hockey team and now they have the Mueller Arena playing in the SEC of college hockey. They're playing the NCHC and a double edged sword there because we talked about that with it with the NCHC. This is the best best conference in college hockey. This is they've won six or last eight national championships. This is a very difficult conference that they're going into and I talked to Greg Powers about the summer time. And I said, hey, when you're looking at conferences, they're how you people know my hometown, but mid you've been to state plays in the CCHA with man, Kato state and Ferris state. And I said, if you get into that conference, you're you're looking at, gosh, you could be one or two of that conference every single year, like you could be build up and you could be a powerhouse in the NCAA tournament every year. And and he said, if we're going to be the best, you got to play the best. And so they went out of their play North Dakota, Duluth, Denver, Colorado, like they're playing the best of the best this season. And a lot of those games got more than and if you haven't had an opportunity to watch college hockey. And buy into it because I remember last season we all went down and we were two seasons ago now where we watched Josh don't gosh, that's a long time ago, we watched Josh down play the first game in Mallory and gets that called that excitement and that level that you get inside. Mallory, you might have been doing a coyote game there, but it's nothing like what you get in college. It's nothing like a college with the college student atmosphere and you're playing college rivals. May it's something special and right now we talked about season tickets being sold out. So be able to look out for for the single game tickets. They're going to go sale in the beginning of September. And I know we talked about die hard to a lot to keep an eye diehards. There might be something coming on the Saturday against the University of Michigan that weekend of the 11th and 12th keep that Saturday open. That's all I'm going to say Saturday or 12th might want to keep it open because there might be something going on with the Ph and X diehards heading to Mallory now, but can't say for sure right now. So just keep your keep your schedule open and definitely become a diehard. Diehards get 20% off all our events and our merchandise. They get free hat or shirt when they sign up. They get access to more content, written content from Craig behind the paywall. So make sure you become a diehard here at Ph and X. Couple things I want to talk about when I talk about ASU. And we are going to talk a lot of ASU hockey this season. And I know, you know, it's something we talked about when we could last year, but this year what's kind of been gone. Hey, this is the hockey and I think they deserve the attention and unfortunately, I don't think we gave them the coverage that they deserve a year ago, but I'm nearly excited to be able to do that this season. When we talk about some of the guys that are returning and the portal and college has changed so much, you know, we talked about college football and college basketball, how much it changes year to year, but this hockey program they're ability to keep Lucas Cylinger and keep tying Dylan Jackson here at ASU and get them to return for this season. It's huge. That was a line that when they played together, they were elite as the top line at ASU. Unfortunately, with injuries, they weren't able to be together for very long last year. And it's something that when we talk to coach powers, he's going to have that group together to start the season. Now I've been a part of coaching staff. See, I always get that dream of who's going to be together and it never works out the way you want it to. I know. So there is an opportunity that the Jackson brothers and Lucas Cylinger won't be together on the season starts, but when they start camp, they will be. And that's exciting because we talked about those guys coming in. You talked about Cruz Lucius, the kid that let this go. rookie scoring at Wisconsin, heard of him? Wisconsin, the Badgers, the Big Ten. How many teams are in the Big Ten? And Jacob's a producer today. Jacob should know Jacob. How many teams are in the Big Ten? Like there should be more. There's more. He doesn't have a microphone. Maybe he does have a microphone. But this is this is this is flying from home. But a big 10. Good. If you're going to be called the Big Ten, you have 10 teams. If you're not, if you don't have 10 teams, don't have such a big 10 anymore. Can we get on that college hockey and college football? Anyway, this kid Lucius Cruz, excuse me, Cruz Lucius from Wisconsin. He was going to be unbelievable offensive threat. There are 14 teams in the Big Ten. That makes no sense to me. Cruz Lucius and Colin Potter. Colin Potter is the biggest recruit coming into ASU since Josh Don. This is a big deal with Colin Potter. But here's what I want. I don't want to set the expectations too high for Colin Potter. I don't want people to go, hey, he's got to leave this team and scoring. He's got to do everything. He's got to carry everything for this team. Because he doesn't. It's hard. It's a hard transition to go from junior to college. It's beer playing against men now. So let's cut the kid a little slack. Let's get him some time, time to grow physically. Let's get him a chance to get into the game. He's going to, as coach Mahler said, he's going to be the only freshman in the roster this year for the ASU Sun Devil Hockey program. But he's definitely going to watch. I mean, he comes to his mom's Jenny Potter Olympic gold medals. And as I mentioned, she's from Minnesota. So you don't keep an eye out for those Minnesotans. We're like our Minnesotans here at Ph and X Hockey. Well, I do, Craig and Liam, maybe not so much. So it's definitely something to keep an eye on. So we're October 5th. They're going to play in Air Force. It's non-conference. They don't start their conference schedule until November when they play Colorado College here at home. So download the schedule. Know when the games are. Let's follow this team. Let's support this team. Let's support coach Powers. We're going to try to talk to coach Powers every week. We're going to try to talk to some of the Sun Devil players on a weekly basis. We're going to get down to the practices there. We're going to go to the games there. I think it's important that that they get the kind of love that we were given to the Coyotes. Let's carry that love over to ASU hockey and the Molot. We also can't wait to see the goal tender battle. A lot of TJ Simmons to filter is gone. And when you talk about Gibson homework and what he did and took over the number one job late in the season last year, can he be the guy that can carry the torch going forward? We're going to see because it's going to be a goal tender battle there at ASU for sure. Hey, I'm excited. Hockey season is two months away. And before then we're going to get to NHL training camps. We're going to start keeping our eye on our Tucson road runners and everything that's deep on that and has going down there down to Tucson, where I keep keep you up to date with everyone going down there and hopefully. We'll leave please please get home. Yeah, we can do this anymore. And Craig, Craig, Craig has more jobs. It pays you next than anybody on the staff. More shows covers more beats dudes on vacation right now. Do is on vacation in the middle of football training camp. And we're talking hockey and craigs. I don't know, go on vacation. I wish I had that kind of pole around here at the kitchen. I just do not know you're working today. That's the way it is. PD can work can work. So looking forward to Craig and we'll be back next week and get this show back on the rails. Thanks for everybody for tuning in. And I can't wait for some ASU hockey. Make sure you like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Jump into all of our social media's. You can follow us on Twitter, page and underscore hockey. Follow me at S. Peter's hockey. And you can follow us other too when they get back because right now we're not going to talk about it and you follow Jacob at Jacob underscore Franklin for don't know why you would because he's moving on to bigger and better things, which we'll talk about at another time. He does not handle the hockey show ever. So he will not be on the hockey show. This is his one and only appearance. We're still trying to figure out who's going to work on this hockey show now that Daniel, the magic behind the Mac has moved on. So this is Jacob just pinch hitting and coming out of the bullpen for today. Thanks Jacob for helping out. Everybody, thanks for kind of tuning in and finding out a little bit about ASU hockey. Make sure you follow that team. We're going to be here to guide you along the entire route. As always, I'm PD and it's all next time. We'll see you at the rink.
