OshieRoll

Olson

So are these his new top 5 then? If so, it looks like Wisco dropped off and Minnesota was added. I could be wrong but I seem to remember Wisco being on his list and not Minnesota before.

Doesn't the captain get two days though? Not saying its coming here because I'm sure there would have been a press release but it's still technically possible.

Obvious choice and well deserved IMO.

However you feel about the Wisconsin and the BIG10 you can't argue that Eaves and his staff have been extremely successful at developing NHL defenseman. They tied BC for the most players in the NHL last year. As a defenseman and someone who I assume wants to play in the NHL someday that has to hold some appeal to Fabbro. Since he is Canadian and also appears to have at least some connections I don't think it is too crazy for him to list them in his top 3. A top three is a huge difference from committing to them. Do I think he will end up going to Wisco? Who knows? He is still deciding if he even wants to go the NCAA route from what I've read (unless this top 3 means he has decided on going the college route). And that concludes the first and last time I will ever defend Wisconsin. He seems to be a decently smart kid based on the fact he visited both Yale and Harvard so I hope at the end of the day he make a smart choice and decides to join the good guys.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/avs/2015/06/22/coach-gwoz-chooses-free-agency-departs-tampa-bay-lightning-staff/21582/ Based on this article he doesn't have anything planned but he would work for the Avs if they called. A coaching staff that includes Patrick Roy and Gwoz would certainly be interesting to say the least.

I understand the sentiment that there have been several great players who were flops as coaches but I think there is a whole lot more to the argument than just labeling the worst athletes as the guys who would make the best coaches. There are plenty of guys who were good/great players that did work out as coaches (Mike Ditka, Jacques Lemaire, Phil Jackson, Joe Torre, Steve Spurrier, Don Mattingly and possibly Paul Molitor just to name a few). There is also an extremely long list of crappy players who were crappy coaches. I think people just remember the better players who suck as coaches because they already knew the names. I think a big part of the problem for the great players is that they have huge expectations on them. Gretzky went almost straight from playing to being a head coach and he was expected to be a savior for that franchise. He didn't have the luxury of gaining the 14 years of coaching experience that a guy like Mike Babcock got before being thrusted into the NHL head coaching spotlight. There are also many other factors such as attitude, intelligence and patience that go into being a good coach as well. I think you have to take it more on a case-by-case basis rather than just using the success someone had as an athlete.

Yale has 1 national championship in 122 years. Is that really what you want?

It seems like people have turned their attention to blaming Toews/Oshie/Parise/Nelson/Schmaltz and so on for us not having a recent natty because Hak is no longer here. Pretty pathetic if you ask me. We have always had a good mix of stars and blue-collar guys.

Or Berry could be an 8-time finalist for the Spencer Penrose Award as national coach of the year... We can play this stupid game all day and it's not going to accomplish anything. We don't know how Berry will do and there is no point in bashing Hak now that he is gone. Take your negativity elsewhere.

The weird thing about this is that among the famous alumni of that program there is a familiar name... Ron Hextall

I think Toews does enough for this program even without setting foot in Grand Forks. There was just a big article on ESPN in March about the impact he still has on the university and the team. I don't know about you but I think a Children's Hospital is a pretty good place to bring the cup. Like Yzerman said, you can't really knock the guy for that.

Mike Yeo made around 600K on his first contract and I think that is a pretty good comparison salary-wise. Add in the fact that coaches are going to start getting paid more as part of the Babcock contract fallout along with the fact that Hak was Hextall's "guy" and he turned him down twice and I think we are looking at a contract in the 700k-800k range. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if it went north of that either. Obviously, something besides the opportunity to coach in the NHL pried him away and I'm guessing that it was money. Even with gfhockey calling for his head every 2 seconds he had a safe job and something incredible must have been offered for him to leave that safety net and his alma mater.

I just watched the Berry presser and he said the first offer was 3 weeks ago.

I wonder if the results would be much different if we did this exercise using the actual host sites during the same time-frame. It seems like the same couple schools/site are the primary benefactors in the current format. Providence, South Bend and Worcester seem to be the hosts every year and I'm guessing there were less than the 20 different sites under the top-seed scenario. Just playing devils advocate but it seems like a handful of schools are going to be the primary beneficiaries no matter what the system is so why not play in front of a crowd? It's probably not every going to ever happen but I would just settle for having more than one regional west of the Mississippi every once and awhile.

If its strictly a business decision wouldn't you fight for one of the most popular and recognizable logos in college hockey? If you want to make this about business and not about the other extenuating circumstances then there is no question that we should have kept the logo because it was extremely popular and it sold well. Under your scenario businessman Ralph would have most likely sold the casino because it wouldn't be "his" anymore and he might as well spend his money in the exact way he wanted to. You can't sell an athletic department so it is pretty much apples to oranges like InHeavenThereIsNoBeer suggested. Businesses change names every day while schools generally don't change nicknames very often. And honestly if you were to compare UND hockey to a casino shouldn't we pick something better or at least more recognizable than the Imperial Palace? I think we would be more like the Bellagio or Caesar's Palace rather than the Imperial Palace. I know the connection there is to Ralph but its such a bland name that a name change would probably help it be more recognizable. Its the casino equivalent to having your team being nicknamed the Tigers or the Warriors.

Kinda ironic coming from someone using the name Siouxperfan... I think I would keep the logo and roll the dice on more success in the long run. There is no guarantee either way but I feel like getting the nickname back would bring just as much joy as a natty would and then after that who knows what could happen.

That's why I said there was a lot of money behind it... I clearly understand it. My point is that we can't really point a finger at them for retiring a number of a guy who only played one year when we retired a number of a guy that played even less for us. That's it.

Texas has a policy of retiring the number for anyone that wins National Player of the Year, which Durant did. He is without a doubt the biggest name to come through that program. Also, I know there is a lot of $$$$$$ behind it but we retired the jersey number of a guy that only played 14 games for us. Not saying that #23 shouldn't be retired but just that we have also retired a number of a guy that didn't play very much for us.

My bad... I always get those two mixed up.

It was interesting to see which guys they sent along for this trip: Jason Blake: From Moorhead and played at UND Tony Gasparini: US Scout and, oh yeah, he is Gino's kid. He brought the Stanley cup to the Ralph in 2014. Nelson Emerson: Director of Player Development. Played 4 years at Bowling Green and was a 3-time Hobey finalist. Mike O'Connell: Key member of Development Staff. No connection to UND or college hockey but he's a Chicago native and the former GM of the Bruins. I think the top two guys are the best two they could have sent for our sake.

Still better than this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8v8C3scwvg Or this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svVzwxsGBmM We all have our opinions about who we like and that's fine. If you don't like Bucci that's fine but it could be A LOT worse. Either way he isn't going anywhere and for the sake of our team we should all hope we have him calling several of our games down the road. Now back to not talking about hockey announcers.

He was the least likely of those 3 Juniors to leave since he was their captain last year.

I regret teaching you what sound a cricket makes... Next week I think I'm going to teach you what sound a cow makes.

The guy that has the unfortunate luck of sitting one bar stool over from you is not a connection.