ubish

I read a stat that said WMU was 5-7 vs #1 teams the last 12 times we've played one. We always seem to get up for the big teams, and then lose to CC.

This is the type of game where we'll miss Andy for sure. I do expect our team to open things up a little more than in previous seasons. I think you'll see more goals, and more creativity offensively. Hopefully that also means more wins. I'm tired of all of the other NCHC teams having fun in the tournament while we stay at home at #16 or 17 in the pairwise.

I expect we'll get at least one win against them, but have a strong feeling we may sweep. They have a ton of talent, and might be looking ahead of "little" Western Michigan. That Saturday Lawson crowd is going to be nuts.

Andy gives up some of his life essence every year to keep his players from getting older. So far it has had no noticeable effect on his own aging........

WMU's team was the same this past season. We knew they would take some time to gel, which isn't a very good time to play so many teams so quickly in the pod. The Bussi injury was just salt in the wound.

I just checked. WMU finished 6-7-0 vs top 5 teams Other teams in the NCHC vs top 5 teams St. Cloud - 6-4-0 (7-5-0 including NCAA tournament) UMD - 2-6-1 (3-7-1 including NCAA tournament) UND - 3-1-1 (3-2-1 including NCAA tournament) Omaha - 3-6-1 Denver - 2-9-0 Miami - 1-12-0 CC - 2-7-0 I'm not saying that WMU should have been a top 5 team, but there is a enough talent on this team to beat top teams night after night. The consistency wasn't there due to goalie problems and a huge freshman class, but everyone should be older and theoretically they'll be playing more like they did at the end of the year when they went 8-4-1 rather than at the beginning of the year when they went 2-8-2.

They were awful to start the year, no doubt about that but they finished with 6 wins over top five teams. There aren't many other teams in the country that could say that this past season.

Probably not the first time those words have been put together like that

If you guys are interested in a Goalie, WMU's Austin Cain has entered the portal...........

Some day these guys are going to run out of luck. I guess today is not that day.

I almost ran over Rico Blasi in 2012 at Joe Louis Arena before WMU's CCHA championship game against Michigan. I was hurrying and it was dark as the roadway went underneath the arena. He didn't look both ways (was probably half asleep from having to play BG for 3rd place) and I had to slam on my brakes to avoid making a blasi mark on the pavement. Anyway, we beat Michigan to take the title later that evening (which is pretty much the best feeling in the world) and I almost forgot about that "incident".

lol @ Andy's boys. Now I'm picturing this on the bottom of all the player's skates.

That's a really good point actually. They had to split the "groups" somehow, but it was rather uneven this year. It would have been helpful for you guys if you would have had the opportunity to play the top teams in our league more than just a handful of times. That said, I'm thankful that WMU wasn't stuck in a group with SCSU, Duluth, AND North Dakota.

6 of WMUs 10 wins came against frozen four teams. But there were some pretty bad losses early in the season that knocked them out of the discussion.

Wait a minute now, WMU has never finished at the bottom (though we did have a couple of tough years early on finishing 7th). The rest of the time we've usually been in the top 4, with a couple of 3rd place finishes in there. I don't think Tech or Bemidji would have done any better than that. We just haven't had any success in the post season (ncaas or frozen faceoff) and so it's easy to forget about those teams.

I wouldn't mind seeing SCSU take the title as they were a late comer to the NCHC (along with us). I'm really fine with anyone winning as long as it's not Mankato. There is a very vocal minority of WMU fans who think we should have gone to the WCHA, and a WCHA national title will finally give them some positives about that conference to bring up.

This exactly. We'd trade anything to have had 1/10th of your success. WMU is rarely in the NCAAs, and we've never won a game when we've been in. It's literally been nothing but an occasional conference championship and some pretty close "almost" moments. Enjoy what you have.

It was the most "western" way to lose a game ever. Oh well, maybe next year.... ugh....

I agree that WMU - UMD is a toss up. I would have rather played SCSU to be honest, but oh well. For WMU Bussi is back in the lineup and looks to be healthy and we're getting hot at the right time. It's been too many damn years since we last lost in the 1st round of the NCAA tournament. I'm hoping we make a little run this year and sneak in.

Only family members. We're keeping things as safe as possible over here.

Can we play these games at Lawson instead of the Ralph? .... please?

After their first series with Arizona State, I saw some Michigan fans saying they could have the best college hockey team ever assembled..... Those guys are simply the worst. But I hate Minnesota now too because of fleck, so eff em both! I hope Mninnesota goes undefeated and loses to AIC or Colgate or something in the 1st round of the tournament (if we have one this year).

I'm not sure which fan site you were looking at, but most of us believe the NCHC is the right place for the program. There is one idiot who keeps talking about how he wanted us in the WCHA, but the NCHC has really given the program an opportunity to grow. No way we would have been able to bring in the talent we've been bringing in if we were playing LSSU and Bemidji every night. The team last year had the talent to beat any team in the country (and with a Detroit frozen four anything was possible). I'm still upset at the timing of this whole Covid thing cancelling the season last year.

He's out the entire pod, so yeah..... this is going to be a fun couple of weeks....

They had a similar thing with us when they left the CCHA. Red wouldn't schedule us unless we played both games at Yost. Murray told him to F off and so we only got to beat them when we were invited to the GLI. That changed when Red retired.