Union men's hockey coach Hauge reviews Yale, Brown weekend; looks ahead to ECAC Hockey Tournament game against Brown

Episode 513 March 04, 2026 00:30:59
Union men's hockey coach Hauge reviews Yale, Brown weekend; looks ahead to ECAC Hockey Tournament game against Brown
The Parting Schotts Podcast
Union men's hockey coach Hauge reviews Yale, Brown weekend; looks ahead to ECAC Hockey Tournament game against Brown

Mar 04 2026 | 00:30:59

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Show Notes

On the latest edition of “The Parting Schotts Podcast,” Union men’s hockey head coach Josh Hauge makes his weekly appearance. Schott and Hauge will discuss last weekend’s five-point ECAC Hockey weekend to close out the regular season. The Garnet Chargers rallied to beat Yale 5-4 in overtime on Friday, and then defeated Brown 3-0 on Saturday. 

Schott and Hauge will preview this weekend’s ECACH Tournament first-round single-elimination game between fifth-seeded Union and 12th-seeded Brown at 5 p.m. Saturday at M&T Bank Center.

Hauge will also answer questions from the podcast listeners.

“The Parting Schotts Podcast” is available wherever you get your podcasts and at https://www.dailygazette.com/sports/parting_schotts/.

Contact Ken Schott by email at [email protected]. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Threads @slapschotts.

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign [00:00:03] Speaker B: the following program is brought to you in living color on elliot gazette.com or wherever you get your podcast. The Gazette News Group presents the Parting Shots Podcast. Now here's your host and shot. Thank you Scott Geezy, and welcome to the Parting Shots Podcast, available wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe today. Thanks for joining me for the Parting Shots Podcast Studio in Schenectady, New York for our first podcast in March and it's our weekly visit with Union Men's Head Hockey. Go Josh Algy. And here we are in March, Josh, and it's tournament time. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Yeah, best time of the year. Should be a lot of fun here. [00:00:40] Speaker B: Yeah, with the ECAC Hockey tournament first round single elimination games get underway this weekend and Union will host Brown. Union the fifth seed, Brown the 12th seed. That game will be 5pm on Saturday at MNT Bank Center. We'll talk a little bit about that a little bit later, but Union wrapped up the ECAC hockey regular season last weekend with games at Yale on Friday and at Brown on Saturday. The ECoach tournament first round by slot was still in play for the sixth place Garner Chargers. They entered the weekend four points behind Princeton for that final first round by slot. Union trail fifth place Harvard by one point while Union was set to play on Friday against Yale. Harvard was hosting Princeton. Union needed to win either in regulation or overtime when while Harvard needed to beat Princeton to keep The Garner Chargers first round Bihops alive. So what is the message to your team going into the game? Is it just focused on the game against a team that beat you 4 to 1 in January and not worry about Harvard? Princeton? [00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought our mindset was just, you know, try to jump on them and get the lead and, you know, make sure we take care of business against a team that, you know, outplayed us last time we played them. [00:01:50] Speaker B: Well, things start well for Union. 7:51 into the game, Colby McArthur wins a face off in the yellow right circle and he draws it back to Ben Muthesbaug who knows what to do with the puck. [00:02:00] Speaker A: It's a heavy workload and oh, quick [00:02:04] Speaker C: off the draw and it goes in. It's Muther's ball with Italian Union lead. Just a clean face off win. [00:02:12] Speaker A: Bang bang right back. Like you mentioned, Muther's boss puts union ahead 1 nothing. [00:02:22] Speaker C: Genuinely, if you blinked you missed it as both you and I almost missed that one. Quick off the draw and the sophomore from New Hampshire has goal number 16 on the season. [00:02:33] Speaker B: That was the ESPN plus call. Union is up one nothing. Talk about the execution between MacArthur and Ruthenbaugh. [00:02:39] Speaker A: Yeah, they've really been, you know, playing well together and they, they just have the ability to find each other and create for each other. [00:02:46] Speaker B: Well, Union's playing well and really in control of the game. But things take an unfortunate turn for Union. With 450 left in the first, defenseman Will Felicio has the puck in the Union left circle. He has no one around him and appears to have an open lane to take the puck out of the zone. Instead, he tries a cross ice pass to Cal Mel, but Calenzito intercepts the pass. He goes in on Cameron Korpi and scores a tie up. I mean there's no other way to, there's really no way to sugarcoat this. Josh, about the play. It wasn't good and it really changed the game's momentum. Did you ask Felicio about his decision? [00:03:20] Speaker A: Well, we talked about it, you know, in video this week and just, you know, want to, want to correct it. Will is a tremendously talented player, has the ability to make really high end plays for us. With that being said, when you, when you do that, sometimes you can turn a puck over and he's, he's learning, you know, the right times to, to hold on to pucks and versus, you know, the time just to take the ice and get the puck in deep. And you know, luckily for us it's, it wasn't in the playoffs, it wasn't something that ended up costing us the game and you know, we were able to fight back. [00:03:55] Speaker B: Well, the period ends. 11 union out shoots you out. 15 8. I mean, what was their frustration in the locker room because the way you really dominated that period. [00:04:04] Speaker A: Well, I thought we had some opportunities to extend our lead when it was one nothing, you know, and didn't take advantage of it. And you know, obviously with the last time we played them, it, it, it's in the back of your mind of hey, we gotta, we gotta convert on some of these chances. And so yeah, I think it was a little frustrating for sure. [00:04:21] Speaker B: Well, the second period gets on the way and 36 seconds into the period, David Chen scores to give Yale a 21 lead. Then with 11:38 left in the period, Will Richter makes it 3 1. Yale with what's at stake. I mean, how disappointing was it to be down by two? [00:04:37] Speaker A: It wasn't the way we drew it up and I mean for us, you know, we, we like to play from the front. We want to, want to extend our leads and we have opportunities and yeah, it was a, we Dug ourselves a little bit of a hole. [00:04:48] Speaker B: Well, as we have seen lately, the Garner Chargers didn't let the deficit bother them. They closed the gap to one when Nate Hanley on a nice backhand pass from the Yale right circle sets up at Etienne Lessard. [00:05:01] Speaker C: Beautiful drop pass and Union pull it to within one. It's a pretty sequence. Etienne Lessard puts away his fourth goal of the season. [00:05:12] Speaker B: We'll talk about Hanley's pass. He was skating on the right wing when he made that pass from the circle. It was almost like he had eyes in the back of his head. [00:05:20] Speaker A: Yeah, great play by Nate. Drove the puck deep and then, you know, threw it back to etn. Really nice play all around and probably doesn't get credit for it, but a great play by Drew Sutton. He stick lifted their player, got possession. Doesn't even get a point because he moved it. I'm not quite sure who he moved it to, but then he, whoever got it found Nate and then Nate found Lassard. But also Drew just drove the net extremely hard. Ended up, you know, bringing a defenseman with him, which opened up ETN. [00:05:51] Speaker B: Yale gets its two goal lead back less than two minutes later when Esai Passonen scores. But with 2:11 left in the period, Colby McArthur on a nice pass from Calmel cuts it to a one goal game again. [00:06:03] Speaker C: Knocked down Calmel, plenty of time and there's one pulled back for Union. Calmel with a pretty dangle head, was up all the time. And Colby MacArthur puts it a play. It's now Yale for Union 3. [00:06:19] Speaker B: Talk about Mel's pass. You were praising it when we talked after the game Friday night. [00:06:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, one of those things that as a coach, you know, you just wanted to get the puck on net and you know, obviously I didn't see what he saw and great vision by him, great poise. Finds Colby on the back door for an easy tap in. Unbelievable pass. [00:06:40] Speaker B: Well, MacArthur appeared to tie the game late in the second period, but it was waved off for a high stick. You had used a challenge earlier in the game and lost it. Did you think about challenging or was risking delay of game penalty not worth the challenge? [00:06:54] Speaker A: I thought it live that it was a high stick. So I wasn't really contemplating, you know, spoke to Sean Speck, who's our eye in the sky, and he thought it was, you know, too risky. So, you know, we felt pretty comfortable that it was a high stick. [00:07:09] Speaker B: Well, it's four three after two and even though you're down one at this point, I Imagine the mood is a little bit better because of that MacArthur goal. [00:07:17] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a huge goal for us to cut it to within one and you know, we feel like if we're plus or minus one in the third period, we're going to win. And you know, that's where we, where we sat. [00:07:27] Speaker B: Well, the third period gets underway and 4:22 into it, Ben Muthesbog ties it. [00:07:33] Speaker C: Oh, it's a turnover in a dangerous area for Muther's ball and we're tied. We've now seen it on both sides of the ice, Rob. Both teams have made mistakes in their defensive zone and the opponents are always there to pounce. Muther's boss especially. [00:07:54] Speaker A: We already know how dangerous of a player he is. [00:07:57] Speaker C: Yeah, another turnover chipped up the boards. Maybe a tough bounce for the Bulldogs. [00:08:02] Speaker B: Big goal there by Ben. [00:08:04] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, he's been, you know, clutch for us all season and we needed one at that point and a great play. [00:08:10] Speaker B: Well, Union has some chances, but regulation ends. 4 4. Meanwhile, just as regulation was ending, we learned that Harvard helped Union out by rallying from a 31 deficit to beat Princeton. 5 3. Were you aware of the result before overtime started? [00:08:26] Speaker A: We were aware. You know, we asked, you know, again, Sean's kind of monitoring everything for us. We had a talk as a team and we decided we would be pulling the goalie if we needed to in overtime. So, you know, luckily, luckily he didn't have to. [00:08:41] Speaker B: Well, what was the message to the team before overtime started? [00:08:44] Speaker A: Just that we, we needed the win in overtime. We couldn't, we didn't want to win it in a shootout. Obviously you want to get the point, but you know, we felt at that point we needed to win in overtime. [00:08:55] Speaker B: Well, didn't take long, 34 seconds in fact, when Brandon Burr ended it. [00:08:59] Speaker C: Etienne Lazar throws it out in front of the chance for Colby. MacArthur just goes wide. Will Richter trying to chase it down, but Brandon Burr gets there. Bure wins that race. It's a two on one beer scores and that'll do it. 36 seconds into over 20, Union get the overtime winner from Brandon Burr. His 18th goal of the season. [00:09:25] Speaker B: A big win for Union. It was Burr's second overtime winner of the season. The other came in the Capital District Mares cup game against rpi. It also ended an eight game goalless drought in ECAC hockey play for Burr. I mean, how clutch was that? [00:09:39] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, a lot went into that and you know, I think just before the game they gave this Scholar athlete of the Year To David Chen, which, you know, all kudos to him. You know, great award, but a little frustrated that they did it with, you know, us in the building and Brandon in. So I was really glad that Brandon was able to end the game because I thought that I just didn't like how that went down. [00:10:04] Speaker B: Brandon was the finalist for that award. [00:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah, he was in the final three. You know him and then David Chen and Tristan Sutton. [00:10:11] Speaker B: Well, we don't know half the stuff because ECA's hockey doesn't bother sending out press release. You have to basically go on their website, find stuff or if they tweet it out. But you can't live on X and social media 24 7. But I digress. [00:10:24] Speaker A: Well, they didn't even let me know that they were going to be giving it to him either. So I just again was happy Brandon was able to win it and him coming back from that injury where he was out for a little bit. Great to have him back and on the score sheet. [00:10:39] Speaker B: Well, let's move on to Saturday Unions taking on Brown, a team locked in the 12th seed, so it really has nothing to play for. Meanwhile, Union is two points behind Harvard and Princeton who are tied for that final first round by slot. It's pretty simple. Union needs to win in regulation and then get help from Quinnipiac which played Harvard and Dartmouth which faced Princeton. Well, late Friday night the conference sent an email detailing where teams can finish and on the tiebreakers. And in the email the situations for Quinnipiac, Cornell and Dartmouth. The top three teams in the standings are listed first. Then it comes to Harvard, Princeton, Union. There was just one line. See attachment for full breakdown. Yes, there was a two page PDF attached to the press release breaking down all the tiebreaker scenarios. There were eight scenarios and as I wrote in my Monday final horn column, my head was spinning reading them all and I felt like I was in a trigonometry class. Did you read that two page attachment? [00:11:37] Speaker A: Yeah, we went through every scenario, you know, just as a staff to make sure, you know, we were prepared in case we needed to, you know, do something out of the ordinary, you know. You know, some of the stuff was, you know, not relevant to us when it went down to Harvard and Princeton, so we kind of disregarded that. But anything where you saw Union's name, we kind of dove into to make sure we had a good understanding of what we needed. [00:12:01] Speaker B: What is the message to the team against again, Brown, a team you beat 4 nothing in January? [00:12:06] Speaker A: Well, it was real simple for us. A loss, you know, you're getting the six, you know, and a win, you give yourself a chance at 4 or 5. So we were, we were focused on just trying to win and whatever else happened, we couldn't control. So just go out there and focus in on us. [00:12:22] Speaker B: Well, you made two lineup changes. Troy Pelton, the Clifton park native, replaced Connor Smith on the fourth line. To me, the significant change was Ali Chesler replacing Will Felicio. Besides the turnover, Felicio took an undisciplined roughing penalty in the third period. My score was tied to 4. Was there a message being sent to Will? [00:12:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I spoke with Will. Obviously, it's hard to take him out of the lineup because he is so talented. But this is the time of the year where we need discipline and we need, you know, need consistency and you need to know what you're going to get. And at times, you know, Will is just. He's so talented that he can, he can skate himself into trouble, but he usually skates himself out. So I just went over what we expected with consistency with him and just being disciplined and like Will is, he took it extremely well, was an unbelievable teammate and cheering everybody on and, you know, has been great this week. [00:13:18] Speaker B: In practice, it didn't take long for Union to get the Gaines first goal. Pelton makes an immediate impact and Jacob Jeannette delivers 439 into the game. Shane left the rebound out and Jacob Jeannette was Johnny on the spot. Got inside position on a couple of bears and it's one nothing. Union. The call of Dr. Mike Rubin on ESPN. Union takes that one nothing lead. The chemistry between Jeanette and Pelton continues. And you know, Pelton set up those two Jeanette goals in last Friday's 41 win over Harvard. And of course, Ethan Benz is on that line. It seems like you got a pretty good fourth line there. [00:14:02] Speaker A: Yeah, they're all big bodies, they all move pretty well. They all compete extremely hard. So I think that's the biggest thing is again, you know what you're going to get out of them. You know that they're going to work hard and they're going to keep the game simple. [00:14:16] Speaker B: What Was a dominating first period? Union outshot Brown 17 5, but only up one nothing. Any concern about not scoring more than one goal or were you happy with the period? [00:14:25] Speaker A: I think there were some, you know, chances we felt like we should finish. So, you know, when you have a team down, you want, you want to, you know, keep extending that lead. And so, yeah, I think we were a little concerned just because you know, I think 20 seconds into the period they got a really good chance. And then after that like we, we were really tight. [00:14:42] Speaker B: Well, let's move to the second period. Union continues to play well. Brown is making the push but with438 left Ben Muthesbach makes it two to nothing out ahead. Bjorn right side haven't called his name too much. Desiderio MacArthur in front scored tic tac [00:14:59] Speaker A: toe passing for Ben Muthersbaugh. [00:15:02] Speaker B: He was left all alone in the kill zone, able to pull it back and he has his 18th goal of the season. Muthersbaugh and Bjorn MacArthur have been a three headed monster for this Garnet Charger [00:15:18] Speaker C: team and the body language of the [00:15:21] Speaker B: Brown Bears is just not good. Look at that. That is just a beautiful shot. Well, Ruth Bog has been hot of late. That was his fifth two goal game of the season. I'm sorry. He has had five two goal games this season. What's been the key to his success? [00:15:36] Speaker A: Well, I think he just is such a good shooter. I mean he's started to get into the traffic areas more which for him is where he becomes really dangerous. Sometimes when you know you just get perimeter and are looking for that one timer you get one dimensional and he's starting to really become a better playmaker as he's made some really good passes out of his one timing position but also now gets to that high traffic area. [00:16:02] Speaker B: Well, the second period ends two nothing. Union is still in control. How do you like the way your team is playing? [00:16:08] Speaker A: I felt like we were in a good spot and know we're 20 minutes away from, you know, having a chance at a lot of different opportunities. [00:16:14] Speaker B: Well, the third period gets going and the Union does a good job protecting the lead. The Gardner Chargers nearly make it three nothing when Troy Pelton and Ethan Benz had a two one zero. But they got, I think got a little too fancy with the passing and didn't score. A little frustrating or was he okay with that? [00:16:30] Speaker A: Yeah, a little frustrating I think. You know again when with Troy and Ethan we want to play a, you know, a hard simple game and you know, at that point just you know, a little too crazy. [00:16:39] Speaker B: Well, Riley Bruick seals it on an empty net goal with 56.6 seconds left. It's a three nothing union win and then the fun begins. Now it's a matter of finding out whether or not Union is getting a first round bye. Quinnipiac did its part helping Union by beating Harvard 4 to 1. But Dartmouth was not helping. The Big Green were trailing Princeton 2 nothing. They rallied in the third period by scoring twice, including one with 1:10 left. But regulation ends tied at 2 and that means Princeton clinches the final first round by winning the tiebreaker over Union. The tiebreaker became moot when the Tigers won the shootout to get the extra point. Mean disappointed a little bit? [00:17:19] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. You know you want to earn that bye if you can. I think you look at some of the games we gave away earlier in the season and you know you get what you earn and you know we gave some games up where we let that buy go. [00:17:33] Speaker B: Well, the good news is that union is the fifth seed and it will play 12th seed at Brown on Saturday. Let's take a break and when we return, we'll preview this Saturday game in that first round single elimination matchup and we'll answer questions from our listeners. You're listening to the Parting Shots Podcast. [00:17:58] Speaker C: The ECAC Hockey Championship returns to Lake Placid, New York this March. Witness the first ever ECAC hockey women's championship in Lake Placid on March 6th [00:18:07] Speaker A: and 7th and the men's championship on March 20th and 21st. It happens at the legendary Herb Brooks arena, the home of miracles. [00:18:17] Speaker C: Don't miss the battle for the 2026 [00:18:18] Speaker A: title in an NCAA bid. Tickets are on sale now at lakeplacidolympicecenter.com [00:18:24] Speaker C: ECAC Hockey the Educated Decision Explore the [00:18:29] Speaker A: benefits of subscribing to the Daily Gazette like our convenient E Edition app, personalized newsletters and unique reader rewards. When you join, start your membership today offers [email protected]. [00:18:46] Speaker B: if you really want to know what's going on in your community, you have to read the Daily Gazette. We don't take a side. We we're right down the middle and we're gonna get to the truth. Our reporters and photographers are out in the field bringing you updates every minute with trust, accuracy and integrity. From the first page to the last page. Independent, probing journalism. We're finding out what's going on in community where nobody else is covering. It's who we are. It's what we do. Welcome back to the podc. I'm Gazette Union Hockey beatrider Ken Shot and I'm joined by Union Meds head hockey coach Josh Halge. As I said heading into the break, it'll be Union taking on Brown at 5pm Saturday at M and T Bank Center. The Garner Chargers swept the season series, winning by a combined seven. Nothing. Obviously you just played them on Saturday. Does that make Preparation easier. [00:19:43] Speaker A: It is really nice. You know, a lot of your pre scout is done. You just got to see him firsthand. So it does simplify things for us. And then, you know, you're only playing one one opponent. So just for us, in a regular week, you're usually focusing in on two. So it is nice. [00:20:00] Speaker B: Well, there's that theory that beating a team three times in a season is tough. Also with the disparity between the two teams, a team can be lulled into a false sense of security. A team thinks it can just show up against an inferior opponent and they'll just roll over. I mean, how important will it be to stress to your players that you can't take Brown lightly and you can. Look what the Union women did to Clarkson a couple weeks ago. [00:20:22] Speaker A: Yeah, for us it's, anything can happen in the playoffs and we got to make sure we're focused and ready. I like how our team's playing. I like where we're at. But you know, the situation when you become in that 5:12 game, you know, we're one, one game away from not playing anymore. [00:20:40] Speaker B: What concerns you about Brown? [00:20:42] Speaker A: Well, their goaltender has been really good. I do think they have some, you know, players that have some high end talent that can hurt you and you know, I think they, they're playing with nothing to lose from the coaching staff to the players. It's, it's a unique situation where they have a new coach coming in next season. You know, we just don't want to, you know, give them hope and, you know, let them, you know, be in a game. In the third period. [00:21:06] Speaker B: You mentioned Brown goalie Tyler Shea. He's played well. In the two games against Union he made 76 saves. Three of the seven goals Union scored were empty netters. So how important will it be to fire as many shots on Shea as you can and get more pucks past him? [00:21:18] Speaker A: Yeah, he's, he's tremendously talented and he's been really good for him. So for us we got to make his life difficult, make sure we're taking his eyes away, making sure that we're, you know, not passing up good, good scoring chances. You know, you talk about the, the two on. Oh, we had Parker Lindauer had a breakaway where we didn't get a, you know, quality opportunity. So there were some chances where we just, you know, didn't, you know, didn't get pucks to the net when we could have. [00:21:42] Speaker B: How critical will it be to take control of this game at the drop of the puck? [00:21:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it's Our season's on the line right now. We have a lot of different things going on for us as far as just what we think we can achieve. So if we're not jumping on them right away, then we're not the team I think we think we have. [00:22:02] Speaker B: Well, before we take our questions from our listeners, it was announced on Wednesday that Maryville University there in Chesterfield, Missouri, of course a hotbed of the St. Louis Blues, hockey and a lot of USA Hockey, they're announcing that the launch of the Division 1 program for men, they'll make a transition year next season and go full D1 in 20, 27, 28. What does that mean for college hockey to have another program? [00:22:28] Speaker A: It's outstanding and, you know, a great spot for them. And you look at, like, those independent teams right now, and they're trying to figure out what to do. And you have the two Alaska teams. You know, you have the two on the East coast, and now you have two in the St. Louis area. So I think there's some flexibility for the independents, and hopefully they can come together and do something, whether it's form a league or join have those teams join in. So I think it's really good. And anytime we can add teams to college hockey, I think it's great. [00:22:58] Speaker B: So you see them going to ECAC, make a trip out to St. Louis. [00:23:01] Speaker A: Well, you know, it's funny, I knew that this might be happening because their coach reached out a couple weeks ago to see if we had any interest in playing some games next season, as they're in a spot where they'll be just kind of playing a Division 3, Division 1 season until they get into Division 1 the following year. [00:23:22] Speaker B: Well, as we always like to do here on the podcast, take questions from our listeners. Ryan Fay writes, before the season, Halji said on the podcast that finishing fifth would be, quote, unquote, disappointment. In his mind, what held the team back from finishing higher in the regular season. [00:23:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you look like I kind of mentioned it earlier, just some of those games that we gave away, you know, I felt like, you know, the first RPI game at home was. Was disappointing. I felt like that was a game we, you know, could have been better. The first game against Clarkson here, I thought we outplayed them, you know, extremely, you know, it was extremely good game for us. And we didn't finish, you know, the game against Yale. I think those are. You look at those three games. If we have a better outcome in any one of them, we're. We're in that spot of you know, one, having a, having a bye or two, you put all three of them together. Now we're talking about, you know, a completely different scenario. [00:24:15] Speaker B: Andrew, Jared has a couple questions. First one is in his opinion that tripping has been especially problematic for penalty for Union this year. It seems that if an opposing player falls and a Union stick is anywhere in the vicinity, tripping is called on Union should not an official only call that penalty if they actually see an actual fact for an actual stick that actually caused the actual fall. Opponents are taking dives and being rewarded for it by the refs. Union fans are outraged. Is Josh enraged too? [00:24:45] Speaker A: I, I try to be pretty even keel on the bench. I think every once in a while you see me, you know, lose my, you know, temper. Yes. But I, I think, you know, I, I can only, you know, do so much and I think for us, we want to focus on us and a lot of times if, if we can have a little bit better stick detail, maybe we're not tripping or not putting it near their, their feet. So I think that's, that's our focal point. But yeah, I think there's some times I've been enraged and you know, have let the officials know. [00:25:18] Speaker B: Fourth he said also says fourth seed would be best, of course, but fifth seed is pretty good Start with a relatively light week with one real game. Brown to keep working on things and settle in at Princeton Princeton hotel and concentrate on the. After that series, the single elimination NCAA bracket basically begins. Of course you have to worry about the ECA hockey Final Four with. He goes with this is Andrew saying with an easily one ECU championship along the way. Is Josh for or against taking Brown lightly in the initial phase of Union's run to an ECAC championship? [00:25:50] Speaker A: Yeah, we can't take anyone lightly. I mean Brown has some really talented players and you know, we got to make sure we're ready to go. And I think, I think it's twofold. I think obviously, you know, we want to, we want to win our way in with the ECAC championship, but there are some scenarios where, because we're playing in this game, it does open the door for if you make it to the ECAC championship and lose in the champ, you know, lose that championship game where you can still get in at large. Not a ton of scenarios, but it does open that up. So it is almost a benefit that we get this extra game. [00:26:26] Speaker B: Similar to the football team, Union's trimester exam week occurs during early hockey postseason play March 16th to 19th. The following project that follows the projected Princeton series. How much impact will that have? Or are you not even worried about that at this point? [00:26:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean we have, we're aware that that's going to happen if we continue to take care of business. But all of our focus has been strictly on Brown. [00:26:49] Speaker B: Peter Bowie writes, what is a typical week of practice classes and game day prep look like going into the Brown game? How much time are the players at the barn? Daily during this or any week? What are your thoughts on that? [00:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah, so a little bit different when we only have one game. So we Monday was a skills practice, just working on puck touches, finishing just all scoring, handling pucks, pucks and feet, pucks off the wall, just getting, making sure they get a lot of puck touches. Then Tuesday we just, no practice, we didn't practice. We just did a video session. We did a forward video D video and then just 5 on 5 stuff with some specials brought in and had lunch at the rink. Then we'll practice Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and get into it, you know, on Saturday where, you know your typical week where we're skating Monday through Thursday with our lifts on Monday and Wednesday. [00:27:42] Speaker B: Well, Robert Dofsky writes strategies for the playoffs. Any changes? What does Josh feel the need they need to do to win? [00:27:49] Speaker A: Well, I think we just got to play our game and you know, let's take care of the puck, make sure we're not turning any pucks over and giving them free chances. And then for us it's going to be just getting traffic to the net and making sure that we are making [00:28:04] Speaker B: it difficult for Shay Jarrett Lacourt is asking now that the format is a one game elimination and not a best of three, does that change your approach or message to the team as you prepare? [00:28:15] Speaker A: It's a lot scarier, you know, for us it's, you know, if we're not ready when you know, you can be done. And I think we really like this group and we have to make sure that we're, we're competing hard right from that opening face off. [00:28:29] Speaker B: And Jim Calon writes the Brown team playing this week we'll be facing will be a much stronger week. Stronger this week. If Ryan St. Louis and other starters that did not play last Saturday are back in the lineup. We should stress that St. Louis did play but was injured in the first period, did not return. I think it was an upper body injury, maybe a concussion, we don't know. But how do you prepare the team to be ready to face a team looking for a strong effort after the loss last weekend? [00:28:54] Speaker A: Yeah, again for us. It's everything for us is all about us at this point, and that's making sure we're ready. We know we're going to get Brown's best, just like we think we'll get everybody's best the rest of the way. So we have to make sure we're going to do our core principles which make us successful. That's just being relentless, having a great attitude and being selfless. [00:29:17] Speaker B: Well, thanks to everybody for the questions. I appreciate your participation. If you have a question for Josh, you can email them to shot that's s C-O-T [email protected] or you can post them on Facebook on my personal page and the Parting Shots podcast page. You can also send them via bluesky X&threads and at Slap Shots Congratulations to Ryan Fay on winning the Daily Gazette ECAC Hockey Face off selections for the third time. I want to thank everyone for participating. I'll be making my picks for the ECAC Hockey Tournament first round to play. Send your picks to [email protected] in fact, as we speak, my picks are up now on DailyGazette.com well Josh, good luck this on Saturday and we'll talk after the game. [00:29:59] Speaker A: Sounds great. [00:30:00] Speaker B: That's Josh Houdzy. Coming up on Thursday's podcast, I'll wrap up the Union women's hockey season with head coach Tony Macy. Then we'll dive into the men's ECAC hockey tournament. I have interviews with Union players Ben Muthersbaugh, Brandon Burr and Nick Young as they get ready to face Brown. I'll talk with RPI head coach Eric Lang about his team's game at Clarkson on Friday. That'll be a 7pm startup at Cheel Arena. And then Dan Rubin, who covers ECA's hockey for USCHO.com joins me to preview the four first round start single elimination games. I hope you tune in. The views expressed on the Parting Shots podcast are not necessarily those of the Gazette News Group. The Parting Shots podcast is a production of the Gazette News Group. I'm Daily Gazette Union hockey beat writer Ken Schott. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time from the Parting Shots podcast studio in Schenectady, New York. Good day, good hockey.

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