farce poobah

UND has never lost to the Badgers in the NCAA tournament. The streak will not end this weekend. To the Badgers, I say "you shall not pass." The first meeting in 1982 - for a trophy - was glorious ... Phil Sykes was Mr Clutch yet again. The second meeting in 2008 was almost as good. Made more surprising at the time because the first 100 minutes of that weekend (vs Princeton and then Wisconsin) we looked listless. But an epic comeback and the OT made that another unforgettable matchup. Whatever happens, I predict this one will be epic.

Agree, that holds true. For those coming from out of town, I feel like there should be some kind of caution. If you're going to walk the streets after 7pm, stay in a pack (or go skyway). Less of a problem when its 15 degrees outside than in say July, though.

I was having a ton of flashbacks to the 1980s ... Not just the arena itself ... but its electronics (agreeing with siouxkid above) ... the music playlist which didn't play any music newer than 1996 or so. But for me the biggest flashback was going back to the first WCHA tournament in 1988, at the old St Paul Civic Center. That building was about half full, even for the Gopher - Badger game. The ice sucked, with players at extreme risk of injury. The boards sucked, with weird bounces all over. But somehow, that event grew into the heated-rivalry loud-and-louder WCHA Final Five that we grew to know and love. Here's hoping that this event grows to become the same. Certainly we'll need UMD and St Cloud to be frequent visitors. Certainly, there's a LOT of appeal for fans that is better / more convenient than downtown St Paul. More nightlife, more hotels, skyways to access a LOT (or get close) of the places to visit. And light rail 1 block away. I think this is going to work. But it will take a while ... maybe a decade ... and we're going to need some REAL rivalries to bring fans in.

Absolutely. Plus we have a terrific all-time post-season winning percentage in games played before crowds of 3000 or less.

Well actually, the main campus is on the east side of the river. But in the land of 10,000 excuses, I can see Gopher fans trying that one.

There were a lot of things outside our control tonight: * The ice, which was worse than an outdoor game. * The pucks, which seemed to be heated rather than frozen. * The refereeing, which I won't expand on since others here have. * The bounces, and Miami got some. And we had the worst puck luck I've seen in 40 years of watching UND hockey. BUT ... what I am most disappointed at, is that we didn't seem to adapt to the conditions. This game needed to be played like an outdoor game. "Everything on net, everything on net" both Crosby and Toews said to their benches 2 minutes into the outdoor game at Soldier Field this month. We never made that adjustment. The only adaptation I could see was that we were extra cautious getting the puck back to the points, but beyond that, no readily-apparent strategies that you expect in a game with bad ice, bad boards, and bad pucks. All of which were the same for both teams. In my opinion, this was a failure of leadership up and down the bench. ===================================================== Setting aside my rant for the moment, we still should have won the game, except for the worst puck luck I've seen in 40 years. * Multiple posts and crossbars. Some on wide open nets. * Multiple pucks fired behind the goalie and across the goal mouth. * Rebounds where the bounce went 6 inches away from where a goal would have been scored. All of which made this a painful, PAINFUL game to be a fan. I can only imagine how hard it was to be in the UND locker room tonight. Gretzky said "hockey is a funny game". It sure was tonight.

I know it would stick an autobid in front of UND's tournament hopes, but I'm really hoping for a Penn State vs Ohio State final tomorrow night.

Dang! Did I miss the yodeling contest? That would be awesome.....

Looks like more overtime at the Big Ten tournament. The hockey is actually not too bad if you can get past the echoing sound of the empty building.

Plus for the Gopher game, they'll get a couple hundred single game tickets.

All hail Berenson! can't get hys boyz up fro teh big games

Sioux fans would show up at 7am.

Four desperate teams gathering in Minneapolis. Should be entertaining.

Sure it is. Crabs just suck, but stalkers tell you you suck.

Panzarella with a goal of the year try there .... sweet

Out east ... bitter rivals Clarkson and Cornell going to overtime in game 3. Scoreless. That's gotta be tense.

Mike Babcock may be the best coach on the entire planet. Let's see ... take out of the lineup: Zetterberg, Datysuk, Helm, Bertuzzi, Cleary ... and 3 more, and he still has his team in the thick of a playoff hunt. Not to mention going into Chicago and giving them all they can handle tonight on NBCSN.

Tonight we get a softie ... I'll take it.

The possibility still exists of the seeds #5-6-7-8 playing next week ... argh.

Gotta be kidding. Miami scores with 2 seconds left. 4-3

Frozen Faceoff would be more fun with Deano in the building. Miami ties it ...2 2

We should just start these games at 8pm. .... Finally found our legs tonight. * Although I think CC may be playing a short bench ... hard to tell on webcast.

All hale hakc! Shuld send Brwster to wake up the boyz

Quick note on attendance: Atlantic Hockey drew 2,669 last night (for 4 quarterfinals played at the higher seed). WCHA drew 6,608 last night (4 games) ECAC drew 10,925 (4 games) The #2 attended playoff game last night was well below capacity at BC: 5,525 #3 was at UNO 4,563 #4 was at UMD 4,554 Disappointed that SCSU could only nudge 2841 for their conference champions.

I'm rooting for overtime in St Cloud. Several.