Gordon Goodenough: Hello, yes, we are the unofficial podcast of the Sydney Bears of the Australian Ice Hockey League. My name's Gordon Goodnuff. I'm joined by Matt and Nathan. guys, how are we doing? A final game of the regular season has been wrapped up. Getting ready for finals. How how are you two doing down there?

Matt and Nathan: Very well. Excited for finals. Very pleased to announce that we're recording live here from Matt's Melbourne Dungeon. It's really nice space in here. It's good mood. We're geared up for a big one. the record is Nathan's Dungeon. My hotels are less compact and bijou and do not have black silk curtains in the background but I am also excited to be in such close proximity to you mate. We're missing you Gordie.

Gordon Goodenough: Thank you. Yes, I'm third wheeling it here in Sydney all all by my lonesome. but yeah, let's let's get into it. Look, we we're gonna have a very abbreviated episode today, just for reasons. and w we'll just do a quick quick run through of of this the scores, a a quick run through of the game and then a quick preview of the weekends ahead of us. So let's get into it. Nathan, did you have the weekends results that you wanted to go through or or should we just

Matt and Nathan: Yeah, look, I'm happy to run through it very quickly. Again, it will be abbreviated to what we normally run in the past. Kicking off on the Saturday, the North Stars beat the Rhinos 3-2 in Erina. Perth had a 5-1 win in Adelaide. Peter Horocek had a 4.9, two goals, two assists. Orvin contributed two assists, as did Plouffe. For Adelaide, Nathaniel Benson had a goal. The Ice Dogs beat the Lightning in a very high scoring game, 13-10 up in Brisbane. Vertesh had five goals and Batu Gendinov contributed a hat-trick for Brisbane. Certainly Vertesh, know, probably the outstanding performer of the weekend overall. The Melbourne Ice won in a shootout against the Canberra Brave, which at that point in time had some pretty significant finals implications for the Ice. a hat trick including a very late equaliser for the ice in regular time. Caruana contributed a goal as did Cameron Marks. David Booth scored the shootout winner there. Over to the Sunday, the Mustangs won in overtime over the Brave. Carroll scored the overtime winner after Brodie Crane equalised again late in that game. Spencer Cox had a goal and Justin Maelan and Kenneth which also popped up on the score sheet there for the Brave. The Ice Dogs, again, in another crazy game up in Brisbane, they won 8-5. Vertesh again very prominent in that game. Adelaide turn the tables on the Perth Thunder. They run out 6-1 winners. Nathaniel Benson out of five point night including two goals. Colby Johnson had four points. Dole in net for Adelaide contributed 45 saves for the win. And that is your wrap up of non-bears games for the final weekend of the regular season.

Gordon Goodenough: Excellent, thank you. So it it brought us to Sunday's game, which was the final game of the regular season, for the AIHL and th the Bears. And the the Bears helped in opening the the AI HL regular season against the Sydney Ice Dogs way back in game one as the away team and then hosting the Newcastle North Stars in the final weekend in game one fifty and got off to a a bit of a flyer, Well just we won't do period by period, but yeah, maybe just your your thoughts, Matt, first of all on on the the game itself.

Matt and Nathan: Yeah, I thought it was a game of 22 minutes and then whatever the remaining amount is 38, I think by my calculations. We were outstanding in the first and for maybe the first two minutes of the second, but Newcastle really pressed and to concede, what was it? Seven straight, five straight goals, seven straight goals. Disappointing. Missing Lucas and Ryan, obviously, which were big losses. is for us and a sort of patchwork lines in the blender you know a lot of the boys doing things that they possibly wouldn't ordinarily be asked to do on a on a regular game day but to jump out to such a big lead initially 5-1 I believe it was and then lose 8-5 I would imagine the guys are quite disappointed so Yeah, absolutely. Look, to be brutally honest, I certainly feel like I didn't see a lot of this game live being the last game in the rink for the season. We were very busy with the packed house and a lot of guests in the rink. But look from my recollection of the game I thought it was probably a game where both teams probably displayed some of their best and worst hockey I think at different intervals. Certainly at the back end of the second or heading into the second intermission rather. Obviously the scoreline probably had us in a position where we were relatively comfortable at least on the scoreboard. I think when you're playing against a team like Newcastle with some of their guns I'm not really if any lead is necessarily enough and I think, know, unfortunately that third period, you know, proved that, you know, 20 minutes is a long time in hockey and we probably didn't, you know, throw out our best performance there and ultimately, you know, weren't able to close out the game, which I know the guys were certainly very disappointed, you know, around... Number one, their team performance and their ability to close off that game. But I think there's probably some individuals out there that probably want some. some of their own plays back as well. I thought at times, know, obviously defensively, we probably fell apart in front of Kimmer at times. And then there's probably some individual goals that he'd want back himself as well. So I thought it was a bit of a funny game, you know, credit to Newcastle. I think they really pushed, you know, you could see that they weren't going to roll over, you know, even though, you know, it was effectively a dead rubber for them. given the context of the finals make up at that point in the game, but they didn't take their foot off the gas and were to come home and bulldoze over the top of a slate in the game. Even at 5-1, my impression of Newcastle was that they were a team that very much believed in themselves. That Skatchkov, Hrala, Dagay line didn't leave the ice or it certainly seemed to be the case and... I think what we learned about Newcastle is they're a team full of belief, justifiably so, as they finish top of the ladder. They've got enormous firepower, which is something we talked about in the podcast last week. They've got some smarts within the team. I noticed a couple of instances in the third period where Trinker managed to pull an Oberoi and just kick the post off its moorings after the penalty killer had been on the ice for about one minute and 45 seconds and then when Newcastle went back on the power play a few minutes later that top line had been on the ice for an extended period and he had some running repairs to his helmet and had to get something off the bench so he got the team a breather there but look I think they're a very good side and we hung with them certainly for the first part of the game Nick needs to take an awful lot of credit again for scoring a boat full of goals. I thought that top line cobbled together as it was played Finn where they had a great game and I think Chainbow, Finn and Nick pretty much accounted for all of our points or certainly the majority of them. Good to see Goat getting on the scoreboard. Just watching Newcastle's penalty kill and power play. Newcastle players semi-passive penalty kill but one of their high forwards always seems to buzz around and they keep the two defencemen that one of the two forwards right the rhinos send both of them active putting pressure on the blue line Newcastle seem to put one but watching them on their power play they often play very narrow with their that with two forwards face-off dots and inwards and they they do this thing where two forwards go down low and the the down low forward comes high they tend to lose defenders and create confusion, not side to side east to west movement, but very subtle north to south. It's a five yard shift, but two go and one comes and they've always got a bumper in there. And then when the play shifts again, the two come and the one goes and they did manage to create space. I think either Dargay or Klugerman scored a goal where they sort of just drifted in between our two forwards off the back of a penalty kill. And that was created by that movement. interesting stuff watching them play but as I said you have a team full of self-belief and I think they'll be going into finals now obviously with a buy-in in the first round but really backing themselves in to cause some real trouble. I think even looking at the box score neither team really got any complimentary or depth scoring at all. For both teams it was really a battle of the two top groups. You look at Newcastle it's all of your regular contributors. Skatchkov, Harala, Dagay, Droolay, Barzi, Klugerman as well. I know for us obviously Goat hit that bomb. I Dex picked up an assist but apart from that it was all sort of Herms, Scytzy and Chamberlain as well. So that was probably just one little take out and as I said unfortunately I haven't been able to get the chance to watch the game back but... That's probably something that was missing from us obviously that we've been able to rely on. Over the last four or five weeks, we've jumped on the pod here most weeks, complimenting the fact that we've been getting scoring up and down the lineup. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be on Sunday. We did have a couple of quite unusual, unforced errors. There was a delay of game. We turned the puck over a couple of times when we weren't necessarily under a huge amount of pressure. But again, late in the season, boys having to do things that they wouldn't normally do. So I think when you take a step back and you're reasonably objective about things, mean, obviously we want to win every single game but we'd booked our ticket would have been nice to have locked up fourth but if we were going to blow a 5-1 lead in any game it was probably going to be this one that you know felt the most palatable of all I'm sure Nico Reiser, Nick and the rest of the boys who were behind the bench wouldn't share that sentiment because we want to play our best in every game but job done the week before and would have been lovely to have locked up fourth. Yeah absolutely one little data point that I overlooked there was obviously Finn with you playing her up the line up three three apples as well on the night but yeah look I think You know, to come out of that game, it would have been nice to sort of carry that level of momentum that we've been building, know, heading into the tie, know, into this coming weekend. That would have been an ideal scenario. But at end of the day now, you sort look back on that game, you know, take out the key items. I'm sure the coaching staff have done all that. I know talking to the guys after the game, you they all had their own takes on. you know, why we let that game get away from us. But obviously coming into this weekend, we all know how our HL finals works. It's almost a clean canvas. And whilst you don't discredit what's happened over 30 games for each team, it very much is a reset. And, you know, it's almost a new competition now at this point. So. Quick shout out to one Gordon Goodenough. There was a breakaway chance that scatch had in the third on Kimma. Gordy pulled out the holy mackinaw after Kim was saved so kudos mate. I did actually challenge him in the car on the way up to see if he could pull one out and he did. Perfect timing from the master of colour commentary. Always surprising the punters.

Gordon Goodenough: Yeah, look I I thought I'm I'm usually the colour commentator, opportunity to do play by play. Let's do something a little bit different. a little homage to the retired Joe Bowen. So but yes, we we were fa I I I really I

Matt and Nathan: Did you enjoy it? Just whilst we're on that topic, did you enjoy it?

Gordon Goodenough: I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it. And yeah, I I really enjoyed the play by play. I hadn't done it for a while. The it's it had been about a year and a half since I did play by play for the AWIHL and then two years since I did play by play in the AIHL. So it had been a while and and it it was I was much more comfortable and relaxed with it than I ever remember being before. I think that's just in general being a bit more comfortable with commentating itself. So yeah, it was it was good, you know, with next to Pete Lambert who's who's an absolute legend, really knows his stuff and he obviously had the Newcastle intel and and stuff and yeah, it was it was really good.

Matt and Nathan: It's the first Bears game I've watched on broadcast where there has not been a no action required, but there were a few adventurous passes, Gordie. I think you are the king of the adventurous pass.

Gordon Goodenough: Yeah. Yep. Always like a good adventure. But the it was always gonna be a tough task. Newcastle, surprisingly, have a better away record than a home record. they're the the H Niman Reed holders, of course, as minor premiers, and they were very good on the road and just consistent that wearing you down kind of style of hockey and you know, in the first period we got so many consecutive power plays when we didn't score I could feel that pressure because it was that sense of we're not gonna be getting those calls later in the game. There's often whether it's implicit bias or explicit bias, whatever it is, there's often a a kind of a mentality of evening things up. and that's kind of what we saw and we paid the price. which was a shame in Kimmer's two hundredth game, to be honest. I was really hoping we could you know, get a result first and foremost for the team, but also

Matt and Nathan: I know.

Gordon Goodenough: just for the occasion. so yeah, hopefully we see Kemo get a get get

Matt and Nathan: Yeah, absolutely. And both teams really struggled on the finish line. Yeah, sorry man, I've just spoken over the top of you, it wouldn't be the first time. I was just going to say that both teams struggled on the power play. think from memory there were 13 opportunities across the two teams. I it was pretty even. Seven and six respectively, I think. Interesting, particularly when you've got a lot of firepower on both units. That's probably one good take out for us is our penalty kill. I think we highlighted this perhaps last week. Penalty kill has been very strong for a while now. That's one positive take out from that game I think. No doubt the coaching staff would be pretty pleased with that. Certainly Nico who sort of runs that group. I'm sure that's something that he's going to be pretty proud of. So well done to the boys on that front. I think especially so in terms of the fact that we had a number of. boys that aren't normal penalty killers on the PK. you know, normally Lucas and Nick and Chainbow and Dex do a lot of heavy lifting for us. But I did see Ruben on the ice killing penalties at one point. know, and Kevin Sadowski hardly left the ice from a defenceman standpoint. Obviously, we were missing a significant contribution from Tyreale. He appeared a little bit more frequently in the third. So it was all hands to the pump again on the weekend. yeah, good point, well made. And as I say, think especially so because some of the boys don't normally fulfil those roles in a regular game scenario for us. Absolutely. And don't forget we also lost Ox through the game as well. So a pretty rough rotation. lot of guys probably playing. Tommy as well. Exactly. And Tommy as well. Yeah, definitely that sort of has implications on the rest of the group and how guys rotate and the positions that they're in and the way that they're deployed. But, know, again, no excuse as well. We're missing Goose as well this week. Exactly. Yeah.

Gordon Goodenough: Some so some just little bits of housekeeping. Nick Seitz with four goals overtakes Lucas Herman with in the goal scoring lead for the Bears. So leads the team with twenty-six goals to Herman's twenty-five. he Nick Seites got thirty-nine points in thirteen games, so an a average of three points per game. And Brian Chambers coming home with a wet sail. he's been absolutely outstanding. Two straight games of of four assists. so some some players really heading into finals on hot streaks. And of course Lucas Ehrman, he had missed the game, but what had been running a twenty five game point streak that he will take in the finals as well. w are we ready to preview finals weekend guys?

Matt and Nathan: Let's jump into it.

Gordon Goodenough: So here's the lay of the land. We've got we've got the Friday three pm game at at O'Brien, and that will be between us and the Canberra Brave, who finish third. should we win that game, then we will play on Saturday at six PM against the Melbourne Mustangs. And then in on the Sunday, should we progress, we will play one of the Newcastle North Stars Perth Thunder or Sydney Ice Dogs in the final. Let's get into the Campber Brave game. guys, we we played them during the regular season twice, an overtime loss at McCaury, followed by a loss the very next day in at the AIS, but we were missing some key players.

Matt and Nathan: Yeah, really looking forward to this. Obviously just to touch on initially the matchups so far this season. think the first game, the gentleman that we played at Macquarie and lost in the shootout, that was a really good game of hockey. thought relatively even throughout the game, both teams exchanged opportunities. Probably somewhat of a loose-ish game, which is somewhat... for both teams or at least historically. They really blew us off the rink on the Sunday, know, small ice in Canberra. They put in a very, very polished performance, perhaps maybe the best performance that I've at least seen live this season from an opposition. But again, as I said earlier, heading to finals, it's a clean canvas. Canberra, we know who they are and what they are. We know what we need to be looking out for here. You know, they've got a really potent... offensive line, know, they've got multiple guys that are up sort of that 2.4, 2.5 points a game kind of clip. You know, a lot of players that, you know, teams around the league are very familiar with. I know our guys love playing the Brave. I think it's a good opportunity for us to, you know, match up against arguably one of the, or perhaps even the favourite possibly, a lot of people I've talked to around the league. have a lot of respect and there's probably a lot of pressure here on Canberra would think heading into this game. So yeah, really, really looking forward to this. I'm not sure how you see it. Yeah, very similarly. I would imagine Canberra would go in as heavy favourites, but I for one, and I'm sure the boys won't mind being the underdog in this scenario. Look, if you're going to win the cup, you've got to beat everybody. But that is a very, very tough pathway, I think Canberra. They're very organised, they're heavy. They've had outstanding goal-tending from Hasselmann, so it'd interesting. I would imagine Hasselmann will start. But I think if Tets plays, we can get at Tets. We did see us scoring goals against them in Canberra, albeit that that was quite a miserable day on the hole for us. I think we've got an opportunity to get at them on the bigger ice surface. And if we can lull them into more of a run-and-gun kind of game which we've seen some success in this season and get them out of that very structured, organised, controlled exits, controlled entries, know heavy body check-in game where they clog up the neutral zone. I think we've got a punch's chance but If we get through that, then the Mustangs await us, which is a completely different catlet fish. But one at a time, let's get stuck into them at 3pm on Friday boys. And what you said earlier, that's the mentality of the guys. You want to win a cup, you've to go through good teams. Why don't we start with Canberra? Yeah. It's as simple as that. Absolutely. Look, they've got enormous firepower. Bates is a favourite of mine. Ratcliffe's unbelievable. Canich, Kibara, you just run through that list of almost superstars, right? But here we've to get amongst it. And I would have said... Sunday's result accepting, I would have thought the rest of the league would have been looking at us and going, well, we'd prefer not to play the Sydney Bears in the first round because they're on fire at the moment. And when the chips have been down, they've pulled together their best winning streak of the season. Kim has been standing on his head, sights his back and scaring the bejesus out of everybody he plays for. And the captain's got the ability to put the team on his back and almost win games single-handedly. So I think There'll be some trepidation from Canberra, but as I said, don't mind going into this game as heavy underdog at all and let's see if we can have some fun.

Gordon Goodenough: Yeah, it's i it's interesting, you know, you you mentioned that if you wanna win the good old cup you have to go through good teams and it's one that we mentioned previously where the winner of the good old cup since twenty fifteen has either been the Camber Brave or has beaten the Camber Brave on the way to the cup. So I think this is a good opportunity for us to get that first game out of the way straight away. and then get your legs going. You hit Saturday with some momentum. We've s been on the back end of this. We've been on the other end where we've received the bye on the Friday and then we've had difficulties getting our legs under us and and the game's

Matt and Nathan: Okay.

Gordon Goodenough: been out of reach by the time we we get going on the Saturday. So, you know, why why not us? Why can't we, you know, i i inflict it on someone else? It it will be tough, obviously. You've got Canber Brave and the the Melbourne Mustangs have had the the two best form teams of the competition for the last couple of months. but you know, if you're gonna win the good old cup you've you've you've got to do hard things.

Matt and Nathan: Yeah, definitely. think playing that game on the Friday, this is obviously somewhat of a different look to that of what the club's been used to in years previous. But look, I don't necessarily think it's a major factor. In fact, I haven't even really heard many guys sort of cite the fact that we've got to play three games. I think in years past, maybe that was more of a consideration around the league under the new finals format. I think it was a big talking point around clubs and teams but we've seen teams do it successfully. Even this season we've seen teams on the road. cite Perth Thunder, they won three straight, playing three back-to-back games during the regular season. whilst it's something that is an interesting little nuance, I don't know if it's a major factor. also think When I look at Canberra, my personal opinion is you've always got a relatively good idea of what you can expect. I don't think there's a huge margin between their floor and their ceiling. I think it's probably fair to say with us, maybe with the exception of the last four or five weeks, probably not including the Newcastle game or at least the third period of the Newcastle game, there's probably been more of a fluctuation in what we've been putting out in the way of a performance. when I look at Canberra, you know that chances are that they're gonna be good for multiple goals. They're always producing. I think they're averaging over five points, five goals a game throughout the season. We need to look at our defensive structure and probably emphasise that. We can't be leaking a lot of goals. We probably don't want this game to go into one those high scoring shootout type games, in my opinion. But you also throw in the consideration around... know, Ryza, you know, does Ryza play? To what extent does he play? I do like the fact that we've had a lot of continuity in our group over the last five or six weeks. I do think that that's probably played, you know, a major role in some of our form turnaround. But you know, let's be real, Canberra are a very, very solid and consistent outfit. But Matt made a really good point earlier and it's something that I would agree with. I think Canberra on the bigger ice in Melbourne, They are, they're certainly a different team to that of what they would be playing at the AIS as an example. Big change with dimensions, it's a different type of game. A lot more space here in Melbourne. So I'm also really interested to see how that part of it unfolds as well. And you know, I think our guys overall, we have a tendency to play pretty well overall at O'Brien. We... We faced the Melbourne Ice at O'Brien three, four weeks ago. They play that North American style of hockey. It's slightly different to Canberra, but I would hazard a guess as they're about as close as you could get to the style that Canberra play. And we beat them 6-1, 6-2, Went toe-to-toe in their own barn, used the space, our speed, Nick coming back into form. So I think we've got a channel, some of that. you know, July, early August, Brian Magic and fingers crossed, buckle up boys, it's going to be fun. Absolutely. You know, probably some of the things that we harp on about here on the porer, at least I do, know, discipline is going to be a big part of this. You know, we gave up, you know, six or seven opportunities for Newcastle's power play unit on the weekend. You can't be doing that against Canberra. You know, a lot of these guys, they have absolute field days, your Raddies, your Cabaras, know, Bates. crowd of these sorts of guys, they will make you pay. So our guys have got to be smart, we've to control our sticks, we've got to make sure that we're disciplined and we're not sort of serving up opportunities against Canberra in that regard. Sure, they're going to be a hard team to play against. Canberra probably earn some of their production on the power play as well. but we've just got to find a way to put a comprehensive, complete performance out there on the ice. We have to play 60 minutes. Some of these instances throughout the season where we've had a good 30 or a good 40, as an example, that's not going to be enough against Canberra. You have to put in a polished, professional 60 minutes against Canberra if you want to be coming out on the right end of it in a finals matchup. and also be very wary of their penalty kill, which is dangerous. So, yeah, let's win the five on five battle. Yep, definitely. And your best players have to be your best players, stating the obvious.

Gordon Goodenough: Yep. And likely Peter Bates will return to the lineup. He w wasn't on the roster for either game in Melbourne, which the the Braves end end up losing. you know, we've with him and the lineup they are a much more dangerous team. But yes, I think I agree. I think our best players do need to be our best players. I do I do like our depth. we we've seen instances where our third line has been really, really, really good and taken it to but yeah it's it's gonna be it's gonna be another lunch pail effort, I think, this this week.

Matt and Nathan: I'm personally planning on kidnapping Peter Bates at the airport before I leave Melbourne. Alright, with Gordie having some... The fact that you're wearing that black jacket? I believe you. With Gordie having some technical issues. you're back Gordie. I was just going to ask Nathan for his views on the other games, the other Friday game. Perth, Dogs. Correct. Interesting one. Perth, first and foremost, it'll be interesting to see how many bodies they have. They've been depleted the last couple of weeks. They certainly played on the weekend, I think, a heavily weakened team from what I could see on the box score. I think probably two teams that play a very different style. I also think the way that they're built is certainly very contrasting. The dogs, they can certainly score goals. You know that they will play 60. They're a very hardworking team. We've spoken about them in recent pods as we have Perth. I think that'll be a high scoring game again. If you want a tip, I will say Perth. There's absolutely no emotion in that at all either. That'll actually be a fascinating game to watch, I Agreed.

Gordon Goodenough: Yeah, I I think that

Matt and Nathan: you

Gordon Goodenough: should be a really good game and and the the change as well in in in head coach, putting JFK in as head coach so Ben Bro can kind of focus on playing

Matt and Nathan: Yeah.

Gordon Goodenough: responsibilities and I think that's a really good move for Perth. JFK has has an opportunity to win two national titles in the one year. He he won the national title coaching the Perth Inferno to the AWIHL championship. And now he he has an an opportunity at the AIHL level. We're obviously familiar with him from his time as player coach in Newcastle as well. so it's it'll be fascinating to see and and I noticed, you know, coming into the weekend, Perth had had one shorthanded goal all season and they got two shorthanded goals i against Adelaide on the Saturday and so wonder if there's he if that's already an indication of little tweaks that he's made. making the the penalty ca penalty kill a little less passive utilizing the speed that they do have in players like Felix Plouf.

Matt and Nathan: Yeah, it's interesting. What do you guys feel around just looking at the standings here, the six teams participating in finals have essentially been made up of two groups. You've almost got this group of three at the top. We have got Newcastle, Mustangs and Canberra. Then there's quite a large separation from a points perspective to that of the Thunder the Dogs ourselves. Do you think that is somewhat of a reflection in the, I guess, the comparison of the teams? Or do you think that coming to a finals weekend, you somewhat throw those numbers out the window and we use that simple notion of any team can beat any time. I think, weirdly, both are true. I think there have been two distinct groups. I would also include the Melbourne Ice in that second group of three. It's a group of four. Throw a blanket over all of them. Carl, you can get goalied ever so easy over three days. Somebody gets, gets on a... on a hot streak and you look at those teams like, you know, would you rather go into the finals with any other goalie than Kim and no, is Burrows capable of goalie in teams? Yes. You know, the Perth goalies have been hot all season, possibly have dropped off a bit. Hasselman's top of the save percentages. We saw what Trink is capable of doing, although you have to worry about his workload. He's practically played every game. Luckily, they've only got to play twice, so it kind of feels like a normal weekend's work for him and who haven't I covered? Mustangs. He's a damn good goalie as well right so I think if you get goalied or somebody gets hot anybody could win. Absolutely I think we saw that with the Mustangs when they won was that 23 Gordie? I think it was the 23. I saw a posting. An import goaltender, I forget his name, but he just went on a tear and just stonewalled everything that was in front of him basically. And you look at this group of six, on their day, any one of these six goaltenders can dominate an opposition. There's no doubt about that. You know, again, I look at, you even if you look at the Brave as an opposition, you look at the Mustangs as a potential opposition. Or I should be a lot more confident than I should know when we do play the Mustangs. The top groups from these teams turn up every single game. Yep. That's a sure bet. If you pair that with decent team defence and even average goaltending from the goaltenders attached to this top group of teams, that's what makes them so hard to beat. So we have to find a way if we just pivot back to the game against the Brave, we have to find a way to nullify that top group and take the sting out of their attack. That's really what they rely on. That's their tonic. and it'll be exactly the same thing against the Mustangs as well. And also ensure our best players are our best players as you mentioned earlier. We know for certainty that the best players in very, very high likelihood for all of those top teams will perform this weekend. Yep and traditionally you will find that teams they will rely very heavily on their top groups. It probably is that kind of league anyway, but certainly in a final scenario, you will see most teams running groups that will be on very, very heavy rotation. They'll have a lot of time out there on the ice. There's probably even less of a matchup kind of game in the finals, in my opinion. So... I think again that even further emphasises the importance of your best players, your top locals and your import players making real impacts on a game. look, the stats wouldn't lie here and Gordie you'd probably be able to provide a bit more context around this but our top guys really have been overall doing their job over the last month or so. He's thinking. still thinking? Yeah, I mean we talked about Kimmer's return to form, Nick's come back from his injury with a bang, Lucas is on a multi 25 game scoring streak, Tyrell's as solid as a rock, we just need more, more and a bit more from those guys right? And they've shown throughout the season that We've got, really, we've got half a dozen guys who can absolutely pop up with real impact on their day. Yeah, it's fascinating once you start sort of digging deeper and starting to go down holes, Are you back with us, Gordie?

Gordon Goodenough: Yeah, I th I think so. yeah, I I think it's gonna be fascinating. You I

Matt and Nathan: Welcome back.

Gordon Goodenough: I think those teams, you know, going back to to Nathan's original point, is there a a kind of a a legitimate top three group and a legitimate bottom three? I'm probably in in a similar mind, Matt, that yeah, it's it's you can't knock the efforts of Canberra and the Mustangs, particularly for the massive winning streak that they both accumulated. over the last couple of months of the season. They're definitely form form teams. No one really, you know, would choose to face them. but I I also think that, you know, you you get you get a good matchup. These teams have different strengths and weaknesses. Match up well on the day. Anything can happen. A couple of bounces go your way. you know suddenly you get some confidence, some energy. You know, it it's not a foregone conclusion. If if these matches were played on paper we'd be we wouldn't have made finals. I I I I think there's reason for cautious optimism for sure.

Matt and Nathan: Absolutely. It's a funny old game the size hockey. We see it year after year after year at the very top level in the NHL. You count how many presidents cup winners then go on to lift the Stanley Cup. It's not very, very many. So you're dead right, Gordy. Couple of bounces. Goalie standing on his head. Some bad officiating calls. Somebody wakes up with a flu. Let's bring it. Chaos, we love, we're here for the chaos. That is the AIHL. I set you up perfectly. You did, that was stunning. Yeah, and you smashed it at the ballpark. Hanging, hanging fucked

Gordon Goodenough: Yeah, well

Matt and Nathan: in the middle.

Gordon Goodenough: We'll have to we'll have to do think think about some stuff that we can do this weekend, but you know, first and foremost let's enjoy that game Friday afternoon. Nathan, you're obviously down at O'Brien for that. but it's it's gonna be an excellent excellent weekend and it's been you know, we'll still have content coming out obviously next week. We'll recap the the finals and and we'll throw around some more ideas. for you, the fans and the listeners, to be able to let us know what sort of content you'd like to have during the off season and whether that correlates with what we're capable of bringing as well. So any final thoughts guys? This has turned out to be a a little bit of a longer episode than we intended, but final thoughts?

Matt and Nathan: gutted I can't be down here for the game but we're in the best of hands. Give the boys my very best wishes. I'll be screaming at the broadcast from my home and keeping my fingers crossed that we go all the way and I'm even more gutted on Sunday evening that I flew back to Sydney. 24 hours before the game. And you should be gutted. Certainly really exciting, it's always fantastic to come down to finals. I've been lucky enough. participating in the final series each year that I've been involved with the club. So it's been a nice luxury. I almost feel like I'd be more nervous than what a player would be, to be honest. It's been somewhat of a unique season for us. I there's been a lot of moving parts of this season from even before a puck was dropped. people in and out of the lineup and a lot of different layers of adversity and things that maybe weren't necessarily on the docket the way that they popped up. But that's what makes all of this so special and somewhat addictive to be a part of. What I would say is it's very clear that we've got a high level of confidence in the group, whilst they were very disappointed in the way that the result against Newcastle unfolded. There does seem to be a really positive vibe amongst the group and the staff. Big opportunity ahead. whilst I'm sure that every team that are going to battle this weekend would probably say the same thing, let's hope that our boys can really dial it up. We can put some really good team performances out there on the ice and get the job done. A huge thank you to all of the fans that have supported both in the rink from afar, supporting the pod. There's so much to look back on this year already, regardless of the outcome this weekend. That is really positive and absolutely awesome after a really tough year out. So just a massive shout out to each and every listener who's been a part of this club and the organisation in any capacity. Yeah, let's go and bulldoze three teams here this weekend.

Gordon Goodenough: Yeah, and I I think, you know, after after all the the struggles that and challenges that we've had to overcome this season as a team, I think you know, this has been a different year as as a fan than perhaps twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four. but yeah, I I echo that. Really proud of of the team, really proud of the coaching staff, really proud of the management as well that's overcome so many things and and the proud of the fans for you know, supporting the team. I think whatever happens this weekend, I I take an incredible amount of pride for being attached to to this club and I I'm I'm really grateful for the opportunity that that I have to you know, to provide commentary as well for the for the team and it's it's been an absolute privilege this year.

Matt and Nathan: And thank you to your gentleman as well in the roles that you play around the club as well. Absolutely fantastic. We've had a lot of fun. Certainly this year's been... bit up and down in the way of performance on the ice. If you were to ask me eight weeks ago how I felt about our finals prospects, I might have been a little bit indifferent about it if I'm being honest, but it's nice to have an opportunity to go and win something here and another guy's very grateful for that. If we can put our best hockey out here on the weekend, I think whoever's in front of us should have a lot to worry about. for sure. So let's hope the boys can do it. I've got full faith that they will and it's certainly very exciting to be a part of. So let's go and do this thing. Here, Just a couple of quick ones from me. Thank you both also for your company. It's been a blast. Congrats to Bianca and the team for putting off an amazing awards night and also thank you to Jules for presenting us with a magnificent trophy. wasn't part of the official trophy dance card. Nonetheless, it means the world to us. So Gordy's come up with a great idea of a day with the cup. We each need to do a day with the cup, I believe for socials Gordy. So thanks Jules, really appreciate that. Is this where we announce and promote our Patreon channel? The after dark that everyone's been asking for? Is that ready for launch Gordy or still a work in progress? I certainly think...

Gordon Goodenough: look, still it's still a work in progress.

Matt and Nathan: I certainly think we'd be in high danger of losing our clean rating and It would possibly move to explicit. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm here for the clean stuff. Well, I just noticed I'm definitely encroaching on you here. Maybe I'm better suited for an after dark. I've been moving further and further away from you the whole time. All right, appreciate everyone. And Gordie, you have been solid as a rock and the voice of sense and sensibility while Nathan and I have basically titted around a bit, haven't we? Absolutely. So shall we go and get a pint and a pie? Let's do it. We'll miss you, Gordie. Might send you a picture or two.

Gordon Goodenough: Well on that note, thanks gentlemen. Go bears.

Matt and Nathan: Go Bears! Bears and thank you for anchoring this. Go Bears over and out.

Gordon Goodenough: Go bears.

Matt and Nathan: Holy Mackinac!