SJHovey

I recall reading the University of Wisconsin thread maybe a year or two ago over on USCHO. Keep in mind that Wis has a national championship since we last won in 2000, and that Wis has 6 total, a pretty solid history of hockey compared with all others. What was funny about that discussion, and how it's relevant to our current discussion, is that they took an almost completely opposite view to how some here (gfhockey, Irish, etc...) view the status of their own program. In their view Eaves' teams have underachieved. Even though he has the one championship, the large majority of Wisconsin fans engaged in that discussion were extremely unhappy. Under Eaves there were no regular season championships. There were no (until last year) Broadmoor championships. Maybe made the tournament half the time. Some sub-500 seasons. The one championship wasn't enough. In fact, some specifically cited UND as a program where even though we hadn't won since 2000, we were competitive for the league titles each year, we were competitive at the Final 5, we were in the tournament with at least a puncher's chance to win the national championship. That was the kind of program they wanted. I wonder what gfhockey, Irish and the others would say if we were sitting here, now almost 10 seasons into Hak's tenure, and there were no regular season championships, no Broadmoors, maybe a 50/50 chance of even getting into the national tournament, but there was that one, bright shining moment of a single national championship. My guess is they would be just like the Wisconsin fans, the "grass is always greener" approach.

It's always fun to take a "legacy" from another program. I vaguely remember Yon's father playing for MN in the early 80's. I don't recall that he was really a top 6 forward or anything, but he seemed to play pretty regularily. I recall reading somewhere that MN didn't make much of an effort to land Yon. Probably has more to do with their current forward situation than anything else. I hope Zach comes to UND in a couple of years and produces like the Archibald kid at UNO.

If you see him, you should check to see if he was at the NFR in Las Vegas this year, and played poker at the Mirage. Curious to see if he remembers playing with me. I wish we had sat closer together so we could have talked. Kind of hard to carry on a conversation 10 feet across a poker table, especially that late when they had the music in the casino absolutely thumping. I didn't get a chance to play long with him but I would have liked to talk to him about the teams he played on.

I would describe him as "wiry". I don't think he was taller than 6 feet by any means. Sometimes it's tough to get a feel for a person's height if they're wearing cowboy boots and a hat, like this guy was. He just looked very lean and in very good shape for someone who is in his 60's.

Friday, December 6, I was in the Mirage Casino in Las Vegas. The National Finals Rodeo was in town, and the Mirage caters pretty heavily to that event. I was playing poker when this cowboy sits down. Very distinguished looking. Immaculately dressed in a starched white button down shirt. Big ol' cream colored cowboy hat. Looked to be in his mid-60's. Also looked like he could pretty much whip the crap out of anybody in the place. I was wearing a black baseball hat that has the new Sioux logo on it.. We were seated at opposite ends of the table. After awhile, I see him staring at my hat. I asked him, "you recognize it?" He responded, "you go there, or you just find that hat?" I told him I was a N.D. native, and the years I attended. He said, "I played for that team." I think he said '68-70. James Stuart from Calgary, Alberta. He said he played with some great ones. Bobby Duncan. John Marks, who he described as the meanest hockey player he ever played with. I gathered he was a role player. Said he played mostly left wing. Mixed it up in the corners, which I believe. Funny thing was, all he really wanted to talk about was the recent years. He still follows the team avidly, even from Calgary.

One of the differences between this team and the one we've had the last few seasons is face offs. The team is getting better, and I think will be much better by the end of the season, but I don't think they've yet developed a reliable center who will consistently dominate in the face off circle. Mark Mac's injury hasn't helped in this regard. That means we spend an awful lot of time trying to get the puck back.

I just can't believe we're even having this discussion right now. Jerry York: 12 seasons (then went 17 more) Ron Mason: 20 seasons Red Berenson: 12 seasons Don Lucia: 15 seasons George Gwozdecky: 15 seasons Shawn Walsh: 9 seasons "Badger" Bob Johnson: 10 seasons These are the supposed legends of college hockey coaching, at least in the last 30 years. What would have been if people had given up on them, as people did with Hak, after about 8 years? Or look at other sports. Nick Saban: 9 years Mike Krzyzewski: 17 years Geno Auriemma: 10 years Dean Smith: 21 years Dean Smith went 20 seasons in which he won 9 regular season championships, 8 ACC tournament championships, and never sniffed the big one. Ask Carolina fans whether they think Dean should have been canned. Even the great John Wooden, probably as close to a deity as this country has in coaching, went 19 years as a head coach, including 16 at UCLA, before he won a championship, then won what, like 10 in a row? I could probably go on all day with examples. Winning a championship is about being a good coach and recruiter, which Hak clearly is, but it's also about timing, luck, a hundred variables that you can't control. For every situation like a Dean Blais who comes in and wins one in his first 3 seasons there are many other great, great coaches who go many years without savoring that first championship. 9-10 years is nothing in a coaching career. I want to win as bad as anyone, but man some in this fanbase have really become cliffjumpers in a hurry.

Part of the problem is that when you're young (which as of now I have to claim is anything under about 55) you don't really have a lot of perspective on how rivalries change. The UND-MN rivalry will change significantly over the years, even though they may still occasionally play, and the games will be good. But rivalries always change, and even had we remained within the same conference with them it could have changed. You go back to my era, the late 70's through mid-80's in Grand Forks, MN wasn't even close to being the main rival. They were a good team, we enjoyed beating them and they drew nice crowds, but Wisconsin was the draw. The intensity of those games were every bit as high as what we've seen in the last decade plus with Minnesota. You go back even another generation, to the late 50's through the mid-60's and all you'll hear about is Denver. That's the beauty of sport. You can always find someone to dislike.

If you're suggesting I won't be able to find a quote from Lucia that OSU was scheduled because they're a cupcake, you're probably right. By the way, I don't fault MN one bit for choosing OSU. Like I said before, it probably has to be a conference game because of the timing. I wouldn't want to lose conference points just because the school wants to hold a novelty event. If UND decided to do an outdoor game these past couple of years, I would have preferred it be BSU instead of MN. I just don't buy the whole "we chose OSU because of their huge fan base" theory. You are absolutely correct that they are a name brand, nationwide, and have hundreds of thousand, if not millions of ardent backers of the University. But they still don't go to or watch OSU hockey games.

Look, there are two reasons why OSU was chosen as the opponent for the outdoor game, and attendance at the game and tv viewership are not those reasons. In order for it not to be a weather fiasco, it's almost certainly going to have to be a league game. By January and February the non-con games are basically done, with the exception of events like the Beanpot or the new MN tournament. If it's going to be a league game, the last thing MN wants to do is lose due to the crappy conditions that exist in every outside game. And the conditions are crappy, at least compared with indoors like at Mariucci. That means it's got to be Penn St. or OSU. Second, it fits with the whole Hockey Day weekend in the Cities. If OSU can't draw more than 4000 people from a population in the millions, and a school with tens of thousands of students, I hardly think people are going to be standing in line to watch this game on tv. Besides the Blue Jackets are at home that night against the Capitals, and I hear the Blue Jackets draw really well.

Another interesting tidbit. The NCAA claims that you can buy gear at their website, NCAA.com (under the "shop" tab) for all 582 teams. Interestingly enough, if you look at the list there seems to be one notable omission.

Chris Dilks at WCH blog had a brief mention of Nolan Patrick, a top young player out of western Canada, and nephew of former UND great James Patrick. Any word on whether UND is recruiting him, and chances of success?

Maybe. I have no idea what kind of revenue the hockey broadcasts generate, although $12 million seems high. But again, I have no basis for that opinion. And maybe getting that extra little spiff or share of the BTN revenue will cause schools to start a hockey program. Or, it might cause them to ask why they don't get a larger share of basketball or football BTN revenue, where they are generating large returns. And that was really my main point. To what extent is this a subtle, initial shift by the Big 10 towards rewarding individual schools based upon income generated by an individual program at that school. If the Big 10 should ever go in that direction, schools like Minnesota will be hurt more than helped.

I guess my point was that MN, Wisconsin and the other hockey schools were going to get half that money anyway, with or without this new policy. Let's assume the BTN generates $240 million. 12 schools get $20 million each. Let's assume as a result of broadcasting hockey on the BTN the new revenue is $252 million (which I don't think the tweet necessarily suggests). Rather than each of the 12 schools getting $21 million, the 6 hockey schools get $22 million and the 6 others still get $20 million. Isn't that what's going on with this new program? It's not like there is an outside third party that's giving $12 million to the Big 10 to give to the hockey schools. They're just changing from the traditional model where everyone got the same to a new model where those with hockey get a little bigger slice. And if that's true, don't be surprised when the football and bounceyball schools come looking for a change in allocation.

I saw that elsewhere, and personally as a fan of a non-Big 10 school it doesn't really bother me, for these reasons. First, the Big 10 schools have had a huge financial advantage over non-Big 10 schools for years, especially since the BTN was formed. That network has poured millions into each of the 12 schools, hockey and non-hockey alike. That has not translated directly into wins, especially in hockey. Second, this special allocation already belonged, and was going at least in part, to the hockey schools. It's $12 million (6 schools x $2 million/school). What, were they going to spend the $12 million on hookers and blow for the commissioner's Christmas party without this allocation? No, each of the 12 current schools would have presumably received $1 million anyway. So the extra is $1 million, not $2 million. Third, I've always assumed the Big 10 splits up it's revenues from the BTN equally. I think they are now starting down a slippery slope when they start allocating money with at least some connection to who is generating it. It's not much of a jump for teams like Michigan, Michigan St., Nebraska, et al., to demand a bigger slice of the BTN pie for the extra football revenues they are generating. Going to make it tough for Minnesota that doesn't have a major conference financial player in any sport but hockey.

Yale is a very good team. That's what some people seem to be missing. They went to Denver and won. They went to CC and won. They went to BC and tied. They beat MN the night before. Until their disaster at the ECAC tournament, they were pretty settled in at the 6-10 PWR range, with us. Our game turned out to be exactly as should have been expected. A close, hard fought affair, that came down to who could make a play (or get a break) at the end. That's precisely what happened. Yale and SCSU were the last two teams in the tournament, depending upon losses by Michigan and BU to get them in. We all know about SCSU. That should tell you the kind of parity we are dealing with in college hockey now.

My thoughts. Three things kept us from moving on. Probably tops on my list is no secondary scoring. Kristo, Knight and nothing else. Probably most disappointed by Rowney, Parks, Mac line. Generated some chances but we really got nothing. Second is the anemic pp. In a tournament where the games are usually a lot tighter, special teams are doubly important. Finally, too many penalties. By the last 10 minutes too many of our key guys were gassed.

The 1997 championship team had 4 seniors (including the back up goalie who didn't play), 3 juniors, 11 sophomores and 7 freshmen on it's roster.

I think people should just enjoy what we have. It's great to win a national championship, but if your season sucks everytime you don't, you're probably not going to have a lot of fun watching college hockey. We might never win another national championship. Try rolling that over in your mind. I wouldn't bet that's the case, but it's certainly possible. Some things to think about. 41 of the 59 D1 teams have never won one. Michigan went 32 years after winning their 7th. They're in a 15 year drought now. MN went the first 26 years of NCAA play without winning, then went 23 more years after the '79 championship. They're in a 10 year drought now. DU went 35 years between #5 and #6. BC went 52 years between championships. Wisconsin went 16 years. On top of that, in the 23 years since winning the regular season title, tourney title and NCAA's in 1990, Wisco has won 1 McN, 2 Broadmoors and 1 NCAA title. We almost matched that in 2000 and 2001 alone. And these are the best college hockey programs in history. In that context, an absence from the final victory stand for 12-13 years doesn't seem so outlandish. It's great to win that last game of the year, but I've found it's an even more enjoyable experience if you just try to relish watching young players come to UND and turn into very good hockey players in 3-4 short years.

I think this team has been somewhat frustrating for many fans this year. That might come from the number of instances where it feels like we left points "on the table", so to speak, like this past Saturday's tie with BSU. But I also think there is one positive with this team. They are hard to beat. Only 4 teams have fewer losses, and two of those (Niagara and Quinnipiac) play what most would consider to be a softer schedule. There is no dominant team this year. MN has looked like world beaters one game and wife beaters the next. They probably have the most talent, but this could very easily be one of those years like 2007 where a team like MSU gets hot at the right time and comes out of nowhere to win the title. Not saying it will happen, but it could very easily.

I think it's time to put "the refs are out to get us" schtick to bed. Out of curiousity I went back and looked at the box scores from the past 3 seasons of UND-MN WCHA matchups. I didn't use the NCAA's because presumably the WCHA ref conspiracy doesn't apply to out of conference refs. One interesting thing is that except for one series, all of the games have been officiated by Shepard and Hunt. Adam and Walsh had the lone exception. Here are the power plays, starting with the first series in 2010: MN 0-5 Shepard/Hunt UND 2-6 MN 0-4 Shepard/Hunt UND 2-6 MN 0-5 UND 0-2 Shepard/Hunt MN 3-4 UND 0-3 Shepard/Hunt MN 0-3 Shepard/Hunt UND 2-6 MN 2-6 Shepard/Hunt UND 2-6 MN 0-6 Shepard/Hunt UND 0-6 MN 1-7 Shepard/Hunt UND 0-7 MN 0-7 UND 1-5 Shepard/Hunt MN 0-4 UND 0-3 Adam/Walsh MN 1-3 Adam/Walsh UND 1-6 MN 2-4 UND 1-1 Shepard/Hunt So what do we see? 5 games where MN had the pp advantage, 4 games where UND did, 3 where they were equal. 58 power plays for MN, 57 for UND. If the actual facts show anything it's that for at least the last 3 years between these two teams, Shepard, Hunt, Adam and Walsh have believed pretty strongly in the "marble" theory of officiating.

I don't care how well we play, we are not going to win both games. A UND sweep in Minneapolis is extremely rare, even in those years where we had great teams and the gophs were down. We do have the ability to go down there and steal one, which is what I think we need to do if we want to keep our chances alive for the Mac. Minnesota is a very dangerous team right now. They are playing well, they are playing with a lot of confidence and swagger, and they'll be playing on the big rink. The fans will be jacked up Friday for the start of this big series, and will probably have the added bonus of the excitement of Hockey Day in Minnesota on Saturday, and the start of the Wild season.

I've been attending UND/MN hockey games for decades. No one is more disappointed to see the rivalry go on hiatus. But this post takes on the eerie tenor of "stalker boyfriend" that really has no place in this discussion. Hockey scheduling is like dating. Both parties have to agree. If one doesn't think the time is right it ain't going to happen. Standing here screaming like a petulant child in a Target aisle angry over denial of a piece of crap he thinks he can't live without just makes you look silly. This is not the first time Minnesota has taken such a position. Throughout the '60's they refused to play Denver because of what they perceived as unfairness issues associated with DU's recruiting. After awhile they learn their lesson and come back. Our response should be exactly what UND's institutional response has been thus far. We're disappointed but we understand. Call us when you want to get together. In other words, when you're ready for the buttkickings to resume, you know where to find us. Let the MN fans get irate, not ours. It's their fans who get to watch home games against Providence and Mankato because they want to try to cool off the rivalry. My attitude -- Meh. You've got the number.

It's more frequent than you might expect. It's usually something like, "What do you think the depth of the snow on the MTU campus will be on May 1?"

So what happened to Cornell, Yale, etc...