WJC - 2026

[mygarske]

On 12/26/2025 at 6:50 PM, brianvf said:

Bob didn't even want him on the team!   

Nope, not good enough. This decision coming from a guy who is coaching one of the legacy programs in college hockey, right out of the top 20. How USA Hockey let this happen should be investigated right up there with the Somali fraud scams in Minnesota. 

[cberkas]

55 minutes ago, tnt said:

Yes, he certainly has a motor on him.  I definitely would take another Ollie Josephson type player.

PoG also

[mygarske]

My 2 day update from the WJ tournament. 

A client had a suite & invited me & a buddy to both games. Being a MN company, there were several former Gopher players there, 3 of them with solid NHL careers. Listening to their take on both games was fascinating. None of them had a single good thing to say about Motzko, & a couple played for him. The main theme, he has no clue how to coach high-end talent players, and letting him coach the WJ's is the worst possible position for Team USA. 

One guy said the overplaying of Mooney is killing the kid personally, and the most obvious of many horribly bad coaching decisions by Motzko so far. He said all the scouts & coaches see Mooney is clearly out of his league & putting him on the #1 PP & constantly on the PK where he just isn't physically or skill-wise strong enough is embarrassing. They said the kid & his agent know how bad he looks, but Bob doesn't see it or give a 💩 because he's a Goofer. Most were convinced Mooney will cost the U.S. a game at some point.

A bunch of agents & NHL scouts dropped in to see the former players. Again, consensus was Motzko seemed to be trying to coach Team USA OUT of the medal round. Every one of them thought it was the dumbest thing in the tournament to not have Zellers out every third shift, second prize, breaking up Zellers, McMorrow & Spellacy. 1 guy played defense in the pros, he said the top 4 for U.S. have been horrible. He hadn't watched EJ at UND, but what he saw in game 2, he would put EJ in top 4 over any of the returning players. 

The guy hosting let everyone know me & my buddy were UND grads & Sioux Hockey fans, they all said they were very impressed with this year's Sioux team & thought our boys had a chance to make a run. All of them said Motzko was shorting Zellers & scratching Emery because they are Sioux players, no question.

One of the scouts showed me his Insta-Stats (SP?) account on his phone & said it is insane to not play Zellers based on all kinds of scoring metrics. He said it was more insane to play Mooney, Lee, McKinney, etc. when their numbers get worse with more ice time. He also showed me the U.S.'s "top 2 lines" data, & said if they were his players he's be worried they would be sent down to the AHL. It was a ton of data that they all knew well, the guy told me basically any coach in the NHL doing what Motzko has been doing would have been fired in less than a month. Someone said too bad Bob didn't get hit with the puck, then they could let Garrett Raboin take over & have a shot at making a medal round. 😬 

[The Sicatoka]

“Top 4” D for both North American squads have been somewhere between lackluster and questionable. 

[The Sicatoka]

2 hours ago, mygarske said:

Nope, not good enough. This decision coming from a guy who is coaching one of the legacy programs in college hockey, right out of the top 20. How USA Hockey let this happen should be investigated right up there with the Somali fraud scams in Minnesota. 

I heard it was John van Beez that laid down an edict.

[brianvf]

Just now, The Sicatoka said:

I heard it was John van Beez that laid down an edict.

Correct.

[tnt]

Finland absolutely destroying Latvia 8-0, outshooting them 38-6.  Of course we’ve seen teams don’t always play great before the medal rounds, but pretty stark difference from Canada’s game with Latvia.  

[Wilbur]

56 minutes ago, The Sicatoka said:

“Top 4” D for both North American squads have been somewhere between lackluster and questionable. 

They are over playing Kleber to a fault.  There are no byes into the quarters.  You've got to roll your d men until it gets to those playoff games, then shorten the bench where necessary.  They are playing too many games to have a kid at 24 minutes on day two.

We all wear green glasses, but what is happening with Emery is a joke.  11 shifts yesterday against the Swiss?  They aren't the little sisters of the poor, but you are setting yourself up for failure there over the short grind.

Wish that game had went to OT like Canada's game to prove a point.  Mooney just isn't physically mature enough yet.  I can't believe the late game minutes he got yesterday.