KetoChronos

NCHC teams have won five of the past seven NCAA championships!! A Big Ten team hasn’t won since 2007!!! UND has realistically the financially strongest franchise in college hockey. Every UND game is sold out, in a larger arena than most teams play in. UND has an incredible fan following. The NCHC is still the strongest league in college hockey. Sure, it will ebb and flow a bit. The east coast teams tend to get favored tournament schedules, but year after year NCHC teams have dominant pairwise rankings. I watch a lot of college hockey, and I think the competition and entertainment value in the NCHC is second to none. Colorado College also belonged in the current tournament. Who thinks RIT is a better team than CC? Who thinks Northern Michigan is a better team than CC? With Arizona State entering the NCHC, our product will be even better. Greater competition, tougher to win championships. But, I see it as a good thing. The NCHC is strong and getting stronger.

I know you all hate me because I am a Denver fan, grew up near GF but in Boulder now. But, point is that I think UND comes off to other teams in the NCHC as being laser focused on winning the Penrose. So much press attention to the Penrose. Honestly, we have DU season tickets and as a fan, I never hear about the Penrose Cup. So, there is something to it with UND’s post season trials. As a DU fan I haven’t cared much about the Penrose or even NCHC tournament, except that it matters for NCAA seeding, and you want to go into the NCAA on the upswing. In Denver it really is all about the NCAA championship. That said, with so many excellent teams in college hockey, we know that no matter who your team is, winning the Championship is extremely difficult. It’s an uphill battle for everyone, and you have to leave it all on the ice. It takes some luck too, the kind of luck Michigan had last night. NCAA tournament pairings are painful. Denver has had to travel to Massachusetts to play two teams with a massive local fan base. For DU they aren’t just road games, they’re games in a hostile atmosphere. And, UND had to fight through a regional that featured two strong Big Ten teams. Let’s face it, no matter how talented you are, winning in the NCAA tournament is very difficult.

Sorry, parity is real. 6 of 8 games decided by 1 goal. 6 of 8 games that could have gone either way. 3 of 8 games ended in OT. The NCHC plays tough hockey, but 3 of 4 NCHC teams in the tournament are already headed home. Denver is the only quarterfinals survivor, and Massachusetts played Denver even. Parity is real.

CC is a team that no one wants to play. I’m a Denver fan and know that is the truth. People lose sight of the fact that Kaiden Mbereko is not just another goaltender. Watch this sophomore play and you realize that you are watching a future NHL All Star. UND put up 45 shots. It wasn’t at all a lackluster effort. They just couldn’t beat Mbereko.

I’m a DU fan with UND as my 2nd favorite. I was at the Friday game a week ago when the Hawks came from behind in the 3rd period. UND played aggressively and with confidence that night, less so the next night. What those who live in Denver know is that when CC is on their game, they are tough to beat. The key perhaps is to jump on them early, though easier said than done. The way I look at it is that this is all preparation for the tournaments. DU lost in Western Michigan last night, and the only reasonable takeaway is that it can make them stronger. The same is true for UND. The season is still young.

All is well in the NCHC. It's unrealistic to expect NCHC teams to dominate every year. In 2022 the eastern teams were shut out, with Harvard, UMass Lowell and Quinnipiac all exiting before the Frozen Four. It was nothing short of expected that eastern teams would rebound in 2023. The track record for the NCHC is amazing, Going back to 2016, Denver won twice, Minnesota Duluth won twice and UND won once. 2020 didn't count, so the NCHC won five times in the past seven seasons. Given the high level of competition, who could hope for more? I grew up in TRF, and watched the Sioux play in what was essentially a big quonset in the late 1960's. As life happens, my wife wanted to live where she grew up in Colorado, so we ended up becoming DU fans. The first year we had DU season tickets I pulled for the Sioux, excuse me Fighting Hawks, when UND played at Magness arena. I quickly grew tired of my wife's elbow in my ribs, so got the message and became an avid DU fan. I figured out last year that we could go to two and a half Colorado Avalanche games for the price of DU season tickets. We can make it from Boulder County to Magness Arena in 45 minutes most of the time. Nearby parking is $10. I-25 is a mile away so getting home is quick too. And, there are myriad restaurants in walking distance of where we park. Like, a dozen restaurant and watering hole options. The value in college hockey is incredible for NCHC fans, wherever you live! DU hockey attendance exceeded 150,000 last year for the first time in history. 21,700 people watched DU play on NCHC.TV. Season ticket sales were up 15% last season. And, when I look around the league, I see good stories everywhere. Omaha has become very competitive, Colorado College is on the rise, UND, UMD and SC State are as solid as ever. Western Michigan is ascending too, and Miami is fun to watch and can surprise anyone on any given night. I hope my Pioneers win it all this year, but the one thing that is guaranteed is that as NCHC fans we will see a lot of fast-paced and passionate college hockey.

I have two great seats for the Fighting Hawks taking on the Denver Pioneers in Denver, Friday December 1, 2023. I am a DU season ticket holder and the pair that I want to swap are eighth row, section eleven, across the ice from the team boxes. Entirely unobstructed. My price was $180 for the pair. T” As you might know, there’s as much green as crimson when UND plays in Denver! I plan to attend the Friday game at the Ralph when DU takes on UND on January 26, 2024. What I’d love to do is trade these two December 1st tickets for two at the Ralph on January 26th. Season ticket holder swap kind of thing.

I grew up near GF but live in Boulder CO now, with DU season tickets. I thought that UND played with energy and purpose Friday night. If anything, they dominated play. Except that their aggressive play led to lapses. And, it’s hard to win with dumb aggression, with major penalties and game misconducts. I get that it’s a fierce rivalry, but arguably, with emotions better checked, the outcome could have been very different.

I grew up in TRF and graduated high school in EGF. Senior year my best friend’s dad was a Colonel at the air base, so we had access to unused season tickets. My love for college hockey was given birth watching Sioux games at the old Barn/Quonset in 1968 and 1969. I remember thinking that the Quonset was pretty fancy, as my only point of reference was the old arena in TRF. I now live in Boulder Colorado and my wife and I have season tickets to University of Denver games. A few years ago I still pulled for the Sioux, but now I’m all in on the Pioneers. It’s a different hockey culture here in Denver. There’s rarely talk of the Penrose Cup. Measuring a team’s success on winning the conference on paper only goes so far. UND might have won multiple Penrose Cups, but Denver and Minnesota Duluth have won four of the past five NCAA championships. Every Denver fan knows that the goal every year is the national championship. No one mourns if we don’t win it all, but that’s the ever-present target. North Dakota has a great team, but I don’t think they deal with adversity very well. This season they’re looking for quick-and-easy, not showing up consistently when required to do the hard work forechecking and in the corners. Against Denver this series, especially on Saturday night, UND committed multiple turnovers because they seemed to be looking for the fast break. Lazy passes amount to wishful thinking at this level of play. I don’t know that much about Brad Berry. It just seems to me that North Dakota expects the competition to roll over and play dead. It’s not a matter of talent. You’ve got talent in spades. Something is amiss with the commitment to grind it out, in what is essentially a grind it out sport.