fightingsioux4life

Winning 11 games (4 of those wins were against woeful Michigan Tech) was not fun to watch. That final season was not up tempo. You are thinking more of the late 1980's and early 1990's.

The United States produces way more players than it used to. It isn't limited to The Three M's (Minnesota, Massachusetts and Michigan) anymore.

I remember those years very well. That final year (1993-94) was very ugly.

Technically, Gino "resigned". But I think he was told "Resign or be fired".

Just an example of how an assistant in the previous regime won't necessarily do things the same.

Gino inherited a bunch of underachievers from Bjorkman and we all know how that worked out.

Opps, I have made the correction in my post. Thanks for catching that.

Letting the players run the program is not a good idea. I honestly hope Jackson works out. Otherwise, these players will shoulder a lot of the blame.

This sounds like a description of a high school program. If we wanted this, we could have just kept Berry. More of this mid-major talk. More overreaction to NIL. Denver is not a big-time, Power 4 school (not even close). But they have won three NCAA titles in the last seven years (minus the COVID year). There are only nine Power 4 schools that sponsor Division I hockey: The seven B1G schools, plus Arizona State and Boston College. I honestly don't think the future of the NCAA tournament will feature those schools taking turns winning Natty's while everyone else settles for being their stepping stones. The 1883 Collective should have been started earlier and we need to build it up substantially. I want that card in our deck. But Division I hockey is not FB, MBB or even WBB. Most NIL money will go to FB, with basketball being second. All other sports will be way down the list and not even noticed by most people. Our current problems can be boiled down to three things: 1) An athletic department with rudderless leadership that is very slow to react to changing circumstances in college athletics. I honestly don't think a true national search was ever conducted here. Chaves did what he always does, push the easy button. It's disappointing and it's why I have been calling for his dismissal for about a year now. Hopefully Jackson is up to the task. 2) Having a head coach who is a nice guy, but simply wasn't head coaching material and was much better as an assistant. Berry is a great human being, but simply does not have the skill set to be an effective head coach at the Division I level. I do wish him well in whatever he does next. 3) Having that previously described coach stay too long. I think Blais had it right: 10 years in one place is long enough. Berry was here 10 years. The last 8 of those years were very underwhelming when it came to national level success, which Denver has had no problem achieving during that time frame. Let's not push the panic button and assume that our best days are behind us. They don't have to be. Success is a choice. So is mediocrity. Let's make the right choice.

And that is unacceptable. We need to get our mojo back. I don't think we know how attractive this job is because there wasn't a true national search done. If we took the time to conduct a national search, I think we'd have a solid group of candidates.

Yes we were. I work at UND and the kids I am around weren't even born when 9/11 happened. Crazy

😆

I hear you. I turn 51 on May 13th. I recently had my first colonoscopy (everything turned out fine). Time just zooms by the older we get

Yes, I miss being in the mix in March and April. And I hope we nail this hire so we can get back to those days. I'm just frustrated right now. There are so many challenges in college athletics and I really don't want UND to fade away into the yellowed pages of history. Nothing personal towards you or anyone else here; it's just disheartening to see what's happened to UND athletics. The respect is mutual, btw.

Fair or not, Nattys are what people remember. It's what our fan base used to care about. We have gotten soft and complacent over the years. It's very disheartening. And I honestly care more about the success of this program than what our players do at the next level. I honestly don't care about the NHL. This isn't an AHL franchise. If it's Jackson, I will root for him and the team like always. But if he doesn't have a plan to turn this around, we'll be having this conversation again in a couple of years

Enough of this "one and done" baloney. It's just an excuse. Denver doesn't seem to have a problem winning Natty's. Three national titles since our last in 2016. That isn't "luck", that's good recruiting, development and game planning. Something we used to be good at Jackson may end up being a home run hire. I just don't want Berry 2.0

That's crap. Denver fired Gwozdecky in part because of lack of national success in his later years. Results matter. Whether it's UND or Denver or any other high level collegiate athletic program.

Don't like what I post? Don't read it. Problem solved.

So it's all on me? What have you done? We can trade barbs back and forth all we want, but the people responsible for all this are Armacost and Chaves. Not us.

Act tough? Expressing my growing frustration with a horribly underperforming athletic department isn't an "act". It's a sentiment shared by a lot of other people. And what's "so damn cringe" is the passive and apathetic approach to UND athletics that this institution has adopted since moving up to Division I over 15 years ago. I'm sick of the alibis. I'm sick of the excuses. I'm sick of the losing. I'm sick of being the laughingstock of the Dakotas, while the "My oh my" show keeps rolling along 75 miles south of UND's campus. Maybe if you would spend more time paying attention to all this and less time complaining about my dissatisfaction, you'd get why some of us are thermonuclear p!$$ed about the state of UND athletics.

Personal attacks? Nope, just an observation based on your previous posts on this forum. You have repeatedly defended this athletic department and its director despite a total lack of results in the programs under its purview. Pointing that out isn't a personal attack, it's a simple observation. It's not personal, it's strictly business (I've been watching The Godfather movies again).

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Always from your barstool at Judy's, right?

He's an intriguing option, that's for sure.

Just keep shilling for this horribly run department. You think you sound like the responsible adult in the room, but all you sound like is Chaves' waterboy. By the way, please tell us again about those amazing Alston Awards.