Mariucci

I know UND fans just look at this as an excuse, but this is at least partly why the Gophers sucked in 3rd place games at the Final Five. That's a tough turnaround for any team. I can't believe anyone still thinks 3rd place games are a good idea. BTW, if you guys could please beat SCSU and then make sure Miami/DU does the same on Saturday that would be appreciated.

Yep you're right, it was the 93-94 season. Jamie Ram stood on his head for MTU ending the WCHA champs season.

After CC won the MacNaughton in '95 but missed out on the NCAA's, they actually did change the rule the following year so that the league champ received an auto-bid but IIRC it didn't last long and it didn't really work. Conference tournaments need to mean something so they kept the auto-bid for that as well which meant there were too many auto-bids and the logistics just didn't work. I think too many at large teams got screwed that way. I'm just basing this off memory so maybe others remember it differently but I think that's basically what happened. But there's no way that rule will change and it shouldn't. Bottom line is the Gophers put themselves in this spot, it's there job to get out of it.

Now they slipped back to 13th.

Bluecollar4 was the only one making sense. He made the error of saying UND is not D1 but he was talking about major sports.

Yep their hockey fanbase is a joke. I used to think that maybe the formation of the BIG Hockey conference would bring more interest to OSU hockey as opposed to the CCHA but so far that hasn't come close to happening. The other 5 members have good fan support but not OSU.

Hey leave me out of this! I only needle you guys here and there but we would all get along great at Sugars.

You're seem a bit obsessed with Minnesota's Pairwise ranking. Seems like half your posts on here or on GPL are complaining about Minnesota being where they are.

They got a #1 pick and then wasted it on Troy Williamson. Anything less than a 2nd round pick is not acceptable and they need to try hard for a 1st which I don't think is unrealistic.

With the year the Gophers have had they will gladly take any regional. I would like to go to Fargo and end UND's season yet again. But UND fans who want the Gophers to be there should be careful of what they wish for. It would remind me of the 2007 regional in Denver when the Gophers were a 1 seed and UND was 3 seed but we all knew it was a toss up at that point. The only reason UND was a 3rd seed is because it took half a year to get going but at the end of the year UND was as good as anyone. Now these Gophers still have a ways to go before we can say they are entirely back on track but if they make the tourney they will be going in with tons of momentum and will be the last team that anyone wants to play.

If you grow up in the Twin Cities it's pretty natural to be a Gopher fan just like you would be with the Twins or Vikings regardless of where you chose to get your higher education.

Who's Chris Dilks? Never heard of him.

How can you possibly argue that Hastings is a better college coach than Lucia? Or Motzko or Sandelin? Lucia has accomplished more than those 3 combined. And before you make the point that it's much tougher to win at Mankato, UMD, and SCSU than the U just remember that it was Lucia who turned around one of the worst programs in just ONE season at CC taking them from worst to first and made them a national power. He's already won big time at a struggling program and has won 2 NCAA titles with an elite one. Please give me your argument as to why Hastings, Motzko, and Sandelin are better coaches.

No doubt guys like Parise, Toews, and Oshie were and are better two way players than Vanek and Kessel. Parise is still the hardest working forward I've ever seen play.

I wasn't trying to hijack the thread either but that post was just blatantly biased and factually incorrect. Obviously both programs are elite when it comes to sending players to the NHL. One thing that is interesting about this is that there are 9 Gopher D-men in the NHL while there are only 2 from UND. I know the Gophers offensive style of D-men are more suitable for the NHL now but still I'm shocked that UND hasn't produced many blue liners. Probably just a fluke but weird.

One of the most preposterous statements in history of message boards. If Lucia isn't a very good coach with 2 NCAA titles then what is Hakstool? By your logic, he's a terrible coach.

Okposo, Vanek, Kessel, Wheeler, and Bjugstad.

Haha you find one example of a quote from a joke of a GM who's reputation sucks? Look, the UND poster said the Gophers can't compete with UND in regards to developing players. I simply pointed out just how dead wrong that is.

Rau very well may reach the 40 point mark for the 4th consecutive year which nowadays doesn't happen. He's absolutely a better player now than he was as a freshman even though the points may not show it. He's stronger on the puck, better defensively, a better leader. Nothing happened to Rau "along the way."

That must be why there are 16 Gophers in the NHL this year while there are 14 UND players. It must also be why 5 Gophers led their NHL teams in scoring last season while zero UND players did the same.

There were more Gopher fans in Philly last year than UND fans and by a decent margin.

I knew I'd get burned for mentioning that regional. I did NOT click your link.

And there were tons of Gopher fans at the Ralph when the regional was there as well. And a difference of 3 hours which is 6 both ways is quite a difference IMO.

Unless the regional is local, most fans can't afford to go the regional if they plan on going to the Frozen Four. It's not even an option for me. But Gopher hockey fans do travel very well to Frozen Fours regardless of location.

He mentioned age because he was commenting on Mankato being a veteran laden team. It's not an excuse, it's a simple observation.