Big A HG

Congratulations Berry stans, you got to see one good period of hockey.

All of that's fine and dandy, and of course it's a good opportunity to do some of that, but nothing is getting cemented in one exhibition game. How well are you going to test out lines and d-pairings when you come out and skate with 20 pound lead skates anyways? Where's the energy coming off a long off-season? Where's the motivation to turn the game around after getting punched in the mouth? I don't think UND learned anything in that game other than the level of work that was put in wouldn't be good enough to compete at a high level and that's what people are talking about when they make comments about the game. There is not a single resource I can think of that UND is missing to properly prepare an elite roster of college hockey talent, yet somehow we're still talking about the things that those tools are designed to prevent. Imagine how bad UND would be if they didn't have the resources they did. /s

The point of people bringing it up is it sets a tone for where UND is at to start the year. It doesn't count, but doesn't make it meaningless. If it was completely meaningless for the program, don't play an exhibition game...ever. What's the point? Obviously Brad sees importance in it. The loss is not going to change our PWR, but that's not the point. You lack imagination to think outside of the box and see the bigger picture. Again, the loss doesn't matter...it's how we lost, why we lost, and what it may or may not mean for the games that do count.

Since you're always so into semantics and fail to use any sort of figurative reasoning (despite everyone knowing that the game doesn't count, but that's not the point of bringing it up)...here ya go:

.500 hockey against ranked teams isn't going to get us very far in the tournament....like usual. Not saying we need to win every single game against ranked opponents all season long to prove a point that we're ready for the tournament, but these consistently up-and-down performances don't bode well if things don't change.

With Hak at the helm. Have Berry's teams ever really gotten significantly better from first semester to second?

We've had much better teams go out east and lose a game against worse teams than Cornell. Win tomorrow and all is good. I don't judge Berry for October, I judge Berry for the month of March. We're stuck with him for now, so reserving judgment on the season until then. Going on nine years....

It's not always about individual losses. A split with BU is fine. It's about the eight years (going on nine) of playoff misery and no results (if we even make the tournament). That leads to people magnifying smaller issues over time. Virtually no one called for Berry to be fired a couple years after the title when we missed the tourney for the first time in many years because, hey, we won the big one recently. 2016 was a long time ago now and to only have one NCAA win since is awful for a program like the University of North Dakota. This is UND men's hockey, not UND men's golf....the standards are different...or at least should be.

Best fans in college hockey! ™

How does the crowd barely cheer at the end of a 5-0 first period against BU?

If we don't have an identity, teams have a harder time game planning against us.

Time to diversify the gene pool.

Titles are too hard to win. They're the expectation but not the standard for a program like UND or any other elite college program. It's not about comparing Hak to Berry when it comes to 1-0 on titles, it's about the sustained success we had in the post-season. Hak was snake bit, but we were challengers just about every year, making the Frozen Four 7 out of 11 years. A couple years we played good enough to win but lost, a couple of times we stunk it up, and a couple of times we lost on a bit of puck luck. But we were there. Then Berry comes in, wins a title, and eight years later, going on nine, we've won ONE SINGLE NCAA game...against lowly AIC. How can that be okay?

I give him credit, he took Hak's team and won one. The problem is, since he's had full control over the program and recruiting, the team has floundered. Just about every other metric I can think of except conference titles Brad is worse. Less fan attendance, less national interest, worse recruits, less post-season success BY FAR with the exception of the win season NINE years ago. Hak left him a national prominent program, Brad succeeded year one, and it's been in decline since. Throw in his jersey/wordmark scandal that got swept under the rug on top of it.

"he really wants to win" ....holy smokes, is that the standard for our head coaches? Dang, I didn't know there were coaches that didn't really want to win. He's had chance after chance after chance to prove that he can run the program by himself and do something more than he has. He certainly could win multiple championships in the next five years, but so could anyone. What has he actually done? I give him credit, he took Hak's team and won the big one, but the problem is he hasn't done anything since in the post-season except beat AIC. People aren't calling for change two years after the title, it'll be NINE years since the title when the next tournament starts. How many more chances should he get? Ed Orgeron won a title at LSU in 2019 and two years later was gone. I'm not saying that should be our standard either, but when coaches fail to succeed as much as Brad has, even if they have a championship, teams move on if they want change. Asking Brad to change at age 59 in his tenth year after all the failed years is asking a lot.

I said "we can be", but I won't be.

Cool. I have no idea who supported firing Hak and have no idea who supports firing Berry. It doesn't matter who supported firing Hak as Hak has been gone for years. You seem like you're still wearing your Holy Cross jersey. I care about winning NCAA tournament games, nothing else. All I know is that almost every aspect of the program as a whole has been worse under Berry than Hak despite the university having more resources than ever with the exception of conference championships. Think Denver or Duluth would trade their real championships for more conference titles?

The onus is on you to provide evidence for your claims. And regardless, Hak hasn't coached UND in almost ten years...what's next, who wanted Rube Bjorkman fired? Right now it's about what Berry has [or hasn't] done...

Complacency kills. We can always be optimistic, but the sample size isn't small anymore. Berry just didn't win the title 2-3 years ago, it will be 9 years ago by the time the next tourney rolls around. There's been plenty of leash and Berry should have reached the end. Instead we watch our rivals win titles while we flounder in the first round over and over...if we even make the tourney.

This gets said a lot but I don't know how true it is.

Whether or not Berry was "in charge" of recruiting, players choose to play for the head coach first and foremost. Berry is doing thy bidding for the head coach. Under Hak we were known as NHL U. No one says that anymore. Recruiting as a whole has declined under Berry. That's not to say we haven't had some good recruits, but as a whole it's been worse. Also, Berry was only under Hak for a few years of Hak's tenure, yet Hak churned out great players and great results for many years prior. You make your statement like Hak couldn't have existed without Berry which is incredibly untrue.

The people wanting to march Berry out of town don't want to because of one exhibition loss....it's years of meaningful losses.

We haven't had an identity in years...we just go out and play and hope we win. Hak rebuilt each year with a new identity which led to some early season shortfalls but late season success.

I judge Berry for the [lack of] results in March, not for one win in October. We'll keep raising conference banners while Denver keeps raising natty banners.