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If UND listened to disgruntled fans and fired Hakstol, you can bet there would be blood in the water on some of those recruits because they are so highly rated, giving coaches a plausible reason to contact them, and the recruits a chance to re-open their recruitment depending on their reasons for their verbal. Hopefully all of them continue to develop and can add to the legacy of the program.

Yeah, do you think there would even be room for Ryan Gropp with the verbal of Gardner? Maybe they are covering themselves in case someone caves to Major Junior pressure.

So are you advocating letting Hakstol go? If that happened, I have no doubt that Minnesota would put a full court press on Shane Gersich to get him to change his commitment because he said he really was excited to play for this coaching staff. And if he changes his mind, could Austin Poganski change his as well? High-end recruits usually are gone early, so replacing them might not be that easy, as we have seen with the loss of Miller and Matteau. It could hurt the program in the short term, and as we have seen in a one and done tournament, success isn't guaranteed for even the best of coaches. Is it worth it to get rid of a winning coach who is missing the big one at the risk of hurting the program for possibly 3-4 years? I assume you think the Minnesota Vikings should have fired Bud Grant.

Yes, and being that it is so close and the Sioux have so many ties and less wins, it becomes critical to be taking some of these series on teams we only play twice this year like Wisconsin, Omaha and Mankato to win any possible tie-breaking circumstances.

Maybe you should realize at some point in your life that money isn't everything, in fact in the scheme of life it isn't anything, and maybe if you learned that you wouldn't be calling for everybody else's job every time you are on this board.

You might be taken a little more seriously if you didn't call for every single coaches head and bring up the good old days all the time. If you were held to your own high standard, you wouldn't have a job-- oh, wait ...

I find when people believe there is no way things are going to happen, that is when they end up happening. I don't understand people who say a talented team like St. Cloud has no chance at all of sweeping the Sioux. If the players end up buying into some of the arrogance that gets thrown around on message boards, that is how you get an effort like last night. However, I know you aren't exhibiting cockiness, simply confidence in the team to rebound in the face of the debacle last night.

The most frustrating part is that even with the outcome in Minneapolis last weekend, the Sioux could be in first all alone if they wouldn't have stumbled and played without passion in the losses to CC and St. Cloud. Get the ball rolling again tomorrow night and hope that Wisconsin and St. Cloud can put the hurt on Minnesota a bit. Problem is now that even with a win, St. Cloud most likely holds the tiebreaker with us.

Hopefully the Sioux will turn it around tomorrow night, but I do have some concerns as others have expressed that the Sioux haven't been tough to play against. They haven't gone hard to the net consistently, they haven't cycled the puck consistently and they haven't outworked teams consistently -- all trademarks of Hakstol's teams. To me, if the Pattyn, Senkbeil, Rodwell line isn't going to cycle the puck and wear down the other team in the process, you might as well put Chyzyk and Gaarder in the lineup because they have a lot more offensive upside. Right now I would put Gaarder in regardless, because he continually works hard, along with St. Clair.

Don't know if someone already brought this up, but tonight would be a fitting night to show this to the players and have them ask themselves the question do they really want to work like they said they would to make the last year in the WCHA a memorable one by winning as many trophies as possible. Can't just talk a great work ethic fellas!

But even when Mankato wasn't as good, it took some unbelievable plays by Frattin late to beat them. Depending on what each team is fighting for at that stage of the season, those games could be very scary.

Schlossman just tweeted that they did receive a commitment from Gardner.

We've got two tough weekends at home, but if the Sioux can take care of business, I believe Minnesota has both Wisconsin and St. Cloud on the road. Possibility to make up a little ground. Really hurt losing that game to CC, as they still would have been tied with Minnesota had they taken care of business at home like they need to from here on out.

Bottom line for me is that the Sioux can't afford to get caught watching instead of moving their feet, and if you look at a number of the goals last weekend, they had a guy fairly close by that wasn't covering someone in the slot. While the Knight line put up points on Saturday, they also were guilty of watching. When the Sioux were up 1-0, Pattyn left a guy wide open in the slot, and they tied it up. Doesn't even give us a chance to hold on to the lead for a short period and try extend it. That had to be deflating. The nice thing is that those things are quite fixable, the thing that is frustrating, is that it wasn't the younger players that were as culpable as the older players. Let's face it, the Knight line can't be even in +/- most nights and we still win consistently.

Accepted! The point being Lucia wasn't there, and though they weren't full fledged members, they did participate in the WCHA playoffs the two years prior.

You nailed it! Mankato joined the WCHA in 1997 and Lucia didn't start coaching Minnesota until 1999. I suppose he was working to get Minnesta to schedule Mankato when he was at CC though. How are we supposed to take information like this seriously.

You're just from another planet, doesn't make you a D-Bag.

It would be nice if he came, but it would be better if someone else fell into our laps and he could see that soft commitments can go both ways.

I thought that happened in Duluth.

Yes, you would think who cares what Sioux fans think. Why the irrational need to come on this website and convince its members of something regarding the gophers. There are definitely some things on GPL that deserve response, but I know that trying to convince them of something is futile, so why respond. I don't need my opinions to be accepted by the GPL crowd, nor would I think the majority of them would feel the need to be accepted here. Not saying differing opinions aren't welcome, but there is a point of "come on".

Given the choice between being a rodent who have a bounty on their tails, and nothing, I would take nothing every time.

Who needs the Garth Snow card, if you look at the polls on GPL over a year ago, a great number of gopher fans thought Lucia wasn't that great either. Nice he could hire back the guy that he threw under the bus though and save his career in the process.

The question now is who is behind not allowing Minnesota players to be interviewed by North Dakota media. Seems odd that you wouldn't be allowed to help promote the series.

Actions speak louder than words. People have given you plenty of circumstances where the actions of the past don't meet up with his concerns or interests now. Obviously the rivalry isn't important to some Minnesota fans because if it is a rivalry the likes of the greats then I can't imagine you would be hearing the kind of talk from those schools as you do from Minnesota, specifically Lucia's words. Actions do speak louder than words, but words count as well, and both don't reflect wanting the continuation of the rivalry, on anything but a very limited basis.

I guess we'll never agree, because Hakstol has bent over backwards holding dates, agreeing to once a year, during midweek, etc. while all you get from Lucia are contradictions to what has been the case up until now. They need to play Bemidji, they really need to play out east more. If you really wanted to get it done you wouldn't be making long-term agreements. Wanting the rivalry and not putting blame on Lucia are at cross purposes. Lucia is the one that is suggesting having a series in Mariucci every four years. I think Doug Woog would be pressing a little harder and using some leverage to make it happen every year, if not every other. My dad may never see another Sioux/Gopher series after this year, and much of that can be attributed to Lucia.