SJHovey

Interesting article on NCAA hockey as it pertains to the NHL draft, relying almost exclusively on Hak for quotes. http://www.washingto...-and-heres-why/

If Rowe doesn't get a shot, he has no one to blame but himself. UND will have, I think, 6 senior forwards on the roster next season. That, together with a possible "one and done" situation with N. Schmaltz, means there are going to be a ton of forward positions open next fall. You figure Yon, Gardner, Gersich and Wilkie come in, and maybe Cakebread. Clearly a team with an open spot or two. As a 21 year old with a ton of time in the juniors, Rowe should have no excuses. I also kind of like how old some of these "kids" are as they hit campus. Poolman, Olson and Simonson are all 21 already, and haven't played a game. Rowe would be 21 before he gets here. Cam Johnson turns 21 next summer. There have been some eastern teams in recent years who have had a lot of success using less heralded recruits who are 25 by the time they are seniors. Plus, it has two side benefits. It aggravates rodent fans to the east, and reduces the risk of those pesky underage drinking issues.

I expect Rocco to be gone. As noted by others, he's already been here 3 years. I seem to recall an interview on draft day where he expressed hope that he could move on to pro hockey within a year, or as quickly as possible. With the possibility of free agency looming for him, as I understand it, I'm sure Florida will look to get him signed. Finally, I'm one of those who think Rocco is actually ready to move on. I think he's the type of player who will thrive in a game that is even faster than the college game, and by playing with players who have a higher skill level than those he's presently with. It'll be a big loss, but the program will survive. Always does.

I agree. Even though his choice may have been dictated in part by a family connection, it would be nice to get a toehold into the Grand Rapids recruiting market. Pretty solid hockey program, and candidly one in which we haven't nabbed a notable player since Jon Casey. I hope the kid progresses as he ages and becomes a force for Grand Rapids, and later for us.

They are in a 3-way tie for 5th.

I'm one of the people who don't know why Eades and UND parted ways. But candidly, I really don't want anyone to post the "reason" on this or any other public message board, for a couple of reasons. First, that "reason" may not be true, and if it isn't I really have no interest in besmirching Eades or UND with a false accusation. Second, even if the "reason" is true, it obviously hasn't been made public by Eades, or for that matter, the University. From Eades' standpoint, that's probably because he just prefers it that way. Why run someone's name through the mud, if in fact the "reason" is either embarassing or bad, especially someone with the connections to the school that Carey has, just because a bunch of message board posters want to speculate as to whether there is bad blood between the parties.

One of my media guides indicates that we beat them twice at home in December 1973. Ah, Dave beat me to it.

My guess is he's instagramming them to Hak every day, 'cause that's just how he rolls, apparently.

BSU is home and away. Wisconsin is away. The rest are at home.

That really is a terrific story. One of the nice things about the story is that Ambroz really didn't have a lot of connection with the New Prague hockey team, at least at the high school level. He left early to head to the USHL, as I recall, so if anything you might think there would be a tiny bit of unhappiness that the family pulled the kid out of what is generally a pretty unheralded MN high school hockey program. Instead, it's pretty obvious those associated with the school think pretty highly of the Ambroz family. I'm glad they got a chance to see their son play. Had to have been a pretty big thrill.

Brad has BSU, Lake St., Providence, Wisconsin and Niagara

The beauty of that simple math? They now have 7 championship game losses to our 5.

Lucia is 4 years older than Guentzel, almost to the day. I have no idea of Lucia's plans, but he doesn't strike me as someone looking to make the move into the NHL now, at age 55 (almost 56). NHL coaching is a young man's job. You don't see them hiring a lot of 56 year olds for a first time position. I don't see Lucia moving to another college program. So unless he just decides to cash it in early due to health or family issues, or unless he gets canned, he'll likely finish out his coaching career at MN. If you're Guentzel do you want to wait for that? I could see Guentzel taking the CC job, or maybe waiting to see if Sandelin or someone likes that gets the ax. I just don't see him ever coaching at MN has the head guy.

Well, since he's signed through 2019 he'd better have thought of an "unless CC offers me their job" out clause or he ain't going anywhere. http://www.masslive...._coach_ric.html

Why in the world would Rick Bennett go to CC? A clear step down, imho. Contrary to our "western world view" of hockey out here, not everyone in the hockey world thinks that upper echelon ECAC or Hockey East jobs are just stepping stones to the prime coaching positions out west. There are probably about 6-7 positions that Bennett might consider leaving Union for, and CC isn't one of them. Besides, I think a certain MN assistant coach is going to be a leading candidate for the CC position.

What's funny is when I saw the gopher fans in the stands with the .6 shirts on, I immediately thought of Eddie Gaedel, the "little person" who got one major league at bat as a publicity stunt, and Eddie's 1/8 jersey. http://www.baseball-...o_gallery.shtml But, however they want to roll is fine with me. Those shirts would really look good if they wore them with hockey helmets too.

I don't really get the .6 as a shot against us, or as something to taunt us with. It's essentially an overtime loss. We were .6 away from what? Playing more hockey, that's what. Once we got to the last couple of minutes of that game, and certainly once we would have reached overtime, we were in a sudden death situation. Next goal wins. Whether it came with .6 seconds left in regulation or 10:08 left in overtime, doesn't really matter. One isn't more significant or heartwrenching than the other. Now, had we been ahead, with a chance to go to the title game, and they tied it with .06 left, that would have sucked. That's why I think the UNH loss from '09 is way worse than this one. We had that game. This one is just like the BC loss in '01 or any other OT loss in the NCAAs. Game over, season over. But what's strange is the psychological response. Because we still had a chance to win against UNH in OT, that one doesn't seem to feel as bad, even though it should be much harder to take.

You know what I like best about the rioting story. The cops were shooting them with GREEN paintballs. Excellent!

Two comments. Because I'm not going to go back and read this entire thread, I apologize if I repeat what anyone else has posted. First, don't get caught up in the "agony" of the .6 second thing. That fact is significant only to those broadcasting sports hightlights or writing stories about the game, who have a need for created drama. The exact same play could have happened with two minutes left, or 10 minutes into OT and it wouldn't have made the loss any less painful. That's hockey. A blocked shot, lucky (or unlucky) bounce, puck ends up in the back of the net. Trust me, this loss doesn't feel worse than losing to BC in OT in '01, losing to Wisconsin the the WCHA's in '83 (again, shorthanded) in 3 OT, when a win would have probably resulted in back to back NCAA titles. Second, this doesn't only happen to us. Everyone has forgotten Minnesota's 23 years in the wilderness, getting their hearts ripped out year after year? BC losing in the Frozen Four in OT in successive years, followed by losing a 3rd period lead to us in '00? Fans of this program need to stop claiming they're Job. The team played great. The coaching staff came up with a plan to put a ton of shots on Wilcox against a team that has been the best defensively all year long. A plan to shut down a very fast and talented offensive team. It worked to a T. But sometimes you don't win those games. Here is what I'm going to take away from this game. For me this was a reminder of how great the old WCHA was, and what a privilege it was to watch those games for more years than I dare count. It's like finding a long lost picture of an old hunting dog. One last wonderful glimpse of something you loved, but is now just a bunch of great memories. That's how I'm going to remember this game.

Here are some lines as well. http://www.sportbet..../hockey_college

Thanks Jim. I should have been able to figure that out.

Jim, does the possibility of a tie by UND in the third place game change any of these possibilities? When playing around with USCHO's pwr predictor there were some instances where a UND-DU tie in the third place game still got us in.

I would think it's unlikely, notwithstanding the conspiracy theorists. If UND sneaks in as an at-large bid (wins one of two games and has the other games break right) we'll likely be the #14 team. I don't think they'll do that to MN. They'll give MN the AHA team, or possibly even the NCHC champion. If we get in as the NCHC champ, we'll probably be somewhere between the #10 and #13 team, so again, a first round matchup with the number one seeded MN won't occur. Might find ourselves playing someone like Wisconsin though, with a MN matchup looming in the second round.

A quick run of the Pairwise predictor shows that a loss to Miami would be pretty damaging. Would likely take a Michigan or Mankato loss in their first game, followed by a win by UND in the consolation game, and no other upsets getting autobids.

I think he just posted under his name, John C. Notermann. I don't think he's posted over there for years. He dropped by occasionally after Jason graduated, but I think he realized he had better things to do than debate with MN fans. I haven't seen him for quite awhile. I think I last saw him 6-7 years ago at Tom Reid's during the Final 5.