But, you know, from an outside perspective, right, not an individual team, we're looking at like we're excited to, to watch some hockey and see some great games from, you know, all these teams across the conference.

Yeah.

And, um, you know, it was talked about a little bit as well on that media day is there's, I feel like a broken record sometimes because, you know, since I've been a part of this league, there is parity.

But arguably from coaches that are veteran returners that have been in this league for decades and, you know, some of our coaches that have been around Atlantic Hockey, whether it be they were a player at one point or, you know, they coached on an opposing team, um, or was an assistant coach and now have that, that head bench boss role, um, you know, they've all made note and have said, "Hey, this, this for some reason this year, everybody's gotten better." And so I think that to go back to that word excitement that probably is overused a little bit, uh, and I'm guilty of that, you know, y- anything can happen, right? There's, there's so much competitive parity top to bottom, um, and, and we don't know what's gonna happen.

But I know that our players and our coaches that every single day that they show up to the rink and, and those players stick- step foot on that ice before the puck drops, hey, you know, everybody's in it, and it, it's a really competitive league.

Um, and, and I think that this year we'll, we'll see how that unfolds.

That's been such a fun battle to watch the two of them kind of fight for, you know, that conference championship last year, and we're expecting kind of similar things this year.

As I look back on the championship game last year between Sacred Heart and Bentley at Bentley, it was a sold-out crowd.

There was so much going on that was really excellent for the conference.

Yeah, I mean, you know, most...

most recently or what pops to mind, Rob, obviously is the end of the season, right? And so, because that was the most recent games and attendance and lived experience.

So if we work backwards, right, the end of the AHA season, you know, really came down to a race, you know, and it's, as I've seen on the women's side in my time here in my four years, it's been, it's gotten more competitive.

And we've always seen sort of parity on the men's side.

But we're seeing more and more of that and that sort of bottleneck really in the middle.

In recent past, Penn State has given a little bit more of a gap and has proven that they are, you know, the top dog, so to speak.

Now you're kind of looking, okay, second year as a program, you know, this is where we start to, you know, lay the foundation a little bit more and, you know, keep building up as a group.