redwing77

I agree. I wish, though, he committed to BSU or UNO. I'd've liked to see him play a little.

I like what you type. I think the key really is to play our game within the allowances of the officiating crew. That means the first period is going to be important. CCHA officials aren't perfect, but imo, they are better than the WCHA officials. They both enjoy giving the benefit of the doubt to CCHA teams over non conference rivals, but that's the same for WCHA officials. CCHA officials call the rulebook better, imo. They also have called diving penalties. WCHA officials have not. The question is: Will they be the same as WCHA officials with regards to hard hitting? WCHA officials have been known to call roughing/cross checking on a good clean hard hit. WCHA officials are known for situational officiating. It will be interesting to see the stance of these officials. It's too bad Yale is an ECACHL team because the officiating tandem I watched in the Union/Cornell (I think) game...Realto might've been on of their names? Feola? Something like that. ECACHL people on USCHO don't seem to like him, but Feola and his counterpart have olympic hockey officiating experience. In any case.... I think UND will be rested enough for fatigue not to be a factor against Yale. Should Yale play them hard and all and UND ends up winning.... I'd not like another 3rd period repeat of the SCSU game with BC on the ice. The three keys to Yale: 1. Solid Fundamental hockey. Don't try to do too much, keep it simple, and get to the net. 2. Control the speed of the game 3. Special teams. Yeah, or PK is pretty special, but let's not have to use it that much, ok? Yale is a beatable team. I watched that movie of their scoring. The media's take on Yale's "big fanbase" might be a bit overstated. They couldn't fill the stands for that playoff game shown. By the way, the player with the mohawk.... nice. All of their goals came off of mistakes by Brown on that clip anyways. I don't think our DCorps plays that soft. Conspiracy Theory: UND fans are known for it so here's mine: The NCAA wants to see UND face BC so expect UND to get some home cookin' with the refs, even if the refs are CCHA or AHA or HEA or CHA. I'd expect the same in the Alaska/BC matchup.

Must be experience more than skill... or maybe both.

I don't see anyone on this team needing to step up. I think Yale, Alaska, and BC all need to step down and allow us a free trip to the Frozen Four.

One thing about my time at the Old Ralph regarding this cheer was that there was protocol to be followed in the issuance of this cheer. I think it had to be done in the first half of the period or perhaps the first lull in crowd noise. It was explained to me once, but I have long forgotten. Diggler, you still out there? You might remember.

I wasn't intending to specifically call you out. And I know your response to my post was more pointed at Rick, but I'll comment anyways. squirtcoach is right in a way: It's not easy to be high on a team that is losing, especially when the team is losing games they either barely lost or could have won (depending upon perspective). And I don't think anyone here expects sunshine and songs of kumbaya and all that either. What we expect is for the season to play out before we start chopping off heads and pointing fingers. Hey, I wrote a long, sentimental blog post that made sense at the time but now is a bunch of crap on how this is a down year and we shouldn't be so hard on the team and blah blah blah. Now, the team has turned it around, become pretty dominant, and made me look the fool (even more so than I usually am). Firing a coach comes after years of failure or a trend of lack of improvement. Look at WMU or tOSU for examples this year. Both coaches lost their jobs because the Administration did not see their schools improving under the current coach. UNO did the same thing the year before and hired Dean Blais. Kneejerk reactions aren't good either. Everyone (including myself) blasted Alaska Fairbanks about Doc DelCastillo's debacle with recruiting and the state of the team coming into the first offseason after his hire. It was a mess and he surely did not do a good job of handling himself. Now, the current Alaska coach has pretty much all DelCastillo recruits on his team and they're in the NCAAs. So, that's my spin on things anyways. Patience is a virtue.

That takes cohones. I don't think they have the speed and skill to keep up with Miami. I think it will be close for the first period and then Miami will run away with it.

Looking at those pictures makes me cringe a little bit.. Look at Hak's eyes. Think he's been out in the sun or tanning before that picture was taken? You can see where his sunglasses cover.

Who picks on winners? I figure if we both lose, then at least we're equals.

I guess if you had to look at coaching as a problem, you'd have to look at the blow outs. 1 goal losses or ties aren't indicative of poor coaching. If we beat Yale and then lose 2-1 vs. BC I'll still think it is just bad luck and not coaching. If we lose to Yale or BC by 4 or more.... I might wonder.

I hope Mr. Donald thinks that UND is looking past Yale. They would then not know what hit them and we'll win easily. Seriously, though, this is all media banter. Yale hockey players wouldn't be worthy of the school if they thought UND wasn't going to play them hard and focus on them. They have to play like we are: Win and move on. Lose and season is over. They hold two advantages (sorta) over us. First, good or bad, they've played less games than we have, including the tourney time. The only thing I can think of that makes this an advantage is that, if they have any banged up players, they've had 2 weeks to heal. UND has only had 1. 7 days makes a difference. Second, the expectations. I doubt the expectations behind Yale Hockey match ours. I wouldn't be surprised if, should, they beat UND and then lose to BC, the Yale fanbase would be happy. If we win to Yale and lose to BC, would our fanbase be equally happy? I can't go as far as to say that this is bonus hockey for Yale, I can say that they will be playing with far less expectations (and the stresses therein) on them than we will be. And that can make the game fun for them. UND has two major advantages: First, cohesion. They're a really tight, hard working team that can play together far better than most teams would like to admit. Minnesota has more top tier talent than we do. So does Michigan, Wisconsin, and DU. Michigan only started playing well as of late. UW and DU had pretty solid seasons up until the one and dones and I still feel like UW is a super solid team (with a D that can cover up for somewhat questionable goaltending). However, facing adversity is something UND has done to the max and has overcome with only a slight burp in January/February. This team has been described as the hardest working team in recent memory. That counts for something. Second, balance. Adversity has caused many who would normally not be asked to step up, to step up. Andrew MacWilliam may have been good from the onset, but he's been lights out. LaPoint has just come back from an awful injury and he came back with some issues still (speed mainly) but has stepped up as well. Corbin Knight has played REALLY well. Danny Kristo... I'm not going to say anything. If you can't figure out why, you've not seen him play. And who can not forget Davidson. True, he's a walk on, but switching from Forward to D midseason? WOW, that's a tough transition. We may not have the star power, but we have the fire power. Yale is beatable if we play our game. We won't be looking past them. We can't afford to. They're not going to roll over.

SOme of those posted by Rick aren't exactly fair. I don't see Shawn-O's post, for example, to be all that unkind to Hakstol and crew. It wasn't like ticklethetwine's comment about "fire his @ss" Many of them were just frustration run amok. I didn't think we'd see home ice in the playoffs, but again, I didn't question Hakstol over the results. Sometimes good teams don't get good results. I understand that this is the college game and not the pros. In the pros, teams can cut/fire/trade/bench players who aren't doing their jobs. In college, all we can do really is bench them. In very rare occasions they're asked to transfer or lose scholarship money. UND has had two such cases: Chris Fournier and Josh Siembida. So, it's become the coaches that get the blame. I get frustrated when Hakstol gets blamed for loses when the players go out there and get the looks at the net they want but can't convert. We could've beaten BC, swept the season series vs. Minnesota, beat Miami, etc. if we had simply converted those plays and recognized their pushes when they happened. But that's a function of the players, not the coaches. If a coach draws up a bunch of plays and implements them with near perfection only to see the puck hop over the stick, a player fall down, a stick break, an untimely whiff, or a hiccup in timing, how is that the coach's fault? The fact is, after the Broadmoor Championship game, the team got together and accepted the award AS A TEAM. And that's the key. The Sioux win as a team. They lose as a team. There is no individual to blame. They lost because they, as a team, were outplayed by another team. Sorry to oversimplify, but that's really, the most basic explanation.

I agree. If Blais had still been the head coach, SCSU would have given up before the game even started granting us a 1-0 victory without ever playing. In fact, Yale would now be calling in to the NCAA to say "Thanks for the honor, but we can't win against Blais. We forfeit." I'm lovin' this.

Take my outlook on it: I pick with my heart and not my brains. Every year I've picked with my brain I've finished all but dead last. The best year I had I just said "screw it" and started picking based on whether or not I liked the team better or not. I mainly join to dilute the odds. I figure I'm ok as long as Whistler and Goon don't win. If they do, I'll never hear the end of it.

Or maybe his stance is irrelevant and he just wants to cause a stir amongst us and get us all riled up... Because all he has to do is to post ANYTHING and that's accomplished. He could post the score of the latest NCAA bouncyball tourney game and it would get a rise. He goes away when we ignore him. The more we "reason" with him, the more he comes around because he loves stirring the pot. Good grief people. Sometimes it isn't the message at all. It's the fun of causing others, right or wrong, discomfort.

Please alter your post. We don't need him fouling up the hockey forum. Thanks

You can have it. I doubt it will transpire. I still feel like Alaska is a paper tiger along with UAH. RIT got a real bummer draw or they'd be my pick to be the #4 seed with the best possibility of upsetting a #1. You heard me... I think RIT is better than Alaska but Alaska is in a stronger conference. And no, I don't care what the comparisons are.

That would be a nice upset.

Don't join the bracket contest. I want my picks to be winners. I don't want to share the spoils. Michigan is playing extremely well. Which means they could steamroll BSU...if they didn't "Shoot their stuff" at the CCHA tourney. Unfortunately, I picked Miami over Michigan to advance to the Frozen Four. I think NMU and Michigan are the most likely to upset. Yale was a better draw for us than Michigan basically because Michigan is playing so well and Yale has hit a bump in the road against...Brown or Union (can't remember off hand). Can't overlook Yale, but I think we can beat them easier than if we would have faced off against Michigan.

I think, other than Clarkson, NMU presents the latest and greatest chance for SCSU to end that reputation. That being said, I picked NMU. No offense Exiled One

HOLY CRAP HE'S BACK!

dagies- You pegged the UW/SCSU tilt though... score maybe not, but victor yes.

UW vs DU, in my opinion, is going to be a boring game. NEITHER team has anything to play for. I'd love to see a tie. 0-0 Dress as many D as they can and rest everyone on their top lines. HEck, top two if they can.

ok, here's my scenario: Michigan wins the CCHA, Miami gets 3rd Cornell wins the ECACHLMAO and Brown gets 3rd UND wins the WCHA and DU gets 3rd RIT wins the AHA Maine wins HEA Hello #3 in the PWR. BC drops to #6. 3 of 4 #1 seeds are #1 seeds (UND, DU, UW). UND still a #1 seed in the above scenario if UW wins 3rd over DU. If BC beats Maine, then BC is a #1 seed. I am beginning to think that the only way we can become a #1 seed is if BC loses. Though making it interesting using my above scenario: If SCSU and Maine win the WCHA and HEA respectively, both UND and BC will become #2 seeds.. but that's mythical because then SCSU will become a #1 seed... When is the last time a #1 seed was one and done?

It was mentioned that Marto was wearing a letter again....