SJHovey

If it's like it was before, you'll lose the players for the full season. When I was at UND in the early 1980's, it wasn't unusual at all for WCHA teams to lose a star player for the entire season. Broten played for Minnesota one year, took the next year off to play on the 1980 Olympic team, then came back to Minnesota the following year. That happened to a few others that I recall. Unfortunately, most just moved on to the NHL. NHL players can just take off a week before the Olympics and arguably be ready to play effectively in the tournament. No way USA hockey does that if they have to use college kids.

I like the balance next year's team might have, too. I'm also excited by the way our freshmen defensemen played by the end of the season. C. Poolman didn't look like a freshman at all, and I really liked how Casey Johnson, and even Peski, showed a willingness to jump up into the play once they got a little confidence. If I have one concern about next year, it's this. High end talent really makes a difference on the power play. That's where exceptional playmaking talent and puck possession talent and a sniper's touch really show themselves, and we're not going to have a lot of that unless one of the incoming freshmen have it, or someone like Yon or Bowen take a big step forward. The power play is going to just be a lot of big bodies in front of the net, hoping that a shot of the point deflects off them or hoping to screen the goalie on shots from the point. A team's special teams play is pretty important, and is probably responsible in large part for our loss to BU this year. That's my only concern.

This, I believe, is part of the problem. I'm not sure we're ever going to see enough cameras, with a high enough quality, at all college rinks. I think the NHL system is also aided by "Toronto" in that they have people watching the games with the ability to quickly look at a potential offsides, even before the play is stopped. That speeds up the review.

The Parallax video that was linked here is certainly very interesting, and goes to show the importance of having cameras right on the line, either on the side or above. However, when I was watching that video one thing that did occur to me is that wouldn't the Parallax effect apply to both Hoff's skate and the puck on Olson's stick? In other words, if the actual location of Hoff's skate relative to the blue line was distorted due to the Parallax effect, wouldn't the actual location of the puck be similarly distorted?

There was a similarly interesting situation in the Wild game last night, if any of you happened to catch it (including Oshie's game winner in OT). The Wild were down one in the last minute and had pulled the goalie. They entered the zone on a cross ice pass to Spurgeon, who then dumped the puck. After some skirmishes along the end wall, a Washington player got possession and shot the puck up the center of the ice, about 7 feet off the ice surface. Koivu reached up, while on the blue line, grabbed the puck and dropped it down onsides. A few seconds later the Wild scored. Toronto wanted to review for offsides. At first there was a question of whether they were reviewing Koivu's catch, which was pretty close, but seemed like it should be onsides. Then it became clear they were looking at the initial entry. In a scenario like that one it's really hard to see how the initial offsides (it wasn't, by the way) could have played any role in the play and further supports PCM's logic. I would have liked to have heard some discussion from the announcers or others about the change of possession and whether that should have nullified any advantage gained had Spurgeon been offsides.

You are right that the First Amendment doesn't apply here.

With respect to your question, again, for the third time, I think the offsides review process is an excellent point of discussion on this board or anywhere else. Friday's play is another matter. What else is there to discuss about Friday's play, other than to complain about it. The play is over. It was called. The game went on. I suppose that we can talk about the fact that the UND players box and coaches were right on that blueline and that it's interesting none of them have suggested it was a bad call. What exactly do you want to discuss about the play, not the offsides review process in general, other than complain about the call?

Her post, which didn't directly quote anyone else's post, followed krusty's post (which quoted your initial post) and included krusty's references to the officials.

That's not what I said at all. In fact, it's the opposite of what I said. Talk about rule changes all you like. Nodakgirl responded to a poster who was complaining about the "bozos" and "clowns" who called UND offsides on the play, and she told the poster to give it a rest. I feel the same way about those particular types of posts. Biatching at the officials, or calling them names, accomplishes nothing and sounds like whining to outsiders, and to me, and we're better than that.

I'm going to agree, somewhat, with Nodakgirl here. The original post of Sic's is a good topic for discussion. Should college hockey look at changing the way we go back and check for offsides, and more particularly, whether a zone entry with no score on the initial rush should then essentially be "good" if after 30-60 seconds of cycling the puck a team scores. However, in your initial post you changed the topic, slightly, by commenting on the our particular offsides, the poor camera angle for the replay, etc... To me, this gets into more of the "sour grapes" territory that I prefer we avoid as a fanbase. Berry took the correct approach with respect to our particular offsides. He said it was "probably right" and deferred to the officials. Enough said on that particular play as far as I'm concerned.

And someone named Jason Blake.

Experience and maturity certainly help, but in my opinion it really helps when it's on defense. If you look back ten years or so, since the new collective bargaining agreement came into play and we've seen more early departures, you will really see it with teams that won the championship. MSU in '07 and BC in '08 and again in '12 each had six seniors or juniors on D. Duluth in '11 had five upperclassmen on D. We had four last year. Providence in '15, Union in '14 and BC in '10 had three. For this year's Frozen Four, Duluth has five upperclassmen on D, Harvard has six, and Notre Dame and Denver have four each. We had two, and one of them couldn't play. If somehow we managed to keep this year's sophomore class in place until they are seniors, even with Jost gone this summer or next, look out. To me, the biggest loss going forward will be Wolanin leaving before his senior year. A group of defensemen with Wolanin and Shaw as seniors, C. Poolman, Johnson and Peski as juniors, and guys like Bast and others yet to come filling in the rest, that will make us a contender.

I know there are still some people out there, Chris Dilks among them, who still like to yank the chain of NCHC fans by teasing about lack of television exposure and the like, but anyone who is honest about it has to agree that the NCHC has been an unmitigated success, and probably beyond what the member institutions could have hoped for in just the first four seasons. As Brad noted in his blog, seven of the total of sixteen spots in the Frozen Four since conference realignment have belonged to NCHC teams. Four different NCHC programs have made the Frozen Four. One national championship, and decent chance at a second this year. Seven of the eight programs have made the NCAAs since realignment. Seven of eight have hosted a first round conference playoff series. Four different conference tournament winners in four years. Three different conference regular season winners in four years. The only conference that's managed to hold its conference tournament together. All that said, if (and it's a huge and unlikely "if") the B1G were to ever come calling for UND, the school would have to take a pretty serious look at it. It is hard to compete with size and money in college athletics, and the B1G schools have pretty much every advantage you can think of over the rest of college hockey. I don't really worry about how much they've underachieved to date (a considerable amount, imho). They won't always be terrible. Furthermore, and this may sound a bit arrogant, but I think that whatever conference UND joins is going to be very successful just because of the commitment made by both the school and the fans to the program. Just my two cents.

Providence has a 96% chance of making it, but the strange thing is it doesn't really take a bunch of crazy outcomes to keep them out. Let's assume: Higher seeds win AHA and WCHA games. Cornell beats Harvard in the ECAC. DU beats UMD, and we beat WMU in the NCHC. BC beats BU, then beats Lowell. None of that is too crazy, or unrealistic. But if it happens, then the B1G could really screw Providence. OSU and PSU win their first round games, which they should, then upset MN and Wisconsin. An OSU win in the title game is it all it would take to knock out 96% Providence. We can say what we want about the B1G, but all eyes are going to be on their scoreboard (if not actually in the arena).

Yeah, I was answering your question, I just didn't quote you.

I think someone posted yesterday they were surprised Providence had a better chance of getting in than we did, given that they lost their first round series. It was then pointed out to that poster that is the reason their chances are better. No opportunity to lose additional games.

Yeah, I think it will be interesting after the Thursday games once Jim Dahl and the guys at CHN and USCHO crunch the numbers to see where everyone stands going into Friday. I have to believe that if both PSU and OSU crap the bed on Thursday and lose that we have to be as close to in as you can get without actually being there.

It makes complete sense. If I were a team I'd always rather play the early game. It sucks playing the late game, then getting up and playing the early game the next afternoon.

I know the primary issue is getting us into the tournament. But has anyone checked to see how high we can get if we win the Frozen Faceoff? I can't get us higher than 7th. I can get us past Union, but not BU. Edit: I should add that I ask this question because the CHN probability matrix shows that 1.2% of the outcomes have us higher than 7, but I haven't found them just playing around.

Pairwise predictor up on USCHO

I disagree with this, especially with respect to Providence and Wisconsin. We just need the games to go "pairwise chalk" this week. Wisconsin dumps Ohio St. two games. Providence knocks off Notre Dame. We beat SCSU. I'm more interested in seeing all those teams behind us get drilled, and basically have their season ended.

Let me get this right. We're pinning our hopes on teams ranked 36, 53, and 58 in the pairwise, with a collective record of 18-69-9, and all of them play on the road against ranked teams? So, you're saying there's a chance.....

The other thing to consider about the Frozen Faceoff is, assuming you are fan of college hockey, the possibility of seeing a really excellent championship game. Even if UND is not in the tournament, or the championship game, a UMD-DU final would be excellent, and probably determine the #1 overall seed.

Personally I always had a blast at the conference tournaments, whether played at the old St. Paul Civic Center, Xcel or Target Center, even if UND wasn't in the tournament. In fact those were some of the funnest experiences I had. No anxiety regarding the games. You got to cheer for whoever you wanted, and usually against Minnesota. I wouldn't miss it even if UND did.

I agree this is a big weekend. A sweep would set us up for possibly finishing with a very high seed, while anything less than a split probably knocks us off the bubble, at least for now. However, as for the team making a run, I think all we have to do is get in. At least half the team has got a bunch of NCAA tournament games under their belt. Ending up in the same region as UMD would be tough, but any other draw does not scare me. We can play and beat teams like Denver, MN, Harvard, etc..., especially in Fargo. You can look back to a year like 2004-05. We were 15-10-3 at the end of January (compared to 15-11-3 today). We played about .500 hockey from there to the end of the regular season. I think we even had a losing record in the regular season after Christmas that year. But the team got on a bit of a roll in the first round against Duluth, finished 3rd in St. Paul, and rode the coattails of a strong WCHA into the tournament. I see no reason why this team can't do the same.