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Sioux/Hawk Nation...... Just wanted to add a positive comment following the tough series loss last night. I'm a Denver parent of a UND football player.....We put on our kelly green and attended Saturday night.... I'm not aware how well it came across on the streamed broadcast, but if you weren't there you'd have been SO very impressed with both the size and volume of the Dakota faithful...... On several occasions we "owned" the arena with the "LET'S GO SIOUX - LET'S GO SIOUX"..... It was our first UND hockey game.... and got goose bumps as we sat in the end section with that Sea of Green. Our hearts went out to the Seniors as we watched the finality of their last season set in (as they consoled each other on the ice at games end)..... The bar is set high with UND hockey...I get that, but there should be acknowledgement for how hard they battled last night. Guts and heart. We left disappointed but PROUD of where our son goes to school.....and SO excited for 2019 Fightin' Hawk football !!! Congrats to UND Hockey this season........... you have 2 new fans for life.

Anyone who found this year’s team “exciting to watch” has clearly graduated from boo berry cereal to a serious problem with booze berry cocktails.

As a Denver fan who once made a living in the college game and has been a Denver fan for 40 years, I watched UND pretty closely this year as I do every year. Your team is a very good skating team that plays fundamentally sound, your compete level is higher than most, and your offensive and defensive systems are NHL standard. Your team is solid and essentially the same as everyone else's team in the NCHC with the big exception being the consistent drop in goal scoring in both 5 on 5 and PP that your fans have well pointed out. But you are not alone, as I think UND is emblematic of some larger trends right now, and I would encourage all of you to see the larger forces that are affecting college hockey. Blue bloods like North Dakota, Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin are all golfing now, and BC and BU must now win conference tourneys just to get to the dance? Why is this? Why is the traditional dominance eroding? I think it boils down to five reasons: 1) Follow The Money. In the past, the Blue Bloods traditionally outspent the other schools to get their dominance and build on on their traditions, and now many other D-I programs have since invested in better facilities just to keep up. All of the NCHC schools, for example, have made multi-million dollar commitments to the sport in better facilities and good coaches. At the same time, the decline of cable TV audiences/coverage around the nation and the growth of streaming games have mitigated some of the media advantages one enjoyed by the blue bloods that was once a major selling point to recruits. The resulting flattening of college hockey investment and access, in turn, makes recruiting more competitive, and forces top programs to keep recruiting younger players, raising the risk that some of top-end young talent may not pan out. When you combine that with the grind of the NCHC schedule, you can see how scoring and winning becomes so much tougher. 2) Player Pool Leakage: The game of hockey has grown tremendously in terms of registered players and junior teams and development programs, while the number of scholarships available/slots to play college hockey has not grown very much. There are now really good players are available all over North America and from Europe who are flowing into the game and that talent is not just flowing to blue bloods, but flowing to other programs, too, creating more parity. Additionally, having recruiting pipeline advantages in "owning" certain recruiting areas is less important now than it once was. Good players can come from anywhere, and when top college coaches could rely on and became overly loyal to certain geographic areas or to specific junior programs, good players can get missed... 3) Offense is dropping, while defensive systems, scouting and specialized goalie coaching grows. Many programs have realized that if they can't find enough offensive production, the best way to stay competitive is to develop the defensive side of the game with the players they can get. Defensive systems emanating from the NHL have had a big effect on college coaches and have made gap control is as good as it has ever been, making offensive time and space pretty scarce, especially in the NCHC. You need quick and accurate releases and better net front presence for second chance shots, but most defenses now can keep even good shooters on the perimeter. Good goalies are everywhere now, and a .920 saves percentage is becoming the norm. Goalies who are positionally sound can now make good saves look very easy and that builds defensive confidence and deflates shooters. Getting 35-40 shots per game is no guarantee of scoring 3-4 goals anymore, and that makes it possible for many more teams to compete. Those teams who excel at shot blocking can often offset high end offenses, but the fact is we just aren't seeing game-breaking offensive players as much, and I think this affects the blue bloods more than anyone else. 4) Chemistry is more elusive: Team chemistry on top programs is more elusive now than it used to be. No one disputes that better players are critical to national success. That said, many teams still over-recruit high-end talent and under-recruit character. The blue bloods have always had greater access to the best players, so its easier to get caught up in stockpiling them, because many of them do leave early for NHL contracts. Other programs build their rosters on character guys who stay longer and help to mitigate the early talent losses. But beyond that, the character in the locker rooms evolves differently for each team, each year. You need the right balance and buy in, and that doesn't happen every year. There are a lot of pressures on student athletes today, and social media can make anyone's mistake global in seconds. As result, I think players are wound tighter and that can really be exacerbated in high-end programs where the pressure to perform individually can take its toll on team chemistry. 5) Entitlement mindset: The high end drafted player now often comes on campus with high expectations from NHL organizations, agents and their families. They are often coming in under this pressure and demanding top-six forward status or top-4 d-man status, power play time and preferential treatment that can really erode team chemistry from the non-drafted guys who have had to earn it. This often makes for difficult locker rooms and strained coaching relationships that we don't see. Having too many stars is not always a good thing, either. Every team needs good grinders, too. Schools who don't land as many of those high end guys try compensate by making team culture a strength, resulting in greater loyalty, more experience and larger senior classes (teams that win NCAA titles tend to have more seniors). As I look at these trends, I see it getting much tougher to maintain traditional dominance for any program, even blue bloods, and we are going to see more down cycles (which for Blue Bloods, means stretches of mediocrity will become normal. We all have to adapt...

I wish there were some fans we could part ways with.

No Seniors? I can't believe I just read that. Matt Frattin,Evan Trupp, Brad Malone, Chay Genoway, Danny Kristo, Corbin Knight, Carter Rowney, Steph Pattyn and many more may disagree. I swear I get stupider every time I come here.

The scary part for UND should be that with the huge downturn in attendance, it is getting harder for season ticket holders to sell their tickets when they can't go, and when they do, it is for the fraction of the price they would garner in the past. If attendance at UND continues to diminish, it might be more worthwhile to skip season tickets and pay a premium for certain games, then get the rest on the cheap. The same goes for the regionals. If fans continue to take a hit, they might just quit buying and pay a premium during the years they do make it. The culture of UND hockey is changing and it isn't for the better. If I were in charge of the Ralph, I would figure out a way to make it easier for fans to attend by figuring out a better parking situation, because if the product isn't enticing people as much, you better not make the other things around the game a headache to deal with.

So .... You're saying that if we pretend that perhaps the worst debacle in Sioux Hockey history didn't happen then things would seem better?

Or just beat Canisius. Didn’t seem like other teams struggled to do so.

You mean the Olympian Hoff? Schloss would hate that.

Over in the “Name-‘em” thread I’m predicting at least FIVE incoming freshman forwards. Yes. Five. I know there are only three senior slots that opened, but I also see a lot of passengers on that roster. And I’m pondering predicting one or or two more incoming freshman forwards beyond my already named five. Why? I’m going to say it: this junior class of forwards (the 2019-20 “seniors”) was a bust. How dare I say that? Easy. Tyson Jost 33 GP, 16-19-35 Hoff 92 GP, 36 points Smith 90 GP, 33 points Bowen 98 GP, 21 points Johnson 90 GP, 12 points Yon 89 GP, 12 points Goal scoring wise it’s Jost 16, Smith 13, Bowen 11, Hoff 10. Tyson Jost is nearly the highest scorer (second by just a point) of that group of incoming freshman forwards, and is the leading goal scorer (!), and he hasn’t been in a UND uniform in two seasons! Soak on that: Jost has played 1/3 the games of the rest and still leads in goals. And who’d have believed Smith (brought in as a role guy) would be second in goals in that class.

We’d still struggle to score on them.

Goals scored have gone down each year under Berry. 162, 127, 117, to 93 this year. The further away from the Hakstol era, the worse things are getting. That is a pretty significant decline to just blame on puck luck.

I'm going to miss Jones on this team. He was only with the team for two years, but he sure played the game the right way. Always hustling. Best of luck to the seniors going out. On to 19/20.

Next year’s freshman class is the first class where every player committed after the national championship. I think we’ll have a better idea of where recruiting is at after next season. And if anyone is worried about recruiting strictly based on the opinions here, Ouch. However there are a couple recruits in the pipeline that concern me. But personally, I’d be more worried about why some of these players aren’t developing when they get here.

Decades ago, a little taz enjoyed Booberry cereal growing up. Made the milk all blue and tasted like sugar-soaked crunchy marshmallows, sugar injected blueberry's, and vanilla cookies coated with sugar. The previous two sentences contain about as much hockey coaching knowledge as the previous 260 posts. Berry stays and wins another title. He is a premier college hockey coach and a fantastic human being. The team this year was exciting to watch, worked extremely hard, and played the best teams in the nation extremely tough. Remove the weekend at Canisius, and y'all would be giddy with NCAA tourney excitement. Many of you need to stick to Fortnite or your robotics club. taz

because he is Darrel and Darrel gonna Darrel

Don't know, don't care. just get sick of your soapbox crowing every time the word sioux shows up.... like a rash from swamp ass

NHL also went poorly for the Panzers, Bochenski, Frattin, and Kristo. I'd take all of them on my college hockey team in a heartbeat.

Adams for Hoff and Keane with Bowen

Can you imagine if a newer head coach missed the NCAA tournament three years in a row at Duke North Carolina or Kentucky? Oof Actually it's a trick question they would have been gone after two.

Can Blasi recruit? Can Blasi coach special teams? I hear he's looking for work ...

Damn, the red flags sure are screaming right now. Sure would be nice to be hearing some positives about recruiting some high enders. DU is doing well.

You've lost all credibility(not that you had any to begin with) with this post. Duncan has had a hell of a hockey career and made more money doing so than guys that are having a cup of coffee in the league and battling it out in the A.

It is Darrell's identity to champion the new name and squash any menton of the former. Quite ironic #moveonyourself

I haven't seen a "follow me" leader with a letter on the team in at least two seasons, a guy that you watched and just knew had "it". It might even be longer than that. That said, I have hope for the future in Senden.