Siouxman

Ah...the comments on TSN were a great read. 1. Sutter sucks as coach 2. Patterson sucks as goalie 3. Sutter sucks as coach 4. The defense sucks 5. Sutter sucks as coach 6. The Canadian selection process sucks 7. Sutter sucks as coach 8. Eastern goalie loses it again, Canada can't win without a western goalie 9. Sutter sucks as coach 10. Why weren't ________, _________, and _______ on this team? 11. Sutter sucks as coach 12. Why do we have a team built for NHL size rinks playing on Olympic size rinks? 13. Sutter sucks as coach 14. Why do we let non-Canadians play in our leagues? and on and on and on and on. The interesting comment was that Canada is at a disadvantage to the U.S. because the NTDP has the U17 and U18 teams and has them playing NCAA programs so the U.S. players develop better because they are playing against older players.

MNSIOUX is MINE, I say. And I was not anywhere near the Twin Cities.

And at the same time supposedly giving me a "thumbs up" for my MNSIOUX license plate and then accusing me ignoring you. I try to avoid all illegal activity (unless it involves gophers).

I have those plates. It had to be in Park Rapids, Wadena, or Fergus Falls or between those towns. Sorry if I didn't see you. We were late and on our way to our grandson's baptism. I can't believe that I wouldn't have recognized the Great MafiaMan. Edit: I just saw that you mentioned last evening. That would have been in the dark. That might explain everything. Or....were you the guy that had been pulled over by the highway patrol by Wadena??

Maybe the hat place in Fargo should nominate MafiaMan for an honorary marketing degree.

Meanwhile, the Gophers win another distinction. Travel + Leisure on CNN has identified the University of Minnesota as one of the 15 ugliest campuses in the country. They weren't the ugliest, so I guess it doesn't count as a national championship. I guess that's a good thing or Dinkytown would be in line to be trashed.

25??? You partied away 10 years in there that you don't remember??

So....does that mean you weren't the one laying next to Leer??

Man....what an uproar when Gino was named head coach. One of the guys in the running was Ned Harkness from RPI who had a couple of national championships under his belt. Rob Leer, the sportscaster at WDAZ was so upset that he tore up his UND press pass on the air. It cost him his job. He wound up at KSTP in the Twin Cities and now owns his own broadcasting consulting firm. It took Gino just about one year to make everyone forget about Ned Harkness. The rest is history. Unfortunately, the nightmares of Rube have never faded.

If Canada does not win gold, just go to the TSN website and read the comments section after the news article. That was a few nights entertainment last year. Talk about ripping everything from the national organization down to the coaches, the selection process (east vs west bias), and then the players.

Or.....you will have forgotten about it.

If you are old enough to have watched Stankoven play, then maybe you remember the series against Michigan at the old Ralph in January 1979. UND trailed 8-5 with just under 6 minutes left in the third and then scored four goals in regulation to win 9-8. That was the absolute loudest I ever heard that building rock. It was the first Fighting Sioux hockey game my wife ever saw and she has been hooked since. I always liked Bill Stankoven better than Pete Waselovich, but Rube didn't seem to see it my way. I thought Stankoven was the better goaltender until that time he took a slapshot that got under his chest pad. I have never seen a goalie writhe in pain that much since and I don't think he was ever the same after that.

Guess that I hit a nerve, which I didn't intend to do. We as fans can desire all we want, but it boils down to what UND wants. Fans and alumni can have their input through choosing whether to attend or whether to donate money. But it all boils down to what UND wants. I certainly would like to see UND win more national championships. I have seen them win 5. I have also sat through the Rube Bjorkman doldrum years, never missing a home game in my years at UND. Rube's record was 149-186-11 with only two years above .500 and he never came close to sniffing a national tournament. There is no way I would trade the Hakstol years without a national title for the Rube Bjorkman years even with one national title at the end. I did enjoy watching hockey during Rube's years, but during the Hakstol years I have attended four Frozen fours, six or seven regionals, every Final Five tournament since it has been at the Xcel Energy Center, just about every home game, and many road series in every WCHA arena except Sullivan in Anchorage. Over all of those years I have met many Sioux fans,fans of other teams, and quite a few members who post on this board. I don't know if I would give all of that up just to see one more national title, because if I had to relive the Bjorkman years to get one more national title I would not be attending all of those events. And I would have missed a lot of fun and good times. I get that you are tired of hearing about BC. I guess that doesn't bother me as much, although it would begin to bother me if it was the Gophers and they were approaching or equaling UND's 7 NCAA hockey titles. Hakstol has shown that he can get the team to the big dance. It is a gamble staying with Hakstol, but it would also certainly be a gamble to replace him with someone else. With someone else (or several someone else's) it could take many years just to get to the tournament. It is simply an unknown. I certainly don't know if it would be better to switch coaches, because I don't know who I would like to see at coach if he was replaced. Please continue to speak your piece. Sorry if I offended you.

psssst: No matter what anyone thinks about Hakstol, this isn't about you. That is a tough truth for us fans, it isn't always what we want. I hope I didn't burst your bubble.

It wasn't four years, MafiaMan. It was three years out of four. She took one year out on the east coast in the middle of that stretch. Still, if you need any good Nebraska jokes, Keikla has them. Just use them in Nebraska at your own risk.

I might have to order another one with MafiaMan's monikor on the back for when I go to Mariucci or some other hostile arena and create a ruckus.

Not a Hammerism, but my all time favorite was Jim Adelson doing a ND state tournament back in the 1970's. At halftime the Bismarck High School Dance Team was doing a routine on the floor and Jim commented that they looked good enough to eat.

Thought for the Day: It could have been Ed "I'm the greatest ND has ever had" Schultz instead of Dan Hammer.

That was a good play. Unfortunately, he played the first period like a true freshman with a couple of really bad plays. However, he had a lot of help from the rest of the team making bonehead plays or simply not making plays for the first two periods of this game. I was so frustrated with this game that I am going to wait until later Sunday to post any further observations, if at all.

Siouxman's hat made its debut at The Ralph last night. Temperature was -2 F outside and the ears were warm. Great hat.

Actually, my thought was the penalties caused the problem. 5 on 5 the Sioux were fine for the most part. But coming in we knew that NM lived on the power play. They only had one 5 x 5 goal in their last four games. But their power play has clicked well. Although the number of Sioux penalties was down from previous games, they came at critical times. Tabellini took a dumb penalty just after NM scored on a dumb Gothberg play. NM immediately scored the goal that was waived off. Once it was waived off NM did not get another shot on goal on that power play. 5 x 5 the Sioux were doing pretty good other than the dumb plays (Gothberg not freezing the puck, Mattson taking an ill advised line change, etc.). There were a couple of UND checks that I thought would have been called boarding in a tightly called game, but were just marginally ok in this game.

A couple of surprise scores Friday night. Union beat SCSU 4-1 in St. Cloud and Western Michigan beat UMD in Duluth 5-3.

Observations from the game: 1. Mark Macmillan is still hurting. It is very clear he is not well. The Christmas break will be big for him. 2. The Caggiula-Grimaldi-Johnson line is going to have a good second half. Johnson is showing sniper skills. His goal was like Ryan Duncan, but from an even greater angle. That was a sniper goal. The chemistry is also growing. They had a couple of beautiful setup passes that were missed by the shooter. When those start to click, look out. 3. The defense played pretty well tonight and the breakouts seemed to go smooth and easy. 4. While Gothberg played the shots pretty well, his rebound control tonight was terrible. If this game had been against a team with some ability to finish, the Sioux would have lost. And his play that led to the NM goal was poor on his part. He handed the puck off to Mattson who had a NM player on his tail. Mattson got checked into the boards and lost the puck. The puck was shot from behind the goal, hit Stecher and went in the net. 5. The team work ethic seemed to be there pretty much for the whole game. 6. Mattson absolutely had a brain malfunction when NM dumped the puck into the zone around him, and he simply went to the bench for a change instead of chasing down the puck. He literally gave the puck possession to NM, hanging his defensive partner out to dry. 7. Someone needs to talk to Tambellini about keeping your hands low on checks and avoid the stupid penalties. 8. Northern Michigan is not a good team. The game had a real ugly feel to it when NM scored their second goal. Having that waived off and then LaDue scoring shortly after to make it 4-1 pretty much finished off the game.

I also tended bar at Frenchy's. I have my mug packed away.

It is indeed indicative of a strange situation when on hockey game day it is almost noon and there hasn't been a single post about tonight's hockey game. Just sad.