sagard

While the Gophs enjoy a huge home ice advantage at the X, it is over teams like DU, CC and Maine. If the Gophs and Sioux (or SCSU/UW/UMD) play at the X, there will likely be 10-12 thousand Gopher fans, 4-6 thousand Sioux fans and the rest will cheer against the Gophs. It certainly is an advantage, but it won't be stacked like it was against Maine or the Colorado teams.

It has not happened in the new building. Of course, UMD hadn't swept the Gophers at Mariucci either.

You guys can rip the Gophs all week. Thats fine. I draw the line with anything resembling this comment. I'll leave it to the user to figure out which portion of the statement I have a problem with.

The calls on the Gophers were legit. Only Mason could have missed them. If the Gophers go up big again tomorrow, I would not be surprised to see a DQ. I only hope Lucia reminds them who is coming to town on the 23rd, and how much fun it was to play them short handed last time.

I used to feel that way about UND. I was exceptionally bitter at the Sioux who hadn't been anything special since the late '80s show up in '96-'97, get a lucky draw and win the NCAA Title. I relished the Sioux losses to Michigan and BC. Then in '99-'00 I started to flip. I truly hated UW and I was very pleased when the Sioux crushed them at the Target Center. I went into the '00 Final rooting for BC, but after two periods I think the ESPN guys got to me and I cheered (much to the suprise of my wife) for UND and enjoyed UND snatching victory from BC. In '00-'01 the Sioux came to Mariucci and smoke the Gophs 4-1 on a Friday night game. Pohl dressed for the Saturday game with an obviously still injured ankle. Someone quoted Blais warning the Sioux if they went after Pohl's leg, they would pay. Or something to that effect. I took it for the truth and thought it was about as classy a move as a coach could make. Later in '00-'01 the USCHO BC clowns forever turned me off from any eastern team with their obnoxious rants. I was rooting for UND against SCSU at the X, and in all games of their nice NCAA run. There is nothing to hate about UND now. Blake is long gone, they are simply a hard skating, hard working, class program. Now I think I'd root for all WCHA teams except for UW. I just cant root for them. Not in basketball or football either.

I think by the end of the year the Gophers will have established themselves as clearly the second or third best WCHA team. I also think UND, UMD and UM will be at a higher level than any other WCHA team, but not separated by much from each other at that point. When you all see UW for yourselves, you will not be impressed (though Suter is fantastic). UW is still a year from their best hockey. As the second or third best WCHA team, they are legitimate NCAA tourney contenders. They were the 2nd best WCHA team in both '01-'02 (Denver) and '02-'03 (CC), but clearly were on a roll and got the breaks in the post season. As for qualifying for the tourney, the Gophers have a better chance at a #1 seed than they do of missing the tourney. They Gophers are currently sitting in 6th in PWR, but have the same amount of comparisons as #5 Michigan. The Gophers RPI will eventually pass Michigan (due to SOS) and if the Gophers win the season series with SCSU they will win that comparison as well. If that scenario played out, the Gophers would get a #1 seed reguardless of where they finished in the WCHA. This of course assumes the Gophers splitting or better with UMD and UW from here out. UND is in my opinion clearly the best team in the WCHA and likely the country. If UND survives it's regional tourney, they would be my pick to win the Frozen Four. My opinion is that UND drawing either the Gophers in the Colorado regional or Michigan in the Grand Rapids regional would be the toughest game they would face. Of course BC in Boston wouldn't be a gimme either. The regular season/WCHA playoffs count. The WCHA teams that avoid Grand Rapids will have the best chance at the NCAA title. Last year the Gophers earned their "lucky" draw by beating CC at the X and sending them to Yost. The year before they were straight up lucky to avoid Michigan at Yost. I also think the Gophers were lucky Ferris beat UND last year. Ferris had the deer in headlights look in the quarter final that UND definately wouldn't have had. The Gophers probably would have handled UND last year, but they wouldn't have put up a touchdown. What the Gophers need most is to beat UND when they come to Mariucci. If they can get a win against the Sioux, they will know they can beat anyone.

If I were picking now, I'd clearly put UMD second. UMD is getting nice contributions from multiple lines. I'm just really hoping for a Gophers UMD semifinal at the X. It would easily rival the SCSU/Gophers semifinals that were so much fun.

He played very well at the high school tourney last year. The Warroad team seems to be pounding everyone. http://www.geocities.com/dent0110/2004warroad.html T.J. Oshie must be pretty darn good as well.

I'm positive one can take the ACT multiple times. I believe a recent Gopher had to retake the exam to achieve an entrance qualifying score, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure of this either, but it is my belief that one can raise their ACT score several points with directed studying and multiple tries. I would be suprised if it affected UND's recruiting at all, but I guess maybe an edge case, where the student didn't want to be bothered.

Funny, my memories of that old place aren't so fond. Although the comeback in the story hurt, the one that haunts me is the Gophers coming in on a 19 game unbeaten string in maybe '95-'96 and just getting smoked.

There is a perfectly good place for flaming. It is called USCHO.com. Most flames are encouraged and welcomed there. It can certainly be fun. Flaming here or on POI is like Barry Bonds hitting 100 homers in a season, in Japan. You want to talk trash, go take your shots with the flamers. It is my guess that sites like this one and POI were designed as an outlet for a teams fans that don't want to sift through the junk. TC Transplant is in no way respecting the intent of the board, and should suffer what ever the Admin/users sees fit. However, the admin shouldn't have to worry about "problem" users, common courtesy should be applied by TC.

The Sioux have a solid goalie combo. I don't think Parise is anywhere near Brandt, but certainly a solid backup. He never loses. It is very important Parise plays now, so that when March rolls in Brandt can go every game and not be fatigued. This is what worries me most about the Gophers. They need the wins desparately, so Briggs is going to play almost every game. Will he show fatigue in either the WCHA playoffs or NCAAs. Or will Lucia just keep rolling Johnson out there every fourth game and results be damned.

You are way off base. The most likely Gophers to dish out a cheap shot are either Vanek and Tallackson, both have shown a tendency to dish out a serious slash or cross check when things aren't going their way. Riddle was a city kid looking for a place to play. He picked BSM. Of course, he left them for the USHL after his Junior year. I've watched him for four years and I don't remember him giving anyone a cheap shot, though it probably has happened. I've seen a lot of prima donnas over the last 15 years come and go for the Gophers, Riddle would not be in that group. Not even for a night.

I believe he was mentioned on POI as having visited the U of M with Tom Pohl. Don't know much else about him, other than he is obviously playing well in juniors. I'm sure lots of WCHA teams are interested.

Good point. I guess we should worry about the present anyway!

The Devil's have shown to be very smart, not necessarily cheap. I don't think Hale or Martin are complaining about what they received. It will come down to whether or not their is any developement left for Zach in the college game. That remains to be seen.

Yes the millions I was referring to was the signing bonus. I don't think New Jersey will be pushing to sign Zach, they seem happy to let their players fully mature at the college level. The final decision will be made by Zach, if he decides he can improve his game at UND in '04-'05, I think he will return.

UND 43 UMD 34 UMN 34 UW 29 SCSU 29 CC 29 Denver 25 AA 24 Mankato 19 MTech 14 UND in a walk. I'm glad my optimistic picks have the Gophers passing both UW and SCSU by a wide margin. My guess is that the race for third will be tighter than my picks show. Here are my pre-season picks: 1. UND - Glorious return to the top. Claims the McNaughton anchor. 2. UM - Fail to capture the "ultimate", settle for another NC. 3. DU - Down again, up again, down, guessing an "up" season. 4. UMD - Scoring questions. 5. CC - Probably the only team in top five that could lose home ice. 6. SCSU - I can hear the whining about Dahl already. 7. MSU - More of their ties turn to losses than wins. 8. UW - I just love putting them down here. 9. MTU - Still better than AA. 10. AA - Three wins. Not really that close, but I think I hit the champ.

Zach would have at least a million reasons to sign a contract. It certainly doesn't mean he will. If the NHL isn't playing next season, New Jersey will probably not extend an offer unless Zach really pushes them to do so. I think the choice (and it should) will come down to whether or not Zach feels like he can improve with another year in Grand Forks. As much as I'd love to see the college game keep it's best underclassmen, I don't want a failing NHL to be the reason.

My take on the reffing is that Mason is terrible. In my opinion he cost the Gophers dearly both nights against UMD at Mariucci, I'm not in the least surprise he hurt UND with no-calls. It is exactly his MO. Adam does OK until he has a screw up. Then he goes out of his way to even things out, even if it contradictory to the way he has been calling a game. My example for that is when the Gophs had a clear goal waived off at the end of the second against BU, I KNEW they would get a bunch of PPs in the third. Sure enough a couple PP goals in the third and the Gophs have a tie. The good news that the last couple of years the Gophs have endured a lot of questionable regular season calls, only to get a lot of breaks in the post season. Basically, the teams have to just grind through it. The holding and tackling will be called in the regionals.

You never know. Grand Forks has to be about the same distance to Colorado Springs as it is to Grand Rapids. Weird things could happen. The most obvious would be CC dropping to a #4 seed. Another weird deal would occur if the season ended today. Here is the PWR: 1 North Dakota 28 1 15-2-1 .8611 1 .6593 2 Boston College 27 2 14-3-3 .7750 2 .6026 3 Maine 26 3 14-4-1 .7632 3 .5919 4 Ohio State 24 15t 13-9-0 .5909 5 .5688 5 St. Cloud State 23 12 12-7-3 .6136 4 .5916 5 Wisconsin 23 5 14-4-5 .7174 6 .5661 7 Denver 22 7 15-7-3 .6600 7 .5646 8 Minnesota 20 25 10-8-3 .5476 9 .5574 9 Michigan 19 10 13-7-1 .6429 8 .5641 9 Colorado College 19 8 11-5-3 .6579 11 .5498 11 Minnesota-Duluth 18 15t 12-8-2 .5909 10 .5542 12 Dartmouth 15 9 6-2-5 .6538 12 .5468 12 Cornell 15 6 7-2-5 .6786 13 .5456 14 Michigan State 14 26 12-10-1 .5435 14 .5344 The WCHA would have all the #2 seeds and CC a #3. I don't think they would then send UND to Colorado and rehash the WCHA playoffs. But they might. I do think it is still most likely that UND will be the number one in Colorado, I don't think it is a lock due to so many weird NCAA seedings in the past.

Walters may have just been listening to Lou Nanne on KFan. It was Nanne's position that many college players (Vanek and Parise by name) would try to sign immedietely after the season under the old CBA. I don't see the teams motivation to sign them, but if the team thinks it can get a good price at the time, players will bolt. In the Parise case, my opinion is that Zach will decide if he has any improvements to refine in the college game. Or if he feels he has anything left to prove. However, he has established himself as argueably the best amature player in the world at his age. So I don't think if someone gets lucky and beats the Sioux in the playoffs that an NCAA ring will be a strong enough reason to come back, by itself. So much uncertainty ahead, it is better to focus on the present anyway.

That is pretty classy of the BU fans. Good to see their explosive offense was really simply due to my favorite teams stellar play.

I wouldn't worry. The great Sioux teams of '97-'98 to '99-'00 couldn't sweep bad Gopher teams at Mariucci, this years Sioux won't either.

Parise looked very good everytime he got the puck. The tying goal he drove deep around the defensemen and centered it. It bounced off someone to Kessler all alone, he shot it straight into the goalie, but it bounced up and over Fleury, barely out of his reach. On the second US goal, I believe Stafford made a very nice cross ice pass to O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan on the off wing let a viscious wrister go that smoked the water bottle. The winning goal, O'Sullivan made a very nice play to tip a pass past the d-man, then he accelerated past the d-man to chase it. Fleury comes out to shoot it away from O'Sullivan, but shoots it high of the trailing Canadian defensemen's elbow or shoulder and it bounced back past him into his own net. The US then played very well and prevented Canada from having really any good chances the last five minutes, including the last minute with the goalie pulled. Incredible game to watch. I almost left the US for dead at 3-1 and completely being out played, but then I realized that work could easily wait. The pace of the game was outstanding on both sides, as should be expected. Much faster than most college games.