dagies

Wild looked like a much better team on this night.

Yeh....that's about 7 pages of thread rolled up into 1 post right there, uh-huh....

Agree, he may not ever give up another goal. Lock him up NOW! here's an idea. Put on that gopher sweatshirt you've been saving for a "special" occasion. Take an envelope full of bills and knock on his door an hand it to him. Make sure you have a photographer with you.

LOL!

Oh, that is brilliant!

I found that a very touching story. A guy who is so dependable he'll show up for work instead of watch his kid play in the NCAA tournament because there's no one to cover for him.....I don't care about NCAA rules (and I understand the reason for them, give someone an inch, someone else will take a mile. I get it). I'm happy their friends and co-workers made it happen and after reading the story almost felt bad that they had to watch a loss. Maybe I felt bad for them, but not for the gophers.

Yes, that's exactly what it was. We went back on DVR to look at it a couple of times because it happened so quick it was easy to miss

I finished 131. I'm going to fire my coach.

.6 IS different from Holy Cross. UND fans watched a 4 seed knock of a 1 seed for the first time ever. (I think that is accurate?) .6 is what it took for a 1 seed to beat a 4 seed. And then lose big time in the next game. So, that's worth a riot.

It seemed to me that Mattson occasionally fell down and had occasional risky "misses" but overall in the games I watched in the last month of the year I don't recall Mattson ever playing better. Agree he will be a regular and counted on heavily next year. I don't watch as many games as many here do, but I don't remember Simpson ever playing better than in that last game. I thought he was dominant, and he's been very good all year. He was really leading the team by example and willing them to a victory that narrowly slipped from their grasp.

Sagard, I'd be lying if I said that I'm disappointed the gophers lost, but I am sorry for good guys like you. Heck of a run, and a heck of a game Thursday night.

HAHAHAHA! I want to be Siouxman

Now I know how Ferris St. felt Helluva game. Hard to accept, but for me it doesn't hurt as much as some have in the past, even though this was MN. This was just a damn good game, and the Sioux really gave MN a better game than I expected. I was very happy with the performance, just shocked to lose it the way it went down. To be honest, this was better, to me, than getting embarrassed like we have at times in the past (BC, for example) or being a better team (higher expectations) but still losing. In the end, what hurts the worst for me, is the uncertainty of making it this far again. As Schlossman said on the blog (and I was thinking the same thing before reading it) was they could be a better team and not even make it in the future. So here we were in the tournament, beating MN in the 3rd period (maybe not on the scoreboard, but giving them all the game they wanted) and it slipped away. Crap! Couldn't be prouder of the team, or being a UND fan today.

Fetch, you really need to drop that argument. If you look at the history of the treaties that the US Gov't broke with the Native Americans, I think you'd agree that term is not appropriate. And regardless of any argument, as you said yourself, it's just not a good term to be using, especially in this conversation. We're on the same side of the argument as a whole, I'd just suggest a little more discretion here.

It's probably very unfortunate, considering the timing, that they used the word "you" instead of "they". Had they just used "they" it might have avoided any mistaken reference.

We can certainly agree on who is the bad-ass in both photos.............

stoneySIOUX, I've been enjoying your top 10 immensely. But I do take issue with a statement in your most recent post. That photo you note is an awfully good one, but the best one is the one I use as my avatar on this site.

Thanks tnt and Snake! Nice to know the ol' memory isn't completely faded.

It's getting to be a long time since the 1980's for my memory, so someone can either confirm this or deny it ever happened. But I could swear one time when the gophers came up to Grand Forks their cheerleaders hauled a long banner around the ice, showing to the crowd, that said something like "Minnesota Gophers: America's Team". And I think they got showered with drink cups. Anyone?

Nailed it Did a good job at a place where it's got to be a little tough to be consistently good.

Wow The varied backgrounds and histories of forum contributors only enhances the fabric of the fan experience. I've been a big Fighting Sioux hockey fan for quite a while but I realize how much I missed (coming on to the scene in fall of 1984) when we hear stories from people like Pathfinder, Farce Poobah, Siouxman, Sprig, and many others I'm neglecting to mention but who deserve to be mentioned. Those stories add so much to the board. Thanks very much to everyone for sharing your stories, and please continue to do so. While the team passes along the history and legacy of the program within the locker room, it's fans who pass along the history and culture (to an extent) through shared experiences and stories told on this forum and elsewhere. I continue to be THANKFUL for the access to the sport and the program that we have now, vs what used to be available to us. I grew up in South Dakota, and my best friend and I used to watch North Stars playoff hockey games on a dinky tv in his Dad's electronics repair shop in his basement, downing Miller ponies whenever the North Stars scored. I think we were the only 2 people in SD who cared about hockey. No one skated in town. Those farm boys were damn good at wrestling though. Anyway, after a couple of years of community college I showed up in Grand Forks in the fall of 1984 not knowing anything about the UND hockey program until a friend mentioned to me that they were "good". I don't remember my first game but I know I was hooked from the get-go. Fridays it was Buck Pitchers at the Spud, then rush home to the dorm to get food before the cafeteria closed, and then off to the game. A little more partying and hopefully I'd feel good on time to enjoy eating again before the Saturday game. My senior year we had a house on Columbia, and a few of us would pool our pennies (yes, we were so broke we split the money for the hamburger/cheese) to make tacos, and then run off to the game. Between periods, on occasion, we'd run off to a friend who had an apt close by and have a drink or two (because we could!) and then slip back in to the game. I don't have a lot of specific memories of games, but i do recall the one time I actually feared for my life. It was Sioux-gopher weekend, and we were all lined up outside the old Ralph waiting for the doors to open. Of course the place was PACKED, and when they opened the doors the crowd surged forward. I literally was not in control of my movements, and my feet were nearly picked up off the ground. I just tried to make sure I didn't get sucked down under the crowd and got carried along with the mass of humanity. I knew if I somehow stumbled I'd have been trampled but we were so tightly packed I probably couldn't have fallen over anyway! My first couple of years I was just trying to figure out the game. Tony Hrkac played for the Sioux in 1984-1985 but wasn't the dominant player he was a couple years later. I didn't notice him so much as I was so busy trying to learn what was going on on the ice that I didn't recognize individual efforts as much. But I remember my buddy being pretty excited to hear he was back in 1986-1987 after playing for the Canadian National Team. And I certainly noticed how far superior he was to most of his peers that year. But after leaving Grand Forks for Mpls after graduating in 1987 it became much more difficult to stay in touch with the program. When the Sioux came to town I often was able to get tickets to old Mariucci and attend games, but it wasn't too long before the Sioux program had a bit of a down period. There was no coverage of the Sioux in Mpls (other than a paragraph in the weekend papers about the results from the night before). There was no internet to get news about recruiting, to hear stories about the team. I could have probably ordered a subscription to the Herald but in those days that probably didn't even occur to me. So it became difficult to stay as attached in that period from the late 1980's to the mid-1990's. And frankly, there were times where the performance of the team was not so inspiring. I remember watching some games at Mariucci and feeling like the Sioux team had a few good players and not so many others, and that there were a lot of individual efforts but not a lot of great team play/inspired team play. I really am sorry that I missed the Greg Johnson era as he was a special player too. I remember having some optimism when Dean Blais was hired as coach. Not because I thought Blais would change things but I felt it was time for a change, any change. I did question Blais' resume when he was hired but was willing to see how things play out. And it didn't take long to start seeing changes. MN was playing up in GF in 1996 I think. They were on a long winning streak. I wore a Sioux shirt and headed to Champps because that was the only way to see the game on tv for me. The place was packed with MN fans assuming they'd walk over this young Sioux team. I ended up not making a lot of noise, just sitting in a corner and smiling (self preservation) as the Sioux swept MN that weekend and I sensed the worm may be turning. The Final Five victory over MN in 1997 is one game I'll never forget. I've never been so nervous or keyed up. We were way up in the 2nd deck but I still remember Armbrust scoring that winning goal and just going crazy. Following that, watching the 1997 National Championship at an almost deserted Champps in Maple Grove with a close friend. I remember the heartache of the NCAA losses the next two years, and the scales balancing out with the 2000 win over BC. How sweet that would be wouldn't be realized for a few years until we'd suffered further ups and downs involving BC. It doesn't get much better than marching through downtown Mpls with the UND band singing In Heaven There Is No Beer from the Target Center to a fan rally after winning the 2000? Final Five championship. After that 2 close friends and I got tickets to the Final Five every year. That tournament has become much more than a collection of hockey games for us. It's once chance all year we've been able to get together (one friend has work obligations that even prevent that every other year) The memories made will stay with us for the rest of our lives and we look forward to making more memories now that things have moved to the Target Center. In the late 1990's the internet became a larger part of our lives. I found Tony? Kvalevog's message board and that really enhanced the ability to stay tuned to Sioux hockey. Not long after that I found this site/forum which is a fantastic service provided by the generosity of Jim Dahl. Add to that getting GF Herald coverage on-line, Brad Schlossman's most excellent blog, Goon's world, Dave Berger's blog articles and it's almost like I'm right there in Grand Forks full time. The ability to "stay connected" has really enhanced the fan experience in ways that were not possible 20 years ago. Through these forums I've met some good friends that I would never have met. No hockey game should be an "important" part of one's life. But it's not the game that's important here. It's about the experiences and relationships. It's about making memories.

Exactly. Put 4 teams together and one of them looks best on paper and one of them looks worst. Hard to argue that UND isn't the least best of the last 4 teams standing. Someone has to be. Doesn't mean it's an automatic win for the gophers, but what's wrong with calling a spade a spade? History is full of lower seeds beating higher seeds (and vice versa). We just have to hope it will happen again!

Noticed this Saturday night. Too many blocked shots but at one point Simpson just wristed one in. Many guys would wind up for the big slapper or go for the hot wrist shot, but you could tell Simpson was only interested in getting it into the crease. It was nice to see. He does that more than anyone on the team, I think.

My buddy said while we were watching the game yesterday "if they lose this game I'm putting it on the players, not the coaches". He was right, because while this team really didn't play well for long stretches, it's not the coaches who can't teach them how to make or catch a pass, etc. Last night wasn't systems or motivation (clearly the team worked hard and sold out as much as they could) but they just COULD NOT execute for the majority of the game. That's on the players.