buckysieve

Kessel is much better defensively than most people think. He is often on the ice for the last minute of a game with the gophers up by one goal. He's always on the pk which is something Vanek never did. Lucia stated recently how pleased he is with Kessel's overall play at both ends. I think he deserves the award with Oshie a VERY close second.

That could happen. Two years ago the Gophers finished tied for fourth but were a fifth seed. Two teams seeded higher lost in the first round. Wisconsin was one and I don't remember the other. But the Gophers moved all the way up to a three seed for the final five and ended up winning it. WCHA teams play great on the road so it's not impossible at all to think this could happen to the Sioux.

Every team that didn't get into the tourney were not in the top 14 in the pairwise, so they really have nothing to whine about. Sagard is right. If UND is not in the top 14, there is NO WAY the ncaa bends the rules a little to put UND in.

I know Gaspirini was a great coach but Blais took over a struggling program and won an NCAA title in his third year. That was very impressive IMO. Then he added another title three years later. He would have won more had he stuck around I think.

I was joking. I thought the smiley face showed that. I think Panzer and Bochenski were the best goal scorers I've seen play for the Sioux. Zach Parise was the the best all around player. He worked harder on the ice than any other player I've ever seen in college. I think Nick Naumenko is very underrated, he was very good. Goehring is the best goalie I've seen at UND by far. Schweitzer was good but for only one year. If Parise wins a title I think then he would belong on the same level as Goehring. And without doubt, the best coach the Sioux ever had was Blais.

But how could this be? According to Sioux fans, only classless gopher fans throw things on the ice.

My favorite UND moment. The 1979 NCAA title game.

Exactly. Parise is on his stomach more than any other goalie I've ever seen. I wouldn't call him fundamentaly sound at all but he has proven himself as a very good goalie.

Thanks. That does make more sense.

Someone told me that a few years ago the NCAA made a rule saying that the first round playoff series don't count in the pairwise. They supposedly did this so teams with good pairwise standing wouldn't get penalized for finishing high in a conference by playing a bad team in the first round. For example, Minnesota's pairwise would stay the exact same by playing Anchorage or Tech and not go down at all. So I'm not sure the first round playoff series can help the Sioux in the pairwise. But like I said, I've never heard of this rule so I don't know if this would be true. Has anybody else heard of this and can you shed some light please?

Lucia punished the players involved, it just wasn't made public. I think he's against suspending a handful of players for a game because that punishes the entire team for the actions of a few. I think taking away scholarship money or something like that is much more effective when it comes to punishment. This way, only the players involved get punished. It makes sense to me. But trust me, the gopher players caught drinking were definitely punished. Coaches do things differently, but I don't think it shows a lack of class on Lucia's part, but I can see what it looks like from the outside when you see Gopher players not getting suspended for drinking.

Don Lucia is the definition of class. You on the other hand need help. Do you hear yourself? You just whine and whine about the gopher program making ridiculous accusations, calling it a dirty program. You just sound so stupid. It's sad that you don't hear yourself and realize how pathetic you really sound. You hate the Gophers, we get it. But calling it a dirty program doesn't make it true. Don Lucia is very well respected in the world of college hockey not associated with siouxsports.com. He runs an incredibly clean program and always has in all three head coaching tenures at Fairbanks, CC, and the "U." Maybe you should worry more about your own team whose season is going to end about a month before the Gophers season will. I know the lack of success your team is having this year is tough and you have to rip other programs to make yourself feel better but this is just pathetic. You sir, need to get a life and stop having these delusional and irrational thoughts of a "dirty" Gopher program.

I've always assumed the Gophers would be there but now I'm not so sure. If the Sioux sneak into the tourney it could be as a #4 seed. The Gophers will definitely be a #1 seed, so then they wouldn't go to that regional because you can't play someone in your own conference in the first round. The NCAA can't avoid teams from the same conference playing each other in the second round and on, but they're very clear that they will never allow that to happen in the first round. If this is the case, then Miami would probably be the #1 seed in Grand Forks with the Gophers going out east. If the Sioux are not in the tourney at all or if they climb back up to a #3 seed, then the Gophers will definitely be there.

Why is it so hard to believe that a drunk college student would spit on an opposing player? Why would Irmen tell his parents it happened if it didn't? And why is it so hard to believe that security missed it? A person spitting takes about half a second to occur. That would be pretty easy for a security guard to miss. This post isn't meant to bash Sioux fans because EVERY team has bad fans but when a player says he got spit on by a fan, I'd say there's a pretty good chance it happened. I just don't see why Irmen would make it up. I've said this before on here. I go to Grand Forks every year for the gopher series and get treated very well overall by Sioux fans. I've also heard numerous Sioux fans on this board talk about how they got treated very well by Gopher fans a few weeks ago in Minneapolis. There will always be idiots of every fanbase that embarrass the rest, but I think we can all agree that that is the exception and not the rule.

Kessel has more goals and twice as many assists. That states he's better.

Kessel and Oshie have both played in 20 conference games and the numbers really aren't that close. Kessel has 9g-14a-23pts, 1.15 points per game. Oshie has 8g-7a-15pts, 0.75 points per game. Oshie will have to have a huge last month with Kessel doing very little to win rookie of the year.

Get off your high horse you idiot. Kessel and Irmen are the opposite of classless. Irmen was getting spit on in the penalty box in Grand Forks and he's the one with no class? Kessel got booed badly EVERY time he touched the puck so he gave it back to the fans when he scored. The fans at the Kohl Center deserved exactly what they got. And Lucia wasn't pleased with Kessel's gesture, but he defended it because he understood exactly why Kessel did it, and you'd understand too if you would've heard how loudly he was booed every time he touched the puck. At the time it was clever and humorous and certainly not classless.

Deep yellow? It's called gold and those uni's are sweet!

Exactly. We all have some fans that make the rest of us look bad, but they are the exception not the norm. The last three years I've gone to Grand Forks wearing my gopher jersey and overall I've been treated very nicely by UND fans. There was the exception here and there but that's bound to happen in any college arena.

Thank you for your brilliant insight. I think UND and Minnesota fans are the two most knowledgable fan bases in college hockey. Both have fans that lack sportsmanship however, but to single out Minnesota's fans shows you have a bias.

What about the fact that Minnesota has the most wins in the history of college hockey, the most NCAA tourney appearances in history, the most NCAA tourney wins in history, more frozen fours than UND, an all time winning record against UND, a better all time winning percentage than UND, more WCHA playoff titles than UND, and more Hobey Baker awards than UND.....but don't let facts get in the way of your point that UND is better. When you take a close look at the history of each program, Minnesota has a much better track record of being consistently good. UND has had many more losing seasons in the last 30 or forty years than Minnesota. Not to mention the one and only NCAA title game they've played, Minnesota beat UND in '79. And how about the Gophers 6-3 record all time in UND's "Imperial Palace." UND wins in wcha titles 10-9, and ncaa 7-5. Minnesota does have 7 titles by the way, but the first two were before the NCAA existed for hockey. My point is that there's no way you should judge a program solely on NCAA titles, especially in hockey and basketball because these sports were not meant to be single elimination. I think we're talking about the two best programs in the history of college hockey.

Johnson will be on the Gophers next season. His situation is nothing like Mueller's. Mueller was in the U.S. program for two years and and needed better competition. He couldn't go to college yet, he wasn't drafted yet, and the USHL wasn't a big enough jump in competition for him so he really had no choice but to go to major juniors. Johnson will be a Gopher.

Yeah, you missed it but it wasn't your fault. The only reason I knew he was joking is because I had already read the article. In the four games between the two teams this year, Kessel has been much better than Toews. Toews has really shown me nothing in the games I've seen him play this year. And all this talk about Kessel being me me me is a joke. He's been the best passing forward on the team this year and is currently on pace for a 50+ point season.

Either you didn't see the incident or you're lying because it happened right in front me and the security DID get involved. Had they not gotten involved it could have gotten ugly. A previous poster(hockey1) backed up what I said. And I couldn't disagree more with you that these incidents are that different. The fact that people didn't really know what was wrong with Hirsch at the time doesn't excuse the sign in any way. It almost makes it worse. You don't make a sign calling someone crazy when you know very well that he could have mental health issues. It was as bush league as it gets and you look like a total a** by saying otherwise. Both instances are bad and neither can be excused.

Without any way of verifying it? It happened in my section a few rows ahead of me. After the game numerous parents of gopher players went over and took the sign away from him and ripped it up right there on the spot. Chucko's dad was nose to nose with the sioux fan and they had to be separated. Security even had to get involved. You think I'm making this up or do you just refuse to believe Sioux fans are capable of something like this? Is that why you said I have no way of verifying this story because you just can't believe it? My point is that it's dumb to call any teams fanbase classless based on the actions of a few and that's exactly what you did. I don't group all Sioux fans in with those two idiots who had the sign at the final five and you shouldn't group all gopher fans in with those who had the Bina sign. Most Sioux fans I run into in Grand Forks are very nice and treat me with respect when I'm there supporting the Gophers and most Gopher fans treat visiting fans the same way at Mariucci.