SJHovey

One of the college hockey podcasts I listen to is Hockey Goes to College with Ryan Lambert of Puck Daddy, everyone's favorite around here, and Joe Meloni of College Hockey News. I listen to them primarily because of the intense hatred they have for all things North Dakota, we fans most of all. But they also watch a lot of east coast hockey in person and they certainly pay attention to the game. Yesterday's episode was kind of amusing. I came away from it thinking these guys feel the same way as Brad S., although they didn't summarize it as nicely. They basically said Duluth and UMD seem to be the two best teams, by a decent margin. After that we'll put Penn St., simply out of default, because of their record, but don't come to us surprised if they start losing a bunch of games. The intent of that episode was to discuss teams that might be in the 4-10 ranking. But what was funny was as they went through and talked about a bunch of teams, most of the time they would say something like, "yeah, I just don't see them as a top 5 type of team. I might believe they are the 10th or 12th best team in the country." Then the other guy would agree and they'd move on to the next team. By the time the podcast was over a listener would be convinced there were two really good teams, an unknown and untested team at #3, and then about eight teams that really can't be ranked any higher than 10. The strange thing is, I don't know that I necessarily disagree with them. I really feel like this UND team might be able to come in under the radar, so to speak, given our start. Make the tourney, win the Fargo regional and it suddenly becomes a two game event.

I think you're still good. I have tickets myself. I just don't think this team missing the tournament would be considered a gross failure. As I pointed out, we simply haven't seen a roster like this were we have 19 freshmen and sophomores and only a handful of upperclassmen. I've always thought in the college game you can't overstate the difference that the physical strength and experience of a senior, or even junior, can make. We've all seen the differences in players like a Caggiula right on down to a Pattyn from their first season or two to the end of their college career. I think this team is going to be tough to beat come February and March. I think Poganski is playing much better. I love what I see from Wolanin. Cam Johnson seems to have put the early season games behind him and is playing big. We've played virtually the entire season without a healthy Boeser. Shaw has been in and out. It'd be nice to get off to a good start at Union, then put together a nice little conference run including some payback to Duluth and see where we go from there.

Really? 19 Freshmen and Sophomores on this roster. The last time we had a team that had at least 19 Freshmen and Sophomores on the team was......2001-02. Plus, that 2001-02 team (the last to not make the tournament) had 32 people on the roster, so they had 13 upperclassmen. This year we have 19 underclassmen out of a total of 26 on the roster.

For an at large bid from one of the top conferences, a team typically needs about 22 wins by selection Sunday. Since we can't count on any wins at Target Center, that means the team needs to win about 11 of their final 17 regular season games plus the two first round playoff games. Certainly possible. I feel like if we can get in, we're going to be a tough at-large team playing in Fargo.

Ohio St. played Denver this year. It was the first game of the year. Ohio St. returned 9 of their top 10 scorers from last year, of whom 4 are now seniors, 2 juniors and 3 sophomores. Denver lost 6 of their top 10 scorers from last year, including two of the top 3, and of the four returning, two are just sophomores. Given those facts, I'm not sure I'd judge the strengths of the two teams on a meeting the first day of the season. Although candidly, it would be nice to see the B1G schools turn their $15-20 million/school in B1G Network dividends into something other than AHA hockey played in big arenas.

Watching on an ipad the feed kept stopping.

North Dakota has had a long history of doing this. For instance, if I'm not mistaken at one point the first five championship banners all had the geometric logo on them even though that logo wasn't used by the University until 1976, and didn't show up on the jerseys until sometime in the 1990's. I think the University, and we as fans, have more important issues to deal with than that.

I bet the 2006 game had nothing to do with it. HC and BC were huge traditional rivals, both in football and basketball. You can get a flavor of this if you watch the ESPN 30 For 30 movie on the BC basketball point shaving scheme. As I understand it, in the last 20-25 years that dropped off quite a bit, as BC elected to exclude HC from it's schedule. But I recall reading somewhere that there has been a big push by BC alumni in the last 5 years or so to renew the HC rivalry in both basketball and football. If BC has any pull in Hockey East, I suspect their vote would be HC.

I wonder if the Herald wouldn't have lost a lot of their stuff in '97.

Yeah, if the Alaska schools are gone, travel in the WCHA is going to look a lot better to Miami and WMU.

In my opinion, any talk of Jost coming in and replacing Schmaltz is unrealistic. Based upon the limited amount of play I've seen of Jost I don't disagree that his game is similar to Nick's. I just don't think he'll come in and do this year what Schmaltz did last year. Even though Nick was a very good player his first year, the difference between freshman Nick Schmaltz and sophomore Nick Schmaltz was night and day. I could very easily see the same thing from Jost. The success of the team in the coming year will largely hinge on a couple of keys. First, to what extent can Shaw and Wolanin come in and not just play a lot of key minutes, but actually step up their game to help drive the offense. They won't replace LaDue and Stecher, but they've got to at least take major steps in that direction. Second, I think we'll need to see Gersich, Wilkie and Janatuinen take positive steps forward. We need to get into at least the 10-12 goal range this year for each of them. I see this team as being a little deeper and more balanced offensively than last year's, but that will depend on those guys progressing. The title will be there for the taking, because as I noted earlier I just don't see any dominant teams this year (assuming the BU freshmen don't come in and kill it from the beginning). Just my two cents.

Minnesota is probably legit top 10 to start the year. I don't think they're going to be bad. I expect them to win the B1G and make the tournament. They have some decent scoring up front. The key will be on defense. If the two frosh come in and provide some good minutes, they'll be ok. College hockey lost a ton of good players to early departure this year. Personally I see it as a year where the tourney will be anyone's to win. If the BU freshmen come in and play up to their hype, they'll be the most talented team come March, but I see Minnesota as a team that will be a 6-10 team in the tourney.

Questioning the motives of the blogger is silly. I'd even go so far as to admit the blogger had an agenda. But here is the question. If the exact same emails/text messages were discovered and published by the world's biggest Bison fan, do those messages change in any fashion? They still prove he lied about when he knew about the policy, and lied about his initial support of the policy. If there was some claim the messages were manufactured or altered, then the motives or agenda of the blogger become an issue. But NDSU produced these records.

In my opinion UND should forget about begging for a game with the Ag College, or even giving them favorable terms if they decide they want to play us. We don't need them. There will be a day where they're going to come to us and want a game, either because of UND's standing in the football world or because their fans demand it. A perfect example is Kentucky - Louisville basketball. When I was growing up and in college, Kentucky refused to play Louisville. Kentucky had the "brand" and the history of success. They looked at it like they had nothing to gain. But then they started meeting up with Louisville in the NCAAs, and would lose, and suddenly the school and their fans decided maybe they should play. Same deal here. Get our own house in order. Make the playoffs. Take them down. Before long they'll be banging those milk pails demanding a game with us.

The other question is whether they pan out. Wisconsin's pipeline is very young. You look at the birth year of kids that have committed to various schools. UND has 5 kids born in 2000 or later. Michigan the same. DU has 4, MN has 6. BC and BU each have 8. Many programs have zero. A lot of good programs, like UMD, UNO, SCSU, etc..., might have one or two. Wisconsin has 13. There are a lot of chances to miss on those guys.

Man, I came to this thread to see if I could learn anything about the Vegas game and all I see is the thread inching towards a reprise of the old "Fire Hak!" threads. Here is the question that I'm trying to find the answer to regarding the Vegas game. Apparently tickets go on sale to the general public next February 10. I also saw that the Champions Club members are going to get first shot at some seats allocated to North Dakota. I think they have the month from January 9 through February 9 to make those purchases. In the same press release I think it said that a "limited" number of seats will be given to the U of M for its fans as well. Does UND, as the apparent "host" school for this game, get access to a larger percentage of seats available to the Champions Club members than Minnesota will get?

Yeah, I've never really understood the argument. To me, the only argument in favor of the current regional format is the upset possibility created by the one and done component. I suppose there is some added excitement in the tournament created by that. But from a pure "fairness" standpoint, there is no question that the on campus set-up is the most fair. It rewards the team that has earned it throughout the season. Most of the time the regionals haven't created an unfair match-up. But situations like Miami playing at UNH and Providence, as a #1 seed, us having to go to Yost in 1998, etc..., should make it worth looking at campus sites, especially with the attendance issues the regionals have experienced. Daniels example of Ferris playing at Mariucci in 2003 is a joke. First, Minnesota was the higher seed that year. Second, I was at that game. I don't care if they played that game at an outdoor rink in Vermont, there is no way Ferris was going to beat that Minnesota team.

I wouldn't exactly describe attendance at the NCHC tournament as "great." It's "not pathetic," certainly, and not at that stage where social media commentators are going to mock it with photos and the like. But let's be candid, it's smaller than attendance at an average UND home game, and the NCHC has dodged major bullets thus far as a result of UND's presence at the event.

I won't be surprised if after the five year deal with Target Center is finished that the NCHC also goes back to on campus playoffs. There is simply more money in it. Three games in front of 10,000 people each at Target/Xcel to find a winner out of the last four teams, or three, best two out of three series played on campus.

Yeah, Adam gets pretty freaked out about the possibility of the NCAA's going back to campus. I expect Adam and others will be trumpeting the Bob Daniels argument that going on campus for conference playoffs will actually help the NCAA neutral site regionals. Fans won't have just finished traveling one weekend, only to have to travel the next to the regionals. Not a great argument, imho, since only one team ultimately gets to stay home for the entirety of the conference playoffs if played on campus. Daniels is basically acknowledging that fans of visiting teams aren't expected to travel to campus sites for the conference playoff games. The real problem regarding regional attendance is the fact that you just don't know where your team is going to play until less than one week before NCAA's start (unless your team is a host). Unless you are BC, you are likely going to be sent to some far flung locale where it costs you $1000 to get a flight just one week in advance. That's the problem Adam refuses to acknowledge.

The other problem the tournament solved for the WCHA was the issue about arena availability. Not a huge deal for some schools, but the uncertainty of perhaps needing, or not needing, an arena for three straight weekends caused issues. I remember in the mid-80's having to go to Williams Arena in Minneapolis for the championship playoffs between UND and UMD. UMD was supposed to host, but the DECC had already been booked for that weekend because, candidly, who would ever think UMD would be playing in the championship round. This was also an important consideration in the switch to the tournament.

The ECAC, I believe, has had a hockey tournament dating back to at least the '60's if not before, iirc. Hockey East started their conference in the mid-80's and immediately used the neutral site format for their tournament, which only made sense because those teams had pretty much all left the ECAC. The CCHA was using a tournament before the WCHA ever went to it. Not sure of the reasons. The WCHA made the switch beginning with the 1987-88 season. This was after I had graduated from UND, but as I recall there were a number of considerations that went into it. First, the eastern conferences and the CCHA seemed to draw nice crowds for their events. This change by the WCHA also matched the expansion to a 12 team field in the NCAA's, and as I recall I think the feeling was that it would expand the opportunity for a team that finished back in the pack in the regular season to qualify for the expanded NCAA field. It also gave fans a chance to see their team play. I remember the difficulty trying to get tickets, on the road, for playoff series before the WCHA tournament was formed. It was no fun sitting in the last row of the balcony at Williams arena where half the ice was obstructed view. I was always a big fan of the neutral site tournament format, but having lived through the on campus playoff system while I was at UND, I was happy with that too, so long as we were hosting.

Minnesota isn't going to be that bad offensively, with or without Mittlestadt and Pitlick. Between Kloos, Bristedt, Novak, Sheehy and the transfer Szmatula, they'll be able to put together two solid lines of offense. The two freshman D they have coming in should provide some much improved puck moving skills by the time the second half of the season rolls around. Their problem is going to be like last year. No defense. If they can figure that out, they should be a solid tournament team.

I think if you had just posted, "At the Frozen Four last year a UMD fan, college student age, came up to us and ....," we would have gotten the picture.

I would think they will be a heavy favorite to win the B1G regular season title again this year. I don't think Minnesota is going to be that bad next year. Their goaltending is fine. Between guys like Novak, Kloos, Bristedt and Sheehy, they can probably put together two decent scoring lines. Have some upperclassmen. Big question will again be their defensemen and the willingness of their third and fourth lines to play with a lot of energy and not just serve as pylons for the other team