Big A HG

Whether it was Hak, Dane, Brad, etc doing the actual recruiting, the first key point is the player has to want to play for the head coach. Hak had a stellar reputation for his coaching style and development of players. Hakstol then, and Berry now, aren't going to be the first line of communication for many of the players. The bigger the player, the more the head coach will get involved. Kids went to Alabama to play football under Saban and develop as a player under his leadership. Do you think Saban recruited each and every one? No...but the kids all want to play for him. Berry clearly doesn't recruit to the same standard that Hak did, nor some of our peers do now. It doesn't mean he can't field a competitive team, but the facts show that we've supremely underperformed as a whole since the title year.

So much tentativeness, no one knows where to go with the puck. Nobody doing anything with purpose....just winging it out there.

When you've been as successful as Sandelin has in building that program and bringing it to the vaunted standards they've achieved, it's easier to tolerate a couple of down years. Even around here, people weren't calling for Berry's head a few years after the title because he just won the title. The problem is, the title was 8(!) years ago now and we've won 1 NCAA game since. 2016 4 wins 2017 0 wins 2018 Missed tourney 2019 Missed tourney 2020 Covid 2021 1 win (against AIC) 2022 0 wins 2023 Missed tourney Berry's first year, with Hak's roster, was the only outlier season among a lot of seasons of basically no success in the NCAA tourney. Of the last six seasons, Berry is just as likely to not make the tourney as he is getting in, and when we do get in, we can hardly win a game.

Yep, just one....and it was AIC. Even UND couldn't underperform against them.

No one is arguing about the last 25-30 years. It's about the way things have gone the last seven or so. The regular season titles are nice, but this team vastly underperforms later in the season under Berry since the title team of Hak's recruits.

Awesome, can't wait, I hope they're as good as we need them to be. But, that's counting more chickens before they hatch. Until they're on campus, I won't hold my breath. Not because of Berry, but the world of NIL deals makes things difficult to rely on.

We have to make the opening first. I'll include you as a reference.

It's one loss right now, but the story has been played out most other seasons. It's a compiling list of odd losses by Berry teams late in the season over a long stretch of seasons. If you look at the big picture, the program is underperforming for our status in the hockey world. Blue chip recruits don't want to play here anymore. Big media heads seldom talk about us anymore and we have the best facilities in the country, arguably the greatest college hockey history in the country, the best fans, etc... Yet everyone is okay with the lower standard Berry has set compared to his predecessors.

Hakstol seldom choked in the playoffs. He made more Frozen Fours than he didn't. It takes some luck and fortune to win it all. Everyone knows Hakstol wasn't the reason we didn't win a title, it's just a scapegoat for protecting Berry because Berry got his. But, once Berry had to do his own recruiting, we can't even sniff a Frozen Four.

Hakstol would break the team down to build them back up by the second half. Berry starts the year with the thing already built and it wins a lot of regular season games, but by the end of the year, they've made little to no changes while other teams adapt and look towards playoff style hockey. That's why UND has won 5 NCHC regular season titles under Berry, but only one NCHC tournament title. And outside of our loaded roster in '15-'16, has failed to produce any sort of meaningful NCAA playoff run.

I'd tell Brad he's embarrassing right to his face, but he always no-shows for the meet-ups. Kind of like how the team no-shows for all the NCAA tournaments after all these amazing NCHC regular season titles in the greatest hockey league ever to exist....which is why UND has done so well in NCAA play lately.

Meaningless. Been all sorts of good tourney rankings and only one NCAA tourney win in the past seven seasons against lowly AIC. How about the multiple other missed tourneys other seasons? I'm not counting any chickens this year before they hatch as our trend is not to be the #2 team in the country, rather much lower. This is largely the same team as last year plus a few players from other mediocre to poor hockey programs. I still root for my Sioux, but I'm not blinded by fanhood.

I'm always here, but little worth posting because this program has underperformed for the majority of the past 8 years. You go on and enjoy your complacency.

One bad game? You mean years of bad games. I posted it because that call he made truly was embarrassing.

No, he's a nice guy which is more important than results.

We just never stopped. They did.

If Blake is suspended, which I'm not implying he will be, it just means the league has an agenda that doesn't favor our favorite team in kelly green. Blake gave him a good pop and deserved two, but Rizzo, the little b**** that he is, couldn't handle our smallest guy giving him a little extra in the corner. Two minutes is fair, but that's all it is.

Holy fuckin' !@#$ boys...let's go

But what jerseys is St Cloud wearing tonight?

Why do we care so much about lowly St Cloud? It comes across as very insecure that there is so much conversation about them. It'd be like an Alabama Crimson Tide forum ranting and raving about all the happenings of SEC rival Vanderbilt.

I have a black authentic, size 52, done up as a Zajac by EPS. But, I'm just not sure I want to part with it. Money talks, though.

This may be a bit of bias, but having lived in GF/Bis/Fargo, Fargo really is the epicenter of the state IMO. With that said, so much money is being poured into growth that there isn't much left over for NDSU football outside of what the fleas (aka the bandwagon fans) spend. The thing is, the fleas have been jumping off for a couple of years now and no one gives a flying F about NDSU football except a select few. NDSU was a fun social thing in town for some because it was new and exciting, but the novelty has worn off and no one cares...even the last couple of years when they won their last JV FBS titles. You used to see every single-brain-celled individual wearing NDSU shi...l mean stuff...at one point, and no one wears anything anymore. NDSU is like the Yeti Cooler of no name football....overpriced and a waste of time and money when you find out you're getting scammed. That's why FBS hasn't happened and won't happen.

Using that Buckeye concept.

Both were epic, but I lean toward the interception myself. The return TD was a great pop, but we knew it'd still be a dogfight after that and NDSU wasn't really going away in the first half despite how well we played and controlled most of the game. NDSU had the ball and was ready to cut into the lead again with a momentum swing of their own and then bam....HUGE interception. It really felt like it was our game to lose at that point.