 Welcome back to Lakeland Sports and talking with the captain this season, Bemidji State Charlie O'Connor, the pride of Elk Grove Village, Illinois. And hey, congratulations on being named captain. Thank you. It's a true honor, you know, to have your teammates and especially your coaches have faith in you. And yeah, I'm just excited for the year to start. Being captain, any extra really responsibilities or is it your point in fingers or in the locker room, getting the guys going, that type of thing? I mean, yeah, you have those leadership roles that you had to step into. Not really pointing fingers. I try to just be myself and, you know, just lead the guys, do what I've been doing for three years. I felt like I've been doing a good job in that leadership role the past three years and not going to really change much. Well, by pointing fingers, I was kind of like, you know, hey, rookie, pick up that bag. Yeah, I mean, there's first year duties, but I mean, there's not too much. Your thoughts this season? Overall, the roster as we get going here against Bowling Green? Yeah, overall, I think we're going to be good up front. Defense, we have a couple of good guys coming in freshman year and our freshmen's last year are getting older and more experienced. Again, our goalie situation is going to be a good one because they're battling every day in practice to get better. And I feel like we have four number one goalies. So that's great. And I think we're heading in the right direction. It is at the top, at least I think of the WCHA, which I include Bemidji State in the top half, similar style teams where there is a commitment to defense has no doubt about that. And the offense is maybe is going to be the difference as, you know, maybe that you're playing for championship or not. Yeah, absolutely. One thing I've been preached over my junior career and even especially here is defense leads the offense. So as good as you are defensively, you're going to be that much better offensively because if you're great in defensive zone, you don't have to break out the puck that much. Guy from Chicago, Cubs, what are we thinking here? I don't want to jinx your boys, but... Yeah, I mean, we're not going to jinx anyone here. It's been 108 years. It's kind of sad that my grandpa hasn't seen them win, but you know what? Every year is our year. That's right. But do you go home over the summer or are you up here? Yeah, I'm up here. I'm actually down in Chicago three weeks. I work hockey camp in Lake Forest. So the remaining time I'm up here. Okay, very good. And a good stuff. A lot of guys stayed here this summer, too, didn't they? Oh, yeah. I think we had 13 guys here. So one incoming freshman came, took summer classes. So it was great having the freshman come in here and really getting accustomed to things, how we work around here. Excellent. Charlie, thanks for this, too, and the best luck this year. Thank you very much. All right, Captain Bemidji State. Charlie O'Connor joining us. Be back in just a moment on Lakeland Public Television.