COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Before we get to hockey, the passing of Bob Uecker has to be acknowledged.
To a certain degree, your humble correspondent is likely not your humble correspondent were it not for many a night staying up past bedtime to listen to Bob Uecker (alongside current Cubs radio voice and also legend Pat Hughes) call Brewers games. After I turned 19 and got my first radio job, one of the first things I was responsible for — remember, this was before the age of everything being automated — was to go to the station and “run the board” during Brewers broadcasts.
The pay was terrible, but the entertainment was outstanding. Uecker wasn’t just the guy calling the game. If the Brewers were down nine runs in the sixth inning, he was the guy making a crack like “Couple grand slams, and they’re right back in this thing!” or telling some insane story from his playing career, often inspired by the parent of a player on the opposing team or just the opposing team itself.
(Back in this day, the board op would insert all the local commercials at pre-planned break times. For example, maybe the break at the end of the fifth inning would be local. We also had to insert station ID announcements around the top of the hour, but only when cued by the game announcers. The feed would just pause with nothing but crowd noise for ten seconds, then the announcers would start talking. And if the board op — hi! — wasn’t paying attention, s/he was left to figure out what was missed. In Ueck’s case, he was the king of these types of pauses, only thing was he would pause when he had nothing to say, not necessarily when they wanted a break to run. With Uecker, the board ops really had to be on their toes.)
Where the truth ended and the BS began never mattered. The internet didn’t exist to fact-check these things, and even if it did, no one would have ever bothered to look.
The Brewers’ statement Thursday hit me in the feels, largely due to its complete accuracy.
“Today, we take on the heaviest of burdens. Today, we say goodbye to our beloved friend, Bob Uecker,” the team said in a statement. “Ueck was the light of the Brewers, the soundtrack of our summers, the laughter in our hearts, and his passing is a profound loss. He was the heart and soul of Wisconsin and a dear friend. Bob loved people; his presence warmed every room and he had a way of welcoming all of us into his world as if we were lifelong friends.
“Saying goodbye to Bob shakes us all. He was so much more than a Milwaukee Brewers icon. He was a national treasure. Bob entertained us with his words and storytelling, so it is no surprise that his passing now leaves us at a loss for our own words.
“There is no describing the impact Ueck had on so many, and no words for how much he was loved. We are left with a giant void in our hearts, but also remember the laughter and joy he brought to our lives throughout the years.”
Uecker’s family also released a statement, saying he had been privately battling small cell lung cancer since 2023. It explains so much of the emotions at the end of the Brewers season. Yeah, the Mets’ late comeback hurt to watch, but what came from the players — most notably Christian Yelich — seemed to run deeper than that.
The mood was completely different when Ueck paid his final visit to the home clubhouse on Oct. 3. The Brewers had just lost in devastating fashion to the New York Mets to get eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, and it was as quiet as a library as players tried to process the ninth-inning turnaround that ended what had been an otherwise uplifting year.
That stunning defeat was not the primary reason certain players were left in tears late that night. An ailing Ueck, who knew he didn’t have much time left, went around to say his goodbyes, letting some know he probably wouldn’t see them again.
Christian Yelich, who had grown particularly close to Ueck, was demonstrably emotional after their private conversation.
“It’s special, every time he’s around,” Yelich told reporters quietly, choking back tears. “We shouldn’t take it for granted. He’s the man. He means a lot to this place. Anybody who has spent any kind of time with him knows how special Bob is.”
Because we haven’t had a local Brewers Radio Network station in some time (don’t get me started), I subscribed to the MLB Audio package through my phone the last couple seasons. Whatever it cost me (I think $35 for the two years, but I could be wrong) was worth every penny to get to hear Uecker call a few more games. It didn’t take a dunce to look at his age (he was about to turn 91) and his health history (at least what has been documented) and figure that this wasn’t going to last forever, and I wanted to cherish one of the true legends of this business as much as I could.
That said, this news still hits as a shock. We are not immortal. We are here on borrowed time, every one of us. But yet there are still people — both personally in our lives and not — who we are convinced are going to live forever.
Bob Uecker was one of them. It doesn’t feel real that we’ll turn on games this spring and not hear his voice. He is gone, but his voice and his legendary calls will live forever.
Now, we awkwardly move on to the hockey.
9 THOUGHTS
1. “It was probably one of the best Zoom calls I ever had.” That’s how UMD coach Scott Sandelin described an early 2024 video call with an uncommitted goalie named Klayton Knapp, who was playing for the Bismarck Bobcats of the NAHL.
“We got eyes on him,” Sandelin said on Jan. 4, “and it was a great Zoom call. He knew we had a goaltender (Zach Sandy) here, and Adam Gajan coming in. He wanted the challenge, and we’re glad he’s here.”
I got wind of this Zoom call shortly after Knapp’s commitment, and it was clear how everyone involved was impressed with this young goaltender.
Talking to him this week, it was easy to see why.
“I talked to Brant (Nicklin), and then a few days later Krausey (associate coach Adam Krause) reached out, then a few days after that I had a Zoom meeting with the entire coaching staff. I got the offer and they’re like, ‘What else do you need to know?’ Like, you know, take some time, talk to people, whatever.
“I was like, well, can I just commit right now? And they’re like, ‘Wait, really?’ Like this never happened before. And so, yeah, right then and there on the Zoom call, I got the offer and I knew UMD is where I wanted to be the entire time. I guess it was a first that they’ve ever had someone commit on the spot like that. It’s pretty impossible to say no to a place like this.”
I asked Knapp to sum up what drew him so quickly to UMD. He cited good friend Anthony Menghini being a Bulldog, his relationship with the coaching staff, and UMD’s reputation when it comes to developing goaltenders.
“I’m a little bit of a late bloomer,” he said. “I missed an entire year of junior hockey to injury and came back and had a strong year in Bismarck (20-11-3 with a save percentage in the .920 range counting regular season and playoffs). UMD produces so many goalies, Brant’s on staff full time, playing in the NCHC and for a program that, you look up in the rafters here at Amsoil and there’s banners upon banners upon banners. So, and all those things combined is why I chose here.”
Sandelin was impressed with Knapp’s attitude, his willingness to go to a place where a spot in the starting lineup was far from guaranteed.
“He knows the job Brant can do with goaltenders,” Sandelin said. “I think that was really important to him, too. He felt he could come in here and compete for playing time. He’s come in, he’s worked hard. They all have.”
Knapp was pretty upfront when I asked him why he wanted to go to a place where nothing was guaranteed.
“I’ve always been the kind of kid that I’m gonna bet on myself,” he said. “The biggest thing, and I don’t want this to come off the wrong way, is I’ve always known what I’m capable of, but I don’t necessarily think … where I grew up, where I’ve played, and that kind of stuff has necessarily gotten exposed the ways some other people have gotten.
“But the biggest thing was just self-belief. I think this whole hockey thing is such a marathon, and it’s not a sprint. And so many people, like you’re talking about in sports, they want to come in and have everything given to them right away. But my thought process is, what are you going to learn by having something given to you? So I came here to compete with some of the best players in the world, some of the best goalies in the world, learn from the best coaching staff in the world.”
I wear my age enough, and really don’t want to come across as the Simpsons “Old Man Yells At Cloud” meme. And this is not a shot at any players who have ever jumped into the transfer portal seeking a different role or more ice time elsewhere. But it’s refreshing to see someone do what Knapp has done here. Bet on yourself, and you’re going to win a lot more often than you might think.
2. Knapp has adjusted well to the college game, especially since the Bulldogs returned from break.
Based on the advanced stats published by College Hockey News, or the eye test, UMD’s goaltending was not a strong point in the first half. In fact, if you look at goals allowed versus expected goals, UMD allowed nearly 13 goals over expected before Christmas.
In five games since break ended, Knapp has stopped 116 of 124 shots, posting a .935 save percentage while saving 5.5 goals over expected, again per CHN’s numbers.
“From a coaching staff perspective, that sees him during the week, we’re not surprised he took this opportunity and ran with it,” Krause said this week. “And really excited at his intensity level. Again, if you ask Brant, none of those games have been perfect, but there’s a compete there that has allowed him to have success. And our team’s playing better in front of him, too. We’re really excited about competition in that position. Very important in any position to have that competition. It gets everyone to be at their best.”
“We’ve had a great run here,” Knapp said. “Obviously, you look at statistics and individuals and all this stuff, but for our team to come back from break and have the spark that we’ve had, play the way that we’ve had after that tough first half has been huge. I think that’s led to me being more confident and being more comfortable in knowing we have the group to do it. We have the leaders to do it, we have the playmakers do it, the role players to do it, coaching staff to do it. So we have all the pieces in place.”
3. When you’ve done this long enough, you’re mostly unfazed by video reviews. You get used to the occasional delay on a coach’s challenge.
But Saturday night was different.
See, junior Joey Pierce — filling in at forward after Carter Loney and Harper Bentz went down the tunnel in the first period and did not return — just scored his first collegiate goal. The bench freaking exploded to celebrate the accomplishment of their beloved teammate.
But St. Cloud State coach Brett Larson had other ideas. He challenged the goal for goaltender interference, so the referees went to the scorer’s table to get a look.
What they saw was forward Joe Molenaar skating across the top of the goal crease — his skates never touched the blue paint — and his stick makes contact with SCSU goalie Gavin Enright while Molenaar was trying to get possession of a loose puck after Enright stopped the initial shot by Jack Smith.
It took nearly four minutes. The imagination starts to run wild.
But in this case, the call on the ice held up. Pierce had his goal, and UMD had a dagger to sweep the Huskies.
“Shocked it took that long after I saw the video,” Krause said when asked his perspective on the delay. “Having a conversation with Joe (Molenaar) on the bench, he’s saying that physically he didn’t really hit the goalie and it was his blade maybe as the puck was hitting his blade. Just from watching the play, what they showed on the on the big screen, a little bit of a confusion of why that play was reviewed so long.”
“I was just driving, kind of finishing my route through,” Molenaar said. “We talked about finishing through the blue paint and that’s kind of where I finished. You try and stay away from getting interference, but I didn’t think I interfered with him. I thought I just kind of hit the puck off his pad and my stick was just there. I didn’t think I influenced the outcome of the goal based on moving the goalie. Joey followed the play up really well. Puck was laying there nice and pretty for him, so he obviously put her in the back. It was good to see Joey get that.”
4. What does last weekend mean? There was a real energy in the building as the game wrapped up on Saturday, but UMD has to proceed with caution. We all want this to be a springboard for this young team, and maybe it will be, but if you try to live off the previous weekend, the current weekend will punch you in the mouth. Or something like that. You know what I mean.
At the risk of serving as some sort of bucket of cold water, which is not my intent, we now travel back in time two years.
A young UMD team, keyed by a natural hat trick from some guy named Ben Steeves in the Friday game, swept St. Cloud State at home. Before the weekend, Larson said the following:
“I wish we could have played them four times in the first half of the year, because I know it’s a team that’s just going to be a heck of a lot better down the stretch. I’ve watched them on tape quite a bit, their last few games, and to be honest, I’m seeing a team that’s dominating long stretches of games, especially with the offensive zone time they create and the intensity that they’re playing with.
“I think they’re playing really, really well, and I think they’re gonna pop. I’m just hoping they don’t pop this weekend.”
They popped, but it wasn’t a springboard. UMD got just one point the next weekend against Western Michigan and lost in the first round of the NCHC playoffs in a three-game absolute turf war at St. Cloud.
We all hope past performance is predictive of the future, but the upcoming adversaries are going to have a thing or two or three to say about that. Which brings us to …
5. I never would have foreseen this Colorado College team having the problems it’s having. I’m, frankly, gobsmacked to see the Tigers tied with UMD for seventh in the NCHC at 13 points while going 2-9-1 in their last 12 games.
CC started 8-0, scoring 30 goals in those eight games. In the last 12 games, Colorado College has 22 goals. In the last eight, the usually-stingy Tigers have conceded 31 times.
“Right now we’re just too loose defensively and we’re giving up too much,” said Tigers head coach Kris Mayotte. “And it’s putting more and more pressure on our offense that right now just isn’t clicking how we need it to. We gotta get back to being stingy, one of the toughest defensive teams, one of the best defensive teams in the country.”
It’s easy to look at the offense drying up, Mayotte said, but he was consistent in our conversation that he feels the group has become too loose at the other end, and all it’s done is exacerbate the troubles they’re having getting pucks to go in.
At the outset of the season, Mayotte said, “we were just really good defensively and we were tough to play against. Along the way, we go to Providence, we give up nine goals. And we really just haven’t found our defensive mojo. We haven’t gotten it back since. And so I think figuring that out and having that be where we start and that be our team’s identity, I think is going to be crucial in us turning this thing around, heading back in the right direction, and ultimately becoming the type of team that we believe we have the potential to become.”
6. Both UMD and Colorado College have been a bit snakebit offensively. Yes, the Bulldogs had their struggles consistently bearing down in the prime scoring areas, or even getting to them in the first place. That’s why I made a point to ask Sandelin at last week’s media conference if he felt his group had done a good job of that in the Jan. 4 loss to Alaska, a game UMD outshot the Nanooks 40-10 but managed just a Blake Bechen extra-attacker goal with 1:02 left in regulation.
“We did enough,” he said, “but it’s still an area we still gotta get better second chances around there. I think we’ve got to get to the net a little bit more. But teams defend differently all the time. Everybody collapses and everybody plays tight areas, so you’ve got to be willing to go into those areas. Got to be willing to go into those. And it’s never easy. That’s why guys don’t want to do it, because it’s hard. But it was better. We’re going to keep working on some things that hopefully keep getting it better. But we did enough to win a game and if we could play defensively closer to that moving forward, I like our chances of being in games and giving ourselves a chance to win.”
CHN’s expected goals numbers, again, show a Bulldog team that probably deserves a bit more than it’s gotten in terms of goal-scoring. UMD is right now running at 4.2 goals below expected for the season, third-worst in the NCHC behind St. Cloud State (10.7) and …
Yup. Colorado College.
The Tigers are an astounding 14.5 goals below expected through 20 games.
“Obviously expected goals is not a perfect stat,” Mayotte said. “We understand that. But over our last ten (games), with our expected goals, our expected record is 8-2 (actual record: 2-8). Over our last eight, our expected record is 6-2 and we’re 1-7. It’s not like it’s 6-2 and we’re 4-4. We’re 1-7.”
7. The NCHC is busy again this weekend, outside of Denver taking the weekend off. Two other series could be fascinating. Western Michigan visits North Dakota in a series that features two of the three teams tied for the NCHC lead (Western was off last weekend, has not lost a league game in regulation, and has two games in hand on UND and Arizona State). North Dakota got a rousing comeback to steal two points in the desert on Saturday and force this three-way tie.
ASU, meanwhile, heads to St. Cloud. The Huskies should be highly motivated after getting swept in Duluth last weekend, but can their defense slow down the Sun Devils’ blossoming attack?
Elsewhere, Omaha tries to continue its forward march with two games at Miami.
8. There are few honors in college hockey more meaningful than the Hockey Humanitarian Award. It was won by UMD’s Gabbie Hughes in 2023 for her work with Sophie’s Squad, as she became the first UMD hockey player — male or female — to win this award.
The committee’s 2025 nominations were released this week, and UMD has a chance for a second with fifth-year senior co-captain Clara Van Wieren.
Van Wieren’s accolades are exceptionally impressive. She is currently pursuing a Professional Studies master degree after she earned a Bachelor of Arts in both Political Science and Philosophy last May as a University Honors Program honoree. She serves in leadership positions on campus as both the president of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee and the co-president of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council.
Already the women’s hockey team’s volunteer coordinator this year, which has entailed organizing a inaugural week-long team volunteer event, and resulted in over 150 hours of community service at various local nonprofit organizations, including: Chum, 7 Star Ranch leadership program for veterans, youth, and first responders; the Duluth Children’s Museum renovation project; and Park Point Beach clean-up and restoration work, as well as coordinating coaching opportunities for players to connect with greater-Duluth area youth hockey teams and special needs hockey programs.
Van Wieren led SAAC to partner with Food Forward, a non-profit that works with 36 local families to create meals weekly for low income families. Besides volunteering with Food Forward, UMD’s SAAC group, lead by Van Wieren, bought gifts for the families and items they might not buy for themselves, created gift bags, and then they were passed out with the weekly meals.
“Everything that she does, it’s not about herself,” UMD coach Laura Schuler said. “It’s about everybody else. And everybody knows that. She’s done such an outstanding job in our community. She is absolutely everywhere. If there’s ever anything that’s going on in our community in terms of people needing help or whatever it might be, she’s the first person to say, in our team meetings, can we be a part of this? So she’s been outstanding. I’m so, so happy that she’s a finalist and just so proud of her. Such an amazing person. So proud of her.”
Van Wieren then walked to the podium, thanked Schuler for her kind words, and proceeded to take very little of the credit for herself. On-brand, I’d say.
“I would say it’s really just like a reflection of the community around me and my support system. Kelly’s (Kelly Grgas Wheeler is UMD’s director of athletic communications and has worked with the women’s hockey program for a long time) standing over there, but she’s been so amazing. Everyone giving me ideas and providing support, and Schu’s (Schuler) really just like kind of let me run with my crazy ideas sometimes. So I don’t know, it’s a community.”
The award would be doing quite well to be represented by a human being like Van Wieren. I’m not convinced she ever sleeps, but even with that in mind I have no idea how someone can do all the things she’s done in the community while also being a damn good Division I hockey player and an even better student. You hear people talk about leaving a place better than they found it. When Van Wieren leaves UMD, she will not only have left it a better place, but she’s going to leave Duluth a better place as well.
9. The Bulldog women are home this weekend for a big series against Ohio State. UMD sits second in the league, one point ahead of Minnesota and Ohio State (the Buckeyes have played two more games than both the Bulldogs and Gophers). Of course, the Bulldogs swept the Buckeyes to open the season in Columbus, but that was a verrrrry long time ago.
“Ohio State’s super fast, super fast,” Schuler said. “We’ve got to be really, really hard in order to be able to turn pucks back over in the offensive zone. So that’s going to be a big focus for us. Also on our breakouts, they come really hard, so we’ve been focusing on what to do on our breakouts when they come that hard.”
The ramifications are clear, both in the league and the PairWise, where OSU sits in second and UMD in fourth. A positive weekend for the Bulldogs (think split or better) is a major step towards UMD solidifying a top-four position and the chance to host a regional in the NCAA Tournament (the top four, as of now, is still exclusively comprised of WCHA teams).
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Late start here Friday, 8:30pm pregame to accommodate CBS Sports Network on TV (weird they never do this for radio 
). Back pregame with the lines.
Quick programming note: A postgame blog is not likely to be filed until Saturday morning, but I expect to write one. Going to get back here after the game and sleep because I’m old.
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