DAR

Hopefully Erik Johnson will go #1 and Kessel will go number #2. That way maybe Johnson will jump right to the NHL and Kessel will leave after 1 year. Johnson will be a big time force if he plays college hockey, it would be great if both were gone after the draft. Toews definitely needs a lot more seasoning before he is ready for the big time. He has a lot of talent but is still pretty raw, which is to be expected from a 17 year old. It is amazing that he will play the whole season as a 17 year old.

You make a very valid point!! I just always want to see the Goofers lose, especially in the NCAA. That being said it was GREAT to end their season. Who knows maybe we will get the chance to end their season for the second year in a row.

Yeah that sure would have been great.........Oh well, go Big Red!!!!!!!!! Except the next time you play the Sioux

This is a very true statement!!! While it would be great to sweep MSU this weekend based on this teams play at home to this point of the season I would say getting 4 points out of the weekend may be a stretch. Do the Sioux have better players than the Mavs? Yes.....However Mankato has always played well at the Ralph and they will come to play this weekend. If the Sioux do not play with a sense of urgency they will get beat and i mean a sense of urgency for the whole game not just the last part of the third period.

If the options were that great, I could see sitting him but it's not like Marvin and Radke aren't going to make mistakes that potentially lead to goals. Those guys are at the bottom of the d chart for a reason.

I disagree with that. Finley needs to play and develop regardless of what sheet of ice the game is being played on. Unless the arm injury is still bothering him I think he needs to play. His development will be important to the succcess of this team.

Please, I don't think he stirred up anything. Any player who grows up in Canada and decides to play college hockey rather than major junior may always wonder if he made the right choice.

Problem is to this point he does not use his size to his advantage and does not play very physical. Hopefully that will change as he matures and develops.

Yeah, I would like to see the odds of that in Vegas. I would be happy with a split. We need to get some points out of this weekend. Now is the time to start building some momentum. I cannot even fathom having the West regional in GF and the Sioux not make the tornament. What a buzzkill that would be. That cannot be an option, and I would like to see this team play with more of a sense of urgency. Someone needs to light a fire under this team and get the ball rolling.

That would be unfortunate if true. I did not see anything about it while surfing the online edition of the Herald today. Could you state how you discovered this, just curious if there is something to this. As many times as Parise has been run into this year I am surprised he has not suffered a few concussions by now.

I really think this team lacked chemistry and that is the biggest reason for going home without the gold. It seemed to me like there were to many individual agendas and one on one play. This was more a team of all stars than a team assembled to win a gold medal. The 2004 team that won gold seemed to genuinely like and get along with each other and the result was gold. Everyone on that team seemed to know and play their role (example Stafford as a checker) and it worked to a tee. This team had the tools to win gold but to me it seemed like guys were more concerned with impressing the scouts in the stands rather than do what it takes to win. Oshie is the one guy who stood out to me as the total opposite of this, he did all the little things and if more guys played with the grit and determination that Oshie displayed this team would have won gold. Erik Johnson was the other guy who really stood out to me. I thought Lee and Chorney were a little out of their league against the Russians.

Unfortunately youth is going to be a common theme for years to come because as soon as the young guys develop they leave for the pros and are not here for their senior and in a growing number of cases even their junior years. I would agree that Hak has not once used youth as an excuse for this team and I praise him for that. The way we have played at home is totally inexcusable. At this rate it will be at a disadvantage to have the west regional at the Ralph if they make the tourney.

They just need to win enough games to make the regional so they have the opportunity to be dangerous. A sweep of Bemidji was a good start, now a sweep of Harvard is the next order of business. Both Harvard and Bemidji will probably be bubble teams so four wins would be a big boost. With a full roster I think we would sweep Harvard for sure, but missing 4, maybe 5 (Finley) key players is a big obstacle. Hopefully the guys are up to the challenge.

I don't think there is much chance that Parise will be on the Olympic squad based on his struggles in the NHL this year. I think Blake will be named to the team.

Great! I had just looked at the Friday schedule. I did not look for Sat. I was not aware that they were carrying regular season games. I know that channel has been added to my dish network package so this is good news!!

The only thing that is keeping him from being great is his age and lack of experience. I think you will see a big difference in him physically next year and if by chance we are fortunate to keep him for a junior season he would at that point be a dominant hobey type player.

I looked on the espn u website and their scheduling for today does not show any hockey games being broadcast. I have never known them to have regular season games on just the tourney last year.

Vande certainly is not exactly lighting it up in Lincoln if you look at his stats. I do think in time he should be a pretty decent player however. I too am concerned with what will be a serious lack of size and physical play from our d next year. Smaby will be gone. Lee and Chorney do not play physical at all especially Lee. Jones plays physical but does not have the size to intimidate the opposition. Radke is not physical and Marto is very light on the strength side of things. Finley is huge but I have yet to see hardly any physical play you would expect from a guy that size. He is very young and I think his physical play will pick up once he completely adjusts to the college game. In an ideal world you would have a balance between physical d-men and puck carrying/finesse d-men. Last year we did not have the finesse d-man to move the puck and run the PP. Now it seems as if we are moving toward an all finesse d-corps with the excetion of Finley for the next few years. I will put my faith in the coaches hopefully they have this all planned out.

I see your point but I just don't think this warrants a thread on this web site. I just think it adds fuel to the fire that Sioux fans have some obsession with the Gopher program which is as we all know a bunch of crap. In my opinion if someone is interested in this they can go over to GPL and find out more than they probably would ever want to know. This obvioulsly would not be a topic of discussion and a thread if this happened on any other team other than the Gophers. Personally, I don't care what is going on with a fifth liner on the Gophers.

Not to be rude but this is a Sioux hockey message board, why do we care about some Goofer who gets no ice time going back to the USHL. It certainly does not warrant its own thread!

Come on....happy with a split. This is Bemidji we are playing for crying out loud. There is no reason we should not sweep Bemidji. These are two important games and even though Toews and Finley will not be in the line up there should be no reason not to sweep an inferior Bemidji team. If this team wants to make the tourney they need to get these two games.

I have been to a few Sioux-Goofy games there. I did not have much problem with the fans altough it has been a few years since I was there and those were the couple years where the Sioux really had some power house teams and the Goofers were a step behind the Sioux. There is no alcohol served there which is probably a big part of the reason there is less hostility toward opposing fans. It is funny how some people can change quite a bit if you get a few drinks in them. I witnessed quite a bit of abuse to some of the Goofer fans at the Ralph this past weekend. Which was fine with me since maybe they will stay home next time and most of them were briniging it on themselves. One guy in front of us was particularly annoying with his comments and smirks whenever the Goofers scored. Then he would stand up and pretend to do the rouser. A total idiot in my opinion and he desreved all the expletive laced comments that were directed his way.

Right now the Sioux are not a very physical corps. Smaby is really the only d-man who is playing a physical game. Jones gets his nose dirty but he does not have the size to really intimidate opposing forward. I have seen very little physical play from Finley and he was pretty much invisible out there this past weekend. I don't know if he is worried about drawing penalties or what but he needs to play with more of an edge. For a guy that big he needs to play a physical game. Hopefully this will start to show in the second half. Lee, Chorney and Radke are not physical defenseman by nature. They are puck moving defenseman and that is not going to change. I guess I just got a little spoiled from that frozen four game last year when it seemed like the Goofer forwards were scared to reach the Sioux blue line and wanted no part of "broken nose alley" in front of the net. There was not that physical presence this weekend. I really hope we can find a good physical defenseman to replace Smaby or we are really going to be soft back there if we expect to replace Smaby with Marto next year. I think Marto is about 170 pounds.

EXACTLY!! You'd think some of these officials want the fans to act like they are at an opera or something. It's a friggin hockey game where the fans are supposed to give their team that extra boost to get them over the top. I am as much of a home Sioux fan as anyone and have been to most of the arenas in the WCHA. The new Ralph is hands down the best facility, but the atmosphere leaves something to be desired. I do think it was a good move to put the band in the lower level. Maybe in the offseason something can be done to promote more atmosphere to the arena. I also don't think the new PA announcer is very good. He seems to try and imitate Hennen and does not do a very good job of it in my opinion.