Big A HG

Not all of us. "In combat, complacency kills people. In business, it kills companies." -Mike Ettore UND hockey is combat on ice, or a hockey business. Justifying our stagnation by defending what Berry has done with the program is what will ultimately fail it beyond what it already has. Complacency breeds failure. The New England Patriots have won two Super Bowls since UND last won the national championship. Bill Belichick has four other Patriot Super Bowl victories before that. Yet, only a handful of seasons later, Robert Kraft said enough is enough when the program started underperforming consistently. How can Brad Berry have a longer leash than Bill Belichick?

Regular season is too hard to judge who is good and who is not when looking at first half games, which makes it an overall too difficult of a question to answer. So... What's Berry's record as the favorite and what's his record as the underdog in post-season play in one-and-done games? 2016: 6-1 as favorite (1-1 NCHC, 4-0 NCAA) // no underdog games 2017: no games as favorite // 1-2 as underdog (1-1 NCHC, 0-1 NCAA) 2018: no games as favorite // 0-1 as underdog (0-1 NCHC, missed NCAA) 2019: none (missed both NCHC and NCAA tournaments) 2020: none (covid) 2021: 3-1 as favorite (2-0 NCHC, 1-1 NCAA) // no underdog games 2022: 0-2 as favorite (0-1 NCHC, 0-1 NCAA) // no underdog games 2023: no games as favorite // 0-1 as underdog (0-1 NCHC, missed NCAA) *Third place NCHC games not counted So, Berry is 9-4 as the favorite and 1-4 as the underdog. Keep in mind, the more you win, the more games you get, so naturally there will be more games recorded on the win side if you string some wins together. He's 5-2 as an NCAA tournament favorite, 0-1 as an underdog. But, also keep in mind, four of those five wins were in a single tournament, 2016, when the title was won, which leaves him with a 1-2 record as a favorite since. UND has only played four more total NCAA games under Berry's following 6 seasons (not counting 2020 as a season in that regard).

I've said this before and I'll say it again since it's an easy out but does very little to justify your point. Berry, Dane, Karl, Cary, etc....any of the assistants past or present all go on the recruiting trail. They are often the first point of contact and ultimately the main point of contact until on campus. But, ultimately, the head coach is one of the many key reasons a player will choose a program. They aren't choosing it for a particular assistant coach or because Berry is recruiting them. Do you think Berry is going to the recruits home and saying "boy, I sure want you to be here, but I'm not sure Dave Hakstol does...want to play for UND?" No. Just like a football player would have wanted to go to Alabama to play under Saban, despite Saban not being the one to necessarily recruit that player. The player is still going there to play under Saban and increase his chances to make the next level. The more important the player, the more the head coach will be involved in that recruiting, but it's largely the assistants at any program doing said recruiting. It's still Hak's recruit because he's the head of household in which that player wants to go play for. Did Berry play a part? Sure. But, the players committed to the program to play for Hakstol who was highly-regarded at all levels of hockey for his coaching. You don't hear that about Berry and you certainly don't see the same level of recruits coming in anymore either. If Berry was such a master recruiter, why did Hakstol do so well recruiting before Cary left and he arrived? If Berry is such a master recruiter, why are Berry's commitments not to the level of his own recruiting while Hakstol was coach? Answer: 2015-16 was ultimately Hakstol's recruits whether or not Berry was the one recruiting.

Berry is proud of the team and thinks they were good enough to win and the team skated hard. Come on, talk about the lowest of low standards.

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.