Irish

That is the prevailing sentiment of a large percentage of posters. And although we were were 1-4-1 against Denver we had the puck a lot of the time.

There's a little more to the story - Sandy took over a program that hadn't won crap and played in a crappy arena. Berry took over the top program in College Hockey playing in the best arena in College Hockey with fans that lead the nation in attendance and which has a history of developing NHL players. Berry also inherited a team with a top line of NHLers. Now, we are getting worse each season and have missed the playoffs for the second straight year while Sandy's team has been in three straight finals and are back to back champions. See the difference?

If this doesn't light a huge fire under Berry's butt we have the wrong guy. Absolutely no way that Duluth and St. Cloud should have better programs than us. An occasional season - sure, but year after year. Couldn't be more frustrated.

Sorry - lost track of time on this test and didn't hear you call for answer sheets.

My friend wants to know what percentage makes up for not scoring a goal from November until the end of the season.

Hers's how you could make that case (not a Donovan fan but here is a scenario I see) We have a recruit with a decent up-side whom we want to play USHL another year. He doesn't want to and signs with another program. Meanwhile we have 4 players who will be Juniors or Seniors on the roster who scored 3 goals or less last year. Berry was unwilling to make roster room for Donovan - and he probably needed another year of seasoning - but he has to be as good next year as several of our returners and then we have him in our program to possibly develop into a good offensive player. No way 4 of our returners are going to do that. It comes down to hard roster decisions. Still waiting for Berry to do what is necessary.

I respect your hockey knowledge, but then why are we on the road for the first round of the playoffs and Duluth (looking for back-to back titles) and Denver are once again at the Frozen Four and St. Cloud (before their annual choke job) the top rated team in College Hockey. According to you, the only guys we have missed on are the one and done guys we don't want because - see Boston University. We are excelling at developing 200 foot players. We have the best system (one that is used by the Pros), and we are fine in player development. Why does our top scorer have 10 goals? Something is off the rails. To Berry's credit he seems to be recruiting his butt of lately - now if only he would address the roster dead weight and coaching staff. Reading Schloss's article on how former Sioux are the top scoring college program in the pros only emphasized our current roster woes. See anyone on this year's roster that would add to the pro scoring total? We are used to having some absolute studs play here in addition to well chosen role players. No way St. Cloud should have 8 guys with more goals than our highest scorer.

We scored 2 goals or less in 19 games and missed the playoffs for the second year. In my mind there are a limited number of possibilities as to how this happened. 1. Missing on recruits 2. Lack of development of recruits 3. Systems systems systems 4. A combination of 1 and 2 5. All is going according to plan (which seems to be your take on things). No way St. Cloud and Duluth should be skating circles around us. None.

I agree with your assessment - however, he mentioned that stats speak for themselves and I wanted to show another stat that should speak for itself - The fact that St. Cloud had 8 people scoring more than our top scorer should alarm Sioux fans regardless of how highly rated our recruiting classes are. There is a serious disconnect somewhere that needs to be fixed. If someone posted 4 years ago that this would be the case I think collectively we would move for a commitment to an institution. Yet here we are.

Speaking of stats and facts - according to NCHC overall scoring stats, St. Cloud has 8 players (count em, 8) who had more points than our leading scorer. So I do wonder where that silly idea started.

In my opinion that is the million dollar question about our program. Even though we have some nice recruits, to have our leading goal scorer at 10 goals raises some red flags as does general player development. There is no way that year after year Duluth and St. Clown should have much more talent up front.

I trust your evaluation - then this is really good news. We need high end talent every year.

There are some very talented local kids - best guess is that this is somewhat a response to numerous articles about local kids on other teams playing in the tournament and many posts here about our local dead weight. In which case - great. At least he is trying to change something. Hopefully our scouting is more accurate than it has been in the past few years.

I'm trying to figure out how our leading scorer was tied for 16th in the league and how we were on the road for the first round of the playoffs. Something is not right. Our leading scorer had 10 goals.

Good discussion - I think almost everyone feels some changes need to be made - some want bigger ones than others. Much of the frustration is that we haven't seen, nor probably will we, any indication that Berry is making any changes so far (not saying he isn't). My thoughts - our biggest need is more talent up front. Even though we brought in some guys with a good upside the fact remains that no one scored more than 10 goals this season. Check out scoring for other teams in the NCHC and it's enough for you to shudder. We have been carrying some non-scorers for 3 years now. Time for Berry to do the hard work and make some serious roster changes. Even if the replacements aren't instantly successful. they have to have a higher upside than someone who has not scored much at all for 3 years. Next - examine what the assistants bring to the program. Shaw is in charge of the power play and doesn't seem to have any hot recruiting connections. Next - reconsider our offensive philosophy. I know we have good corner guys - they spend enough time there (at times all 3 in one corner) - How many times did we get a break-away or even an odd man rush? Not very often. Chipping it off the glass just doesn't cut it for me. I know that Berry worked hard to keep up the work ethic in the face of frustrating times. Time he re-examines everything about the program and make some changes.

This is one of the things about this staff that is totally baffling to me. It's not like we are trying to develop a unique system that no one has ever seen before - It's a power play for crap's sake. Hockey coaching 101. What we put on the ice for our power play was an embarrassment to the sport of hockey and we seemed to double and triple down on it. Absolutely no excuse, nor is there any excuse for not dealing with the staff member in charge. This refusal do deal with reality is a big part of why we are where we are.

Poor eyesight on my part - I wish there was another Boesser or someone like him coming in.

Absolutely no changes so far - I am very doubtful there will be. Berry is probably our recruiting grinders as we speak. - I know, but culture.

Add in Boesser and Schmaltz - after watching these guys this season seems even more frustrating. Absolutely no way we should be this deficient in talent up front while Duluth, Denver, and St. Clown (until tourney time) prosper. No way.

Great question - in my opinion it is really hard to asses, but for sure some of the dead weight were in the pipeline under Hak. My opinion is that Hak had a great knack of adding to his classes with some real studs added later in the process (see Schmaltzs and Boesser - try to imagine a championship without them). Berry has not shown much in this area. In addition, with the necessity to recruit younger and younger we have to constantly update and juggle our classes as their more mature performances show out. If Hak were here I really don't see us just standing pat either with our recruiting class or with keeping the dead weight on the roster. Berry seems to be content to just stand pat. We also seem to have lost out on several recruiting battles lately - This is just my two cents.

I don't think there is much doubt that there have been some recruiting miscues that have happened often enough to become a pattern - not just mis-judging a prospect or two - and it has been going on for several years as evidenced by our top scorer this year from any class having 10 goals. I sincerely hope there is an honest assessment and plans to correct this situation and not just the "hey, we have a better class coming in next year" philosophy. There is absolutely no way St. Cloud and Duluth should be out-recruiting us for several years running now. None. I believe Stony Sioux is right that he won't just come out and tell us what is happening. It's hard to read through all of the coach-speak, but hopefully Berry and Chaves will take a hard look at things. I am cautiously optimistic. but still hope some dead weight will be dropped.

Actually, my opinion is that both were equally poor. We had a very difficult time gaining the zone on many power plays - often we dumped it in the corner and it was promptly cleared out. When we did we held it out front, teed it up constantly and waited for the defense to adjust before passing it around out front (often to lose the puck). Very little quick puck or player movement. Pressure absolutely killed us. What totally baffles me is that even with our offensive challenges why couldn't we do anything different - appeared to be adjustments in equally ineffective personnel but no changes in movement or philosophy. I can't for the life of me understand how it remained so poor so long (and not just this year). This must be fixed.

Well excuuuuuse me Mr. Taz Boy. I clearly didn't know I was dealing with an intellectual such as yourself. Your use of preamble, sophomoric, Bill Maher, and sycophants all in two sentences left me properly chastised. You are clearly a keyboard warrior to be feared. (nice work using vis-a-vis too).

I totally agree that the game atmosphere is going down and we could use a boost. Part of the problems are baked in now, but part could be solved by some changes. The corporate atmosphere was sealed when they decided to make lower bowl tickets contingent on a serious Sioux Club membership level. Part of the student problem was when they didn't put the students on the end and built without figuring out that standing would block the view of others. (I can see both sides of the standing issue - We really need the students engaged and cheering - however, I have been in a suite several times when the students stood in front of us for no particular reason - not play related - just standing, chatting, and texting. Extremely frustrating.) Things that could change - the eternal vigilance on the student section - just looking for anyone having too much fun. If there is a problem fine - deal with it. But putting them under the microscope really dampens their mood. Find more ways to involve the students with organized cheers, more band - have a student group search for ways - this is not the same type of student that went to the Old Ralph - more texting than cheering. Finally, have someone who knows and enjoys hockey run the Ralph game day and PA system. The crap that comes over the system every time play stops is a real mood and cheer killer. Many times the crowd is really into it only to be interrupted by some ad over the loudspeaker. Same with the music. We need the crowd cheering at the breaks. Take some of the profit and subsidize whatever payout they get from all of the ads. This is corporate greed and a mood killer. (also put out a team that is exciting. Watching them try gain the zone on a power play or chip it off the glass then all rush to the corner is ultra boring. Few break-aways or odd man rushes. Also, giving up a goal within about a minute of us scoring really dampers the mood too). We can have the best atmosphere in college hockey with some planning and tweaks and a scoring upgrade.

You may be right here - my point is that when you field a Sioux team where the leading scorer has 10 goals, then something needs to change in recruiting. We can't afford to just do more of the same. I'm not sure if the problem is in poor player evaluation, losing recruits to other teams, having our pipelines dry up, poor skills in selling our program, poor performances from our assistants or a combination of these but something needs to change. That's why so many are frustrated with Berry. If we are to rely on recruiting then we need to up our game and change what has been going on.