siouxfan512

I was talking about the initial contact

I've never been a big Bucci fan, but if he is right, I'll appreciate him a bit more. The thing with a guy like Mckenna is that even if you only have him for a year, he can help jump start a program, which is what UND needs. Jump start the existing talent. Jump start the incoming talent. Jump start the winning mentality. It doesn't all rely on him but having a high-end talent that can score and flash and generate excitement and buzz and HELP WIN is something we need right now. My son is a huge UND hockey fan, and I forget that he isn't old enough to really know or understand the Hak years, and what it was like to expect to be in the tourney every year, and a letdown was not making the Frozen Four. Yes, I know he never won a championship, but every year you felt the team was capable. It would be nice to get back to being a perennial top team. I liked Berry as a guy, but apart from winning that first championship .... -Lost our streak hosting the playoffs in the first round ... then put us on the road multiple time. -Had us drop out of the rankings altogether multiple times. -Destroyed the business suit mentality -Recruiting tailed off -Multiple situations of guys having issues with each other off the ice. -Etc. ...Those are all things that contribute to a programs overall culture, and the last 10 years were very different that the 10+ years prior. Hopefully Dane can get us back to being a top team and quick!

Didn't look like a cheap shot or anything. Guy was lining him up, he lost an edge and took the worst of it. Glad he was ok and glad to see him keep scoring though.

Fair enough. Its a quite time now that the Frozen Four is over ... I'm impatient and curious. Still curious if there are some other names or who it will be.

Why do we not have another assistant coach yet? -Wasn't expecting Smaby, but if we were going that route, wouldn't it have already happened? -Was hopeful of Herter, but now that the season is over, wouldn't this also have happened? -Who are we leaning towards here?

I see what you did there.

Really? I though Langden College was supposed to be a real dude. Is he not developing or just wanting something else?

Also going to throw it out that with ESPN, you would get to watch ALL NCHC games, whereas through the NCHC app you have to pay extra for the full subscription rather than the UND only one ..... Unless the NCHC maintains their app and only select games get shown on the ESPN channels.

ESPN would be fantastic. I already have the Disney+/Hulu/ESPN bundle for kids and to watch UND football games. Toss hockey on there as well!

Can we put that on a banner?

100% I've thought the same thing. Go back to the Parise/Lamoruex/Eidsness/Dell days. It seems like we had goalies that just kept setting records at UND. Now we can't recruit anyone and have to backfill with the portal, which has been mediocre. I hope Homer does well. but then I hope Heil can dominate and we can start recruiting our own guys for the most part.

I'm not sure about the 1 year transfer without conditions. Making them sit a year like they used to might make them more committed in the first place. On the other hand, if they know they only have one transfer, maybe they would have a different approach to where they commit in the first place. Regardless, something needs to change. Not just for hockey but for everything. The college level free agency is stupid and even the NCAA knows it. Hopefully they can reel it back in over the next few years. NIL needs to be reeled in as well. I'm fine with kids making some money to live comfortably and support themselves. These sports are their jobs and they can't exactly go work off campus jobs like other students ... they don't have the time. BUT when you have players making millions of dollars to play college (Sanders, Manning, Etc.) .... well, its just a joke. Thats why you play pro, not college.

you have us losing to Valpo too? Rest of the season will be fun though!

The nice thing about college sports is that it doesn't have to take long to turn a team around. Keep a few, recruit a few, transfer in a few, have a few step up ..... then you see what the coaching can do. Obviously, it's not that simple, but I'm interested to see how this all looks in a month. The one positive with Jackson, he saw what it took under Hak, and he saw how Bubs operated. Hopefully he knows how to connect the dots. It would be really nice to make a splash in the portal this year to help rebuild a bit and then get back to recruiting and retaining. I do think it would be nice to get back to recruiting dominant goalies. Would have thought KG would have helped more with that, but I feel like it has been a while since we have had that. Hopefully Heil will be good but think about the string of goalies we had that were setting records back in the Hak days. Lamoreoux, Eidsness, Dell, Etc. Any thoughts on when we will hear about assistant coaches? I know it's a long shot, but I'm hoping that if we haven't heard yet, it is because they are still coaching.

And I may be thinking of a few specific scenarios where I saw speed versus throughout the whole lineup, but in general, I just never felt like a saw any speed on our roster outside of James.

Wow! I turned the game off last night when the Gopher went up 3-1 and woke up to see a pretty awesome score. If I can't enjoy a UND win, I guess I will settle for a Gopher loss. On top of that, a lot of good games yesterday (would have liked a BU loss). I will say, Gophers have some really good players! Snuggerud's goal was pretty sweet. Watching all of the games yesterday just demonstrated the crazy lack of speed UND has right now. Gopher, Mass, Mankato, Western all looked fast, and had a few guys that could really kick it into the next gear. Maybe UND had more speed than we saw but just lacked the chemistry or style to complete a pass in stride .... Who knows, but my expectations for this program are definitely more than what we have seen. This team reminds me of when we had guys like Janatuinen, Hoff, Jones, Yon, Bowen, etc. as upperclassmen, along with a few others. There were some flashes of skill, but they never seemed to be a cohesive group and watching the game it just never passed the eye test. Hopefully some more solid games today. Now if we could just get a Bentley and Providence win today, I'll be really happy.

Why? The last Gopher that coached us did just fine.

What is the story with Teiken?!? He was supposed to be a big part of the future.

Do we have a full list of incoming transfers that we can keep running?

Agreed, very fun to watch him come in and make some huge runs in garbage time ... he was always a kid you wanted to seem break through and be an impact player, but there was a reason we only saw him in garbage time. More excited to see if Brunell can add weight and strength and be a due and interested to see what the Maple Grove kid brings. I think fans get disappointed to see players leave because they are familiar with them, not because they are always high talent. We weren't all that familiar with Hoosman before he got here, and that worked out just fine. I'm more excited with what this staff may put together than I am with the potential of Hunt.

Agreed, though the Gonzaga game a few years ago was pretty solid, and UND almost had that one too!

I would love to get back into it, but haven't been able to watch consistently since the Hooker/Crandall days. I'm not a big basketball person in general, but I'd love to watch UND get competitive again.

Only got to watch a chunk of the first half as I had beer league hockey, but wow! Thought it would have been the typical us getting down early and never recovering. I hate more victories, but this is a little different. Love that the Bama fans in the twittersphere are begging for Bama to get Eaglestaff to Tuscaloosa. Don't care if that happens or not ... obviously prefer if he sticks around, but great exposure for the school, the program and the kid. Hell of a showing by this team. If they could just parlay this performance into their upcoming games, they might have something.

Always! There are still some Bison fans complaining about Cam Miller, and he has been nothing but solid for them.

Question to those with more football knowledge than myself. - Do we have enough talent within the defense to get better results next year with a coach or scheme change? -Do we need to push some of these kids towards the portal and look to back fill through our recruits and portal additions? -It seems like it has been so long since we have had a really strong defense, does this just need to be blown up and re-started? Seemed like we have something with a few of our LBs, D-Line just always seems too small. Safeties seemed to be inexperienced, and while I was pumped for some of the guys we had at CB, we always seem to give guys wayyyy too much cushion (maybe that is a scheme or coaching problem).