fightingsioux4life

Look, SCSU was in the WCHA with us and SCSU will be in the NCHC with us. And, like I have said before, it will irritate the Goofer faithful almost as much as UND winning it. I honestly don't know why people in our fan base hate SCSU. I have very little problem with their team, their coach or their fan base.

I pointed out a year ago that it would take Brock Nelson some time to get promoted to the NHL and I was basically thrown under the bus for saying it. Having said that, I think he'll get there in time.

I want St. Cloud to win it. They are joining us in the NCHC next year, they have waited a long time for this and (best of all) it would annoy the Goofer faithful big-time!

Nope. The Final Five was enough of a trip for me.

So college hockey is no different than the NHL now? Maybe we should just start paying players salaries and get it over with. Over-recruiting is a bad idea. Wisconsin has tried it and it really didn't help them all that much. And if you develop a reputation of being wishy-washy on committments, you run the risk of driving kids to the CHL. I think that situation is bad enough as it is. And other schools will start using that against us in recruiting. Accepting transfers from other schools is tricky and can mess up team chemistry and divide the locker room. I hope Hakstol proceeds very carefully.

I have pointed that out before and all I get is static for saying it. Oh, and one more thing...........PANZER WAS ROBBED IN 2001!!!

Yeah, that's better!

Unless you start paying people to go to games, all that BTN money won't help improve attendance, alumni donations or fan enthusiasm. I am willing to bet that Ohio State's spring football game draws better than any Ohio State hockey game. I hope the Big Ten Hockey Conference is a huge success, as that would strengthen the game as a whole. I just don't know if a 6 team league has enough depth in terms of quality teams.

Let's see how they do next week. If they get smoked 6-1, a lot of the Yale cheerleaders on this forum are going to look silly.

I agree with you 100%, but don't think you'll change the minds of the "In Hak we trust" crowd. There is a whole generation of fans that weren't even alive the last time this program was King of the Mountain. And they are being taught that it really doesn't matter if it never happens again. And that is simply not the program I grew up watching and supporting. I have said it before and I will continue saying it no matter how much I get ripped for saying it: The longer we go without an NCAA title, the more it will negatively impact recruiting and the overall image of the program. Kids will start passing up UND in favor of programs with more national success, if it hasn't started happening already. At some point in the future, something has to give or else we run the risk of becoming an also-ran, has-been program. We were there in the early 1990's and it was ugly and painful. I don't want to go back to that.

I am thinking it was a dispute over money and contract terms, not on-ice performance. But I could be wrong about that. Office politics sometimes trumps winning games and championships. Stupid, but a fact of life.

19 years is a long time to be doing a job like this; can't blame him for wanting a change of scenery. Good luck to him.

We were lucky to have the lead as long as we did. Saunders played very well, but he can't score the goals for us and he can't play defense on the blue line. We looked like absolute garbage for most of the game and that is a fact. And the fact that this is "just a game" doesn't mean we are not allowed to celebrate every win and mourn every loss. If you don't have anything vested in the team and the program as a whole, then why even watch? Go preach to someone else, I am not in the mood.

Nice that not every program wets the bed at the prospect of playing Boston College.

The fact that he has filled the trophy case with NCAA titles means he has earned some slack for the occasional playoff failure. Hakstol cannot say the same thing.

We played like garbage. Simple as that.

Union just took a 3-0 lead on Boston College early in the second period. If we were playing them, I am guessing we would just shoot it into the goalie's chest all night and then see the "hot goalie" excuse get used for the next seven months by a good chunk of our fan base and the media.

Assuming they don't bolt for Don Cherry's Playland (a.k.a. CHL).

This is where the players get all this crap. I honestly cannot stand listening to a Hakstol interview, it's the same tired old crap over and over and over. "Work extremely hard.....accountability up and down the lineup....blah, blah, blah". How about some accountability at the top of the food chain? Because too many of our fans don't think it belongs there at all.

But that isn't "defensive" enough, so they won't ever do it.

I respect you as a fan and poster, but this is pure alibi-spouting nonsense. It does the program absolutely no good to keep sugar-coating problems so that they go down the hatch easier. I am so sick and tired of all the alibis and excuses over the past nine years; at some point it needs to stop.

The Hakstol-Hale-O'Keefe Dynasty. And dynasties usually don't fall without collapsing first. Let's hope we don't have to endure that.

That is what I am thinking as well. This program is slowly, but surely, atrophying. Gino was sacked after three losing seasons, but the process began several years before that. The NCHC will have depth and talent throughout and will be, I think, much harder than the WCHA was this year. Hak and company are facing a crucial year in 2013-14.

Blais is about ready for retirement. We need to find someone young and hungry with a fire in the belly.

Fair enough. And no, it isn't easy, that is why Hakstol is getting six-figures a year to run this program.