tnt

There have been rumblings that David Quinn is a possibility to be one of the next college coaches to move on to the NHL. Will be interesting to see if that is the case, as we know he can recruit, but much more to the equation that he will have to prove in my eyes. Hakstol took many different kind of teams to the Frozen Four, and maybe one of his best jobs was one he didn't take to the Frozen Four where he couldn't fill a roster of forwards for quite a while because of injuries. Would also be interesting to see if Quinn did leave if they would still be the hot college in Boston going forward.

Yeah, sometime there aren't enough pucks to go around and guys that think they should be on the powerplay have to accept other roles. That can cause chemistry problems if it isn't handled correctly by the players and coaches. You definitely can win more times than not with a conglomeration of great talent, but getting through the adversity that is bound to crop up at some point isn't always a given, even with an abundance of talent.

Heard some UND students chanting "Bison suck" at the football game. I hope they realize it makes us look like Jan Brady when they are constantly obsessed at what the Bison are doing. Kind of like after we won our hockey National Championship the chanting that was going on by a few about the gophers and bison. Their obsession only makes us look worse.

Why don't they start some priority points system for football now by giving people points for attending football so when it does take off like it has at NDSU, the fans that have been in full support of the team forever, are rewarded for their past support. I realize it is all about the $, but at some point loyalty should count a bit as well. Wasn't happy when the point system of the Champions club moved away from rewarding long time season ticket holders with points in their system and made it all about what have you done for me lately. Trying to get actual seats at the Regional hockey tournament last time around was difficult because of that change. I sense the same thing will eventually happen with football when it gets popular like it has at NDSU, the people with the bucks will jump on the bandwagon and make it difficult for the past loyal supporters to access decent seating home and away. Again, I realize this is how college sports is now, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating.

Yeah, sometimes it is a matter of burying your chances, as Duluth found out last year. Next weekend would be a good weekend to get on the scoreboard early and often.

What baffles me is the play calling at the end of the first half. Either go for it, or don't. Don't go for it when there isn't enough time to do anything. They ran 2 plays that the only outcome was percentage wise more in favor of Weber than UND. Don't try to pad a running backs stats when there is a possibility of a fumble, just take a knee.

... and maybe someone should tell the celebrity activists that being a celebrity might hold significance to some people in certain areas of the country, but in the Midwest we are not awe stricken by their presence, and to the contrary think they are so far removed from reality that any stand they take actually hurts any cause they are trying to support.

The announcers that were doing the game put the blame on the bad line change as well.

Yeah, because just like Dave Hakstol, Lee was good enough for pro hockey but wasn't equipped to handle college hockey.

I know that's what you were getting at, but just wanted to throw out there another reason why it won't be easy to win in Mariucci. I think we have the same kind of problem sweeping Minnesota there as we do at St. Cloud. Too lazy to look it up, but not a lot of sweeps outside of the Toews, Oshie year.

That is why I like to count on our coaches for grading performances on a night to night basis. Would be interesting to know the grades from last Saturday.

Yeah, it's kind of ironic that we are forced to play 3 freshmen because Keaton Thompson turned pro, another whipping boy that some people wished would leave.

You mean like one of the past whipping boys Nick Mattson?

Kawaguchi with a hat trick and assist today in a 4-3 Chilliwack win.

Yeah, but even being able to practice on Olympic size sheet, I find it hard to believe the freshmen defensemen won't struggle with gapping at Mariucci.

Can you imagine the outrage on here if we go 4-4 over the next eight?

Pretty bad when nobody wants to claim him in their fan base. Apparently the fan version of Eddie Schultz.

Exactly, most people know there is going to be a learning curve adjusting to the college level. Mistakes are going to happen. People should go back to the threads where LaDue and Poolman were first starting out. Some of the same comments about them looking out of place, and keep in mind they were a lot older coming in than some of our freshmen this year.

It just goes to show how fast your night can change from bad to good. It wasn't looking good for a while there, and the gophers were winning, but it turned out all right in the end. Seasons can be the same way, so things can change in a hurry with injuries and such.

I think that was supposed to be tongue in cheek.

Probably more that with younger players it is sometimes harder to believe that you can get beat until you actually get beat. Kind of like the second game against Canisius when everybody warned that the second night would be very difficult, yet it took them quite some time to finally pull away. Bemidji is much more mature age wise and experience in what they have to do to win. Not saying that means Bemidji is going to win, just a reason why some people think that they have a good possibility to win. The fact that they have less experienced defensemen is hopefully a plus for UND. Hopefully our skill sets them back a bit early and breaks their confidence a bit. Regardless, I certainly don't want to hear any of our players say after the game that they weren't ready for the game Bemidji is going to bring. I am hoping the Canisius series helped with how competitive it will be each night, and that a loss isn't a necessary learning curve.

More ties than splits, but yeah, they sure are tough to beat. I am sure they would love to beat us and really put themselves in a good position for down the road when pairwise starts to really take form.

If he isn't going to be forthcoming on fixes, then I don't mind him at least giving our current teams a fighting chance by not burdening them with the possibility that their sport is continually on the chopping block, enabling opposing coaches to use that as a negative recruiting pitch against us.

Hopefully our team knows just how important those games in Minneapolis are going to be for the gophers. Sure, it will be important for us as well, but they won't have a game that creates that much atmosphere against the defending National Champions and heated rival for a long time. The East Grand Forks boys need to impress on some of the new guys the need to keep the "Golden Boy" image that Nanne espouses left with a bit of tarnish on it after the rivalry weekend. One thing I guarantee you about that weekend, is that if the gophers win, the faithful will say how great the rivalry is and what a shame it was that it took this long to play, and if they lose, they should have never played us again because we are just a bunch of cheap hacks.

It seems more and more the Academic Elite are in love with bureaucratic procedure and committees, but lack the common sense of a gnat. So the next press conference we can expect is that they decided to remove a couple sports after all.