Mariucci

I would be surprised as well but they have the pieces in place to build a solid program over time. They've definitely made a strong committment.

Penn State will be good a lot faster than most think. Terrific brand new arena and an excited fanbase. Anyone see their home opener against Army? Place was packed(over 6300 capacity) with a great atmosphere. Not to mention they're already a pretty decent team. Won't take them long at all.

I don't understand what has happened to Mattson. Huge recruit who the gophers wanted, I was really sad to see him choose UND at the time but now he's a possible healthy scratch as an upper classman? Never saw that coming a few years ago thats for sure.

How does the NHL think that a pre-season suspension means anything? You can't swing your stick at a player like that, he should get a regular season suspension.

Nobody's picking UW in the Big Ten? One of the best teams in the nation in the second half last season and they return a lot. I'm picking UND to win the NCHC. Not sure why but I just don't trust Miami for some reason and I think the Sioux are a bit underrated. I also think Gothberg shows this year why he was so highly touted coming out of the USHL. He's better than what he showed last year.

Yep good post. The freshman forwards this year are sick and they're coming in at the perfect time. Cammaratta and Kloos should both make immediate impacts and Fasching, Guertler, and Connor Reilly are very good as well.

I guess I'm not too surprised considering the rosters coming back for this year. Tough to pick the Gophers winning a league after they lose Bjugstad, Schmidt, Alt, Budish, Haula, etc.

Good post and ill move on.

Here it is.....

Not related to hockey I didn't. In fact I said the opposite. I said UND-MN match-up would be a much bigger deal locally than OSU.

Wrong Goon. Not once did I or anyone else say OSU is a bigger deal than UND, not once. You make up straw man arguments and then argue against something that was never there.

Umm no Im not and I never did. Im simply looking at attendance numbers and the fact that OSU is 19th out of 56 schools shows its not as bad as people think.

Then why didn't they build a bigger arena? It's only a few years old. They knew exactly how big to make it. If it was any bigger they would have a ton of empty seats.

Umm yes I did check the national attendance records Einstein. Where the hell do you think Im pulling these numbers from? They're 19th in the nation ahead of 2 schools from your conference. In all my years of message boards Ive never come across anyone who's posts are so easy to pick apart and destroy like Goon's. It's like arguing with a 5 year old.

Exactly. Why would an OSU fan have any interest in watching them play Northern Michigan or Lake State? There is no doubt their numbers should improve with more recognizable opponents which the Big Ten will provide.

If Ohio State was added to the NCHC they would rank 7th out of 9 teams, barely behind 6th.

No because at those schools the hockey team is top dog where as at OSU it's probably 4th most popular sport on campus after football, basketball, and women's basketball. And yet they still outdraw a couple teams from the NCHC.

You mean very NCHC type attendance numbers? Because they're right on par with Miami(OH), W. Michigan, and SCSU.

It's very disingenuous of you to look at percent of capacity filled. They play in one of if not the biggest arena in the country. You continue to rip their attendance levels when in fact they average over 4k per game which was 19th in the nation last year. They average more fans per game than Miami of Ohio and Western Michigan and only 400 less than SCSU, all 3 are NCHC teams. So while you continue to denegrade the Big Ten hockey conference based on OSU's attendance maybe you should start looking at your own conferences putrid attendance numbers.

That would suck. But if my assumption is correct that Guentzel is our next coach then I suppose it makes sense that Grant would eventually get an opportunity somehwhere else. It's still pretty early in his career though to be talking about being the head man at a premier program but I think he has great potential. He was maybe the best captain the Gophers have ever had.

Not sure how many times this needs to be repeated but there were only 6 Woog recruits left in 2002 and 1 in 2003 who didn't even play(Nick Anthony).

I needed a laugh today thanks! And I don't know about skating through cement or paper walls but I do know that Lucia's players skated hard enough to put a couple rings on his fingers.

No chance.

I don't even know how to reply to such a bizarre statement like this. In fact I can't, it's just too dumb,

The answer is nothing is more appealing about this one compared to the others. But it's pretty telling that schools consistently are picking to play OSU in these games that are advertised for months leading up to the game isn't it?