Bulldog Insider

Minnesota Duluth sophomore defenseman Will Francis joined the Bulldog Insider Podcast this week to talk about his battle with leukemia and what it took to get back on the ice playing hockey at a high level. Francis shares what it's like to be an inspiration to others battling cancer and the fundraising he's doing for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The Bulldog Insider is co-hosted by Duluth News...

Thanks to the return of an Olympic gold medalist and a goaltender who has broke out on the international stage in the past year, Bulldogs fifth-year senior center Gabbie Hughes hasn't been in the spotlight as much as you might expect for a player coming off a season in which she was a top-three finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award and finalist for the Hockey Humanitarian Award. The Bulld...

This week on the Bulldog Insider Podcast, Minnesota Duluth's Jesse Jacques and Minnesota State's Ryan Sandelin go way back having both grown up in Hermantown together. For the past four years, however, they've been facing off as rivals in college. Besides their college careers as rivals and prep careers as teammates, the guys discuss how they met, Jesse's nickname and the origins of it, the signif...

This week on the Bulldog Insider Podcast, new University of Minnesota Duluth athletic director Forrest Karr joins to discuss the future of NCAA athletics and that little controversy over a new mascot costume. The Bulldog Insider is co-hosted by Duluth News Tribune sports reporter Matt Wellens and My9 television voice of Bulldog hockey Zach Schneider. Episodes are edited by Duluth News Tribune digi...

This week on the Bulldog Insider Podcast, Minnesota Duluth junior wing Blake Biondi tells us what it was like to have his senior year at Hermantown High School documented by a film crew for the documentary, 'Hockeyland'; and what it was like to go back and relive that part of his life three years later. The Bulldog Insider is co-hosted by Duluth News Tribune sports reporter Matt Wellens and My9 te...

The Bulldog Insider Podcast drops the puck on its fifth season with an in-depth conversation with Olympic gold medalist Ashton Bell. The Minnesota Duluth fifth-year senior defenseman and captain is back with the Bulldogs in 2022-23 after traveling the globe last season with Team Canada, winning gold medals at the 2021 and 2022 IIHF World Championship, and at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing. The Bulld...

In Part 2 of the Bulldog Insider Podcast Season 4 finale, the 'Bulldog Insiders' — Matt Wellens, Zach Schneider and Bruce Ciskie — take your questions looking back at the 2021-22 UMD men's and women's hockey seasons while also looking ahead to the 2022-23 seasons. They break down what the rosters look like at the moment (Note: Connor Kelley had not entered the transfer portal yet when this was rec...

As members of the UMD mens hockey team, Matt Anderson, Koby Bender, Ben Patt, Louie Roehl and Kobe Roth have helped make memories that Bulldogs fans will never forget. In their five seasons, UMD won two NCHC Frozen Faceoff titles, played in four NCAA tournaments, reached three Frozen Fours and won two national championships. In the first part of a two-part season finale of the Bulldog Insider podc...

Once rivals in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, the UMD mens hockey team and Michigan Tech will meet for the 233rd time on Thursday at 2 p.m. This time, it will be in Loveland, Colorado in the NCAA regional semifinals at the Budweiser Events Center. The Bulldogs will see a familiar face in Jake Magdzas. The former Amsoil Arena Ice Foreman is now Manager, Operations at Budweiser Events Ce...

The UMD womens hockey team is back in the NCAA Frozen Four for the second straight season after beating Harvard 4-0 in the first round, followed by a dramatic 2-1 victory over Minnesota at Ridder Arena in Minneapolis on Saturday. Now the Bulldogs get a Frozen Four semifinal rematch with Northeastern at 2:30 p.m. on Friday at Pegula Ice Arena on the campus of Penn State University. The winner gets...

The University of Minnesota Duluth women's hockey team is back in the NCAA tournament for a second consecutive season. They are the No. 8 overall seed and will take on the No. 9 overall seed, Harvard, at 6 p.m. on Thursday in a first-round game at Ridder Arena in Minneapolis. The winner of Thursday's first-round game moves on to play Minnesota, the No. 2 overall seed, in an NCAA quarterfinal at 2...

This week on the Bulldog Insider, the crew put a call out on Twitter for questions, and you the listeners responded. News Tribune reporter Matt Wellens, Zach Schneider of My9 Sports and KDAL's Bruce Ciskie answer your questions about goaltending for both University of Minnesota Duluth men and women, what's troubling the men's team in the second half, future fifth-year seniors and the transfer port...

The University of Minnesota women's hockey team has 12 seniors on this year's team, but only five are maybe moving on after the season. On this week's episode, Duluth News Tribune reporter Matt Wellens takes a walk down memory lane with senior center McKenzie Hewett, senior defenseman Kailee Skinner and fifth-year winger Anna Klein. The trio talks about why they chose to play for the storied progr...

A little less than three months ago, Minnesota Duluth sophomore goaltender Zach Stejskal announced he was battling testicular cancer. Stejskal declined interviews at the time to focus on his health, but did do a question and answer piece with UMDBulldogs.com in which he wrote in all CAPS, "I DO PLAN TO PLAY" hockey again in 2021-22. Stejskal kept his word as the Cohasset native and former Grand Ra...

"Jojo" is a name that Bulldogs fans are quickly becoming familiar with. With senior starting goaltender Emma Soderberg away with Sweden at the 2022 Olympic games in Beijing, Minnesota Duluth sophomore goaltender Violet "Jojo" Chobak has been in net for the Bulldogs. Recently, she helped UMD get their first win at Wisconsin since 2010. In this week's episode, Chobak tells the News Tribune's Matt We...

For this week's guests, deciding to join Team USA for the 2022 Olympics in Beijing was a no-brainer. With the NHL deciding to not participate in the Winter Games due to COVID-19 concerns, the United States men's hockey team instead consists of a combination of past and present high-level college players, creating one of its youngest teams in decades. Joining us this week on the podcast is Bulldogs...

With temperatures trapped below 0 this week in Minnesota, the Bulldog Insider Podcast did what any good Minnesotan would do. It went ice fishing. Former Minnesota Duluth assistant and associate head coach Jason Herter joined the podcast from an ice house on Lake of the Woods this week. Now an associate head coach at Western Michigan, Herter and his family still call the Duluth area their home. Her...

Before joining UMD, fifth year forward Elizabeth Giguere was a standout on the national stage with Clarkson, earning three All-American nods, the 2020 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as the nation's top player and  helping the Golden Knights win the 2018 NCAA National Collegiate Championship. Now, she's a member of the Bulldogs as a graduate transfer.  In this week's episode, Giguere tells the News...

Senior center Gabbie Hughes is having the most offensively productive season of her collegiate hockey career. But, she's looking to make a bigger impact off the ice. Hughes is helping to bring mental health awareness to the forefront after a tragedy last summer rocked the hockey community. Putting their grief into action, friends and family of Sophie Wieland created Sophie's Squad in honor of the...

It's been a rough couple of weeks for sophomore defenseman Wyatt Kaiser and freshman center Dominic James.  Last Tuesday, the U.S. National Junior Team had to forfeit a game against Switzerland because of COVID-19, and then the next day, they called off the IIHF World Junior Championship. This week, the Bulldogs series at St. Cloud State was postponed because of COVID-19. In this bonus episode of...

For many, a new year means New Year's resolutions. In this week's episode, News Tribune reporter Matt Wellens, co-host Zach Schneider and KDAL's Bruce Ciskie make some resolutions or possible corrections, whichever way you want to look at it, for both the UMD men's and women's teams for the first part of 2022. And for longtime listeners, a Nick Wolff reference or two resurfaces.  The Bulldog Insid...

With 2021 coming to a close, this week's episode takes a look back at some of our favorite Bulldog hockey stories of the year. Reporter Matt Wellens, co-host Zach Schneider, former co-host Kelly Hinseth and KDAL's Bruce Ciskie go around the horn and share their favorite story of 2021, including but not limited to the UMD women returning to a Frozen Four, the men defeating North Dakota in 5 overtim...

The U.S. and Canadian women's hockey teams were at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Sunday in preparation for their My Why Tour showdown on Monday. Unfortunately, that game was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns, however, News Tribune reporter Matt Wellens did get the chance to catch up with former Bulldogs goaltender and 2018 Olympic gold medalist goaltender Maddie Rooney after the Team USA pract...

After a battle with knee surgery and then a cancer diagnosis, Minnesota Duluth freshman defenseman Will Francis recently made his college hockey debut. The towering 6 foot 5, 21-year-old who played for Centennial High School and who was drafted by the Anaheim Ducks in the sixth round of the 2019 NHL Draft, suffered a season-ending knee injury in practice just 10 games into the 2019-20 season with...

After five seasons of sitting behind others — watching, cheering and providing feedback from the bench to his fellow goaltenders — Minnesota Duluth redshirt senior Ben Patt will make his first regular-season start this weekend when the No. 1-ranked Bulldogs play a nonconference series at Northern Michigan. Patt's first collegiate start comes after leading the team's annual Movember campaign that r...