Providence @ UND

[AlphaMikeFoxtrot]

4 minutes ago, gfhockey said:

carle doesn’t even have the facilities we do and nails 3 nattys more then any und coach has

 

whlnever saying carle is a equal coach to berry I want some of that what your smoking

could be the blasfamus statement of the year candidate

 

[petey23]

8 hours ago, .357 said:

This is what concerns me. It seems like the team as a whole is unable to be self-motivated & requires an external circumstance to kick it into higher gear .. like the late shot by a Friar player. It baffles me to no end how this can happen, not just by a couple of players but by most of the team. It's as if they're in a trance for long stretches.

Clearly what Berry is telling them in the locker room is not translating to the ice. Part of the reason I included that quote on Gasparini earlier was to highlight what should be expected of a coach at UND: to always have your team competing at the highest level, something Gino was a master of & which Berry is still trying to figure out.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this team will never go far in the tourney if they can't be self-motivated to play a full 60. The win against Providence felt good, but one swallow does not make a summer. They simply cannot have that lackadaisical approach, because every team they face will be playing at a higher level to try & beat them. Having that ho-hum attitude against PWR-killers like Robert Morris or Bemidji St. will put a serious dent in their playoff hopes. Showing up to play every night for the entire game should be a given.

An off night here & there happens, but the repeated pattern of non-urgency for long stretches is a legitimate concern. The team will not be hanging #9 by playing only 40-50 minutes/game.

 

Providence came out ready to play but I don't think it is fair to say we weren't. We struggled at beginning of game with our breakout and their forecheck and then dropping into a trap in the neutral zone. I was happy to see us make adjustments on the fly rather than waiting until the period ended. The timing coincided with the late shot and skirmish but we had started making the changes a couple shifts earlier. We put a little trust in our defenseman and instead of trying to break out in a 5 man unit we had a couple forwards spread them out by drifting out of the zone between center ice and the far blueline. Emery made a couple beautiful tape to tape passes from the endline to the far blueline which caused them to back off on their forecheck a bit and allowed us to hit the 3rd forward skating horizontally and we were able to bypass the neutral zone mess they had been creating and started being able to enter their zone with speed.

[petey23]

16 hours ago, farce poobah said:

Gino was an amazing judge of people and talent. Winning conference and national titles in the first two seasons, combines his skill in recruiting players and bringing in excellent assistant coaches.   Rick Wilson wasn’t here long, but he went on to 30 seasons in the NHL. Dean Blais joined for the 1981-82 season.  The coaching tree is long indeed.

As athletic director, Gino hired some great coaches who revived other key sports on campus.  Roger Thomas in 1986, Rich Glas in 1988, Gene Roebuck in 1987.  

While he was leading the USHL, from 1994-2009, (as both Commissioner and later President). the league experienced growth and was set up for future success.

I will stop now, but will say I was excited when we hired him as head coach some 46 years ago, and my admiration has only grown over time. 

Was going to mention Gino made some incredible coaching hires. Looking back I wonder of doing both jobs caused the Hockey program to suffer. They say recruiting catches up with you in a year or two....especially back then. Or maybe he was burnt out, but the last 3 seasons we went 40-69-6 finishing 7th, 8th, and 8th in the WCHA.

[.357]

13 minutes ago, petey23 said:

Providence came out ready to play but I don't think it is fair to say we weren't. We struggled at beginning of game with our breakout and their forecheck and then dropping into a trap in the neutral zone. I was happy to see us make adjustments on the fly rather than waiting until the period ended. The timing coincided with the late shot and skirmish but we had started making the changes a couple shifts earlier. We put a little trust in our defenseman and instead of trying to break out in a 5 man unit we had a couple forwards spread them out by drifting out of the zone between center ice and the far blueline. Emery made a couple beautiful tape to tape passes from the endline to the far blueline which caused them to back off on their forecheck a bit and allowed us to hit the 3rd forward skating horizontally and we were able to bypass the neutral zone mess they had been creating and started being able to enter their zone with speed.

Appreciate the feedback. Breakouts were a bugaboo last spring. 

[farce poobah]

3 hours ago, petey23 said:

Was going to mention Gino made some incredible coaching hires. Looking back I wonder of doing both jobs caused the Hockey program to suffer. They say recruiting catches up with you in a year or two....especially back then. Or maybe he was burnt out, but the last 3 seasons we went 40-69-6 finishing 7th, 8th, and 8th in the WCHA.

As a fan of UND Football and Basketball, I enjoyed how those 3 hires really set up UND for a nice run of success.  

Hard to say exactly why UND hockey became less competitive ... yes I think doing two jobs was asking too much of anyone, even a hard working dedicated guy like Gino.     

Also, our primary recruiting grounds in Canada, from Thunder Bay west in those days, came under pressure from the Major Juniors including higher stipends for players and post-hockey college tuition payments.  (I note that Denver suffered in those years also, and their Western Canada roots matched up with UND in those years.)   

The game changed very rapidly in the late 80's to early 90's, led by change to lighter and bigger goalie pads, which forced a lot of other strategy changes.  Perhaps we didn't recruit as well for that change either.  (Blais certainly changed it up, and pronto, when he took over in 94-95.)

[Brett0909]

8 hours ago, stoneySIOUX said:

Can you tell me why?

This is the rub of it, right? And always fun to debate on things none of us are qualified to truly judge. (Sorry, I know we were trying to return to regularly scheduled programming)..,

I’d like to think if Berry was asked about each season since his first what went wrong, he’d give you a list of big and small things every year that he would’ve changed. Just part of the process for all coaches (or any professional for that matter). He’s competing against a lot of really good coaches who all want it just as bad, after all. It’s okay if he’s not the best.

You take that list and shave off 10 or 20% of those things, and there’s a real chance that some of those seasons end differently- they make the playoffs, they make it to the FF, etc. Maybe Carle simply connects on that extra 10-20% of misses (recruiting, discipline, lines/in-game, drills and focus, mental aspects, etc.). I always felt Hakstol was an amazing GM, managing the team. And Berry was possibly the better game time coach and connected with the players. We saw a loaded Hakstol team that Berry led to victory…maybe neither would have done it on their own. 

I believe Berry’s a really good coach - likely top 5-10 in college hockey. I’m certainly rooting for his success. But I also believe the sample size is big enough now to know that Berry’s team is on the wrong side of needing bounces in the tourney - not 50/50 puck luck, but they just aren’t performing well enough to NOT NEED a bounce or two to go their way in order to win against good teams. Other than the shenanigans against BU, they certainly aren’t outplaying other teams but losing off of bad luck lately.

If you listen to DU players, they 100% BELIEVE they’re going to win when it counts. UND players seem to be hoping lately not to lose in the postseason, and lose that belief in winning when things get hard (small slumps or full-on collapses that cost them the win). Compare to Sandelin’s NC teams or Carle’s last year - they were nearly flawless in their execution, even when playing more talented teams. Belief and mental resilience seems to be as good a driver as any I can come up with for the difference. 

This is an extreme example as Carle (results wise) is in a league of his own right now, like York was. But hopefully Berry’s taking notes and the optimists on the board get some vindication in the post-season soon. Berry HAS won (a share of, at least) the Spencer Penrose and dominated the regular season, so I’d say we’re debating first world problems…and I trust that he wants it far more than any of us and is giving his best. 

[iramurphy]

19 hours ago, burd said:

Yeah, I can't imagine Harkness would seriously consider UND once he got the Cornell roll started (Dryden).   No one has matched his amazing run there, much less won multiple Natties in two separate sports, one of which UND does not have.   

Harkness had given Miller a “conditional “ yes to the offer. He wanted to review offer and he was not happy when he learned UND had hired Gino. Harkness was Miller’s choice after Armstrong. The story was that UND faculty and ultimately Clifford had an issue with so many of Harness’s players enrolled in school but not attending classes nor passing courses or earning credits. Back then, the NCAA rules required that athletes only needed to be enrolled to be eligible. 

[fightingsioux4life]

1 minute ago, iramurphy said:

Harkness had given Miller a “conditional “ yes to the offer. He wanted to review offer and he was not happy when he learned UND had hired Gino. Harkness was Miller’s choice after Armstrong. The story was that UND faculty and ultimately Clifford had an issue with so many of Harness’s players enrolled in school but not attending classes nor passing courses or earning credits. Back then, the NCAA rules required that athletes only needed to be enrolled to be eligible. 

Wow, that is insane.

[burd]

7 hours ago, iramurphy said:

Harkness had given Miller a “conditional “ yes to the offer. He wanted to review offer and he was not happy when he learned UND had hired Gino. Harkness was Miller’s choice after Armstrong. The story was that UND faculty and ultimately Clifford had an issue with so many of Harness’s players enrolled in school but not attending classes nor passing courses or earning credits. Back then, the NCAA rules required that athletes only needed to be enrolled to be eligible. 

very interesting