Bluebloods Discussion

[hawksfan12]

Do we agree this is the list? By bluebloods, consistent success, good facilities, good coaching, history of guys making NHL. After each, I put, UND's record vs them.

- North Dakota 

- Michigan - [42-48-4]

- Denver - [161-138-16]

- Wisconsin - [73-87-13]. As a side note, it surprises me how BAD UND's record is vs Wisconsin. Essentially the worst winning percentage UND has against the bluebloods even though Wisconsin is the weakest of these 7.

- Minnesota - [137-145-16]

- Boston University - [15-14-2]

- Boston College - [12-11-1]

I think Maine, Michigan State, Cornell, Harvard, UNH, and Michigan Tech miss the list. Going forward, Michigan State, Penn State, Notre Dame may be relevant on the level of the blue blood but without the history.

I'm curious too how people view each blue blood. I tend to hear the most animosity from UND fans for Minnesota (rivalry), Michigan (arrogance, not scheduling UND), and BC. Maybe a little less so for Wisconsin (recently), Denver, and BU. 

[nascar99]

Denver, North Dakota, Michigan, Minnesota, Boston College, Boston University, and Wisconsin are the blue bloods. No doubt. 

Wisconsin is in danger of falling out of that if they continue their below mediocre decade & a half of hockey, but their history of 6 National Championships and long stretches of contention keep them there. Michigan State would be the only candidate to potentially replace them or put themselves in the blue blood category for me, as Nightingale could certainly get State from 3 to 5 National Championships with a couple clutch tournament runs over the next decade.

Seems like you need to have at least 5 National Championships (which Boston University, Boston College, and Minnesota have) to be in consideration or outright be considered a blue blood.

[hawksfan12]

2 minutes ago, nascar99 said:

Denver, North Dakota, Michigan, Minnesota, Boston College, Boston University, and Wisconsin are the blue bloods. No doubt. 

Wisconsin is in danger of falling out of that if they continue their below mediocre decade & a half of hockey, but their history of 6 National Championships and long stretches of contention keep them there. Michigan State would be the only candidate to potentially replace them or put themselves in the blue blood category for me, as Nightingale could certainly get State from 3 to 5 National Championships with a couple clutch tournament runs over the next decade.

Seems like you need to have at least 5 National Championships (which Boston University, Boston College, and Minnesota have) to be in consideration or outright be considered a blue blood.

Does anyone have the history on why Wisconsin is the least successful blue blood YET the program UND has struggled against the most (ie record)? I know Wisconsin plays a very defensive style and maybe UND never matched up well against them.

[nascar99]

7 minutes ago, hawksfan12 said:

Do we agree this is the list? By bluebloods, consistent success, good facilities, good coaching, history of guys making NHL. After each, I put, UND's record vs them.

- North Dakota 

- Michigan - [42-48-4]

- Denver - [161-138-16]

- Wisconsin - [73-87-13]. As a side note, it surprises me how BAD UND's record is vs Wisconsin. Essentially the worst winning percentage UND has against the bluebloods even though Wisconsin is the weakest of these 7.

- Minnesota - [137-145-16]

- Boston University - [15-14-2]

- Boston College - [12-11-1]

I think Maine, Michigan State, Cornell, Harvard, UNH, and Michigan Tech miss the list. Going forward, Michigan State, Penn State, Notre Dame may be relevant on the level of the blue blood but without the history.

I'm curious too how people view each blue blood. I tend to hear the most animosity from UND fans for Minnesota (rivalry), Michigan (arrogance, not scheduling UND), and BC. Maybe a little less so for Wisconsin (recently), Denver, and BU. 

I personally have little against Denver, really just want to beat them every time because I hold their program in such high regard.

Michigan's arrogance is annoying, but I feel that NCAA Hockey is better off when they're in National Championship contention, but I want to beat them every time of course.

Have nothing against Wisconsin, would like to see them consistently better.

Want Minnesota to lose every time they play, I hate their insular tribalism and pompous attitude about "Pride on Ice" as if they know more about hockey than everyone else (they don't, all they know is Minnesota hockey at the HS & NCAA level, and even then, they are wrong about a lot there too).

No super strong opinions about Boston College or Boston University, although I do find Boston College people to be more arrogant overall. Want to beat them every time as well.

[SIOUXFAN97]

would a rotating blue blood tourney of und, mn, bu and bc be great...roate thru gf, minny and boston every 4 years....

3 games over 2 days/nights like the beanpot...so if that's too much "tourney" stuff ofr the boston side then make it a western blueblood tourney with 

und minny mich, and notre dame....

[siouxfaninseattle]

23 minutes ago, hawksfan12 said:

Does anyone have the history on why Wisconsin is the least successful blue blood YET the program UND has struggled against the most (ie record)? I know Wisconsin plays a very defensive style and maybe UND never matched up well against them.

They are in a down period but were very good in the late 60s, 70s and 80s. 

[fightingsioux4life]

Just now, siouxfaninseattle said:

They are in a down period but were very good in the late 60s, 70s and 80s. 

And UND was putrid for most of the 1970s.

[Fratt Mattin]

I’m very confused by Wisconsin’s struggles in the last 15 years. You can blame a lot on Eaves, but Hastings, an objectively great coach, has had mixed results there at best. He actually seems to have a similar problem to Berry in terms of constructing his roster. It’s like he’s not sure what he wants their team identity to be

[cberkas]

3 minutes ago, Fratt Mattin said:

I’m very confused by Wisconsin’s struggles in the last 15 years. You can blame a lot on Eaves, but Hastings, an objectively great coach, has had mixed results there at best. He actually seems to have a similar problem to Berry in terms of constructing his roster. It’s like he’s not sure what he wants their team identity to be

Tony is more to blame than Eaves. Eaves just had a 2 year cycle of being bad followed by 2 years of being good.

[burd]

UND is my alma mater (x2), and I will always cheer loud for them, but away with blue blood classifications; especially in the age of NIL.   Go St Thomas, Augustana, and Lake State, et al.  

I get the point of the thread, though, Hawksfan.  There will be some interesting posts. 

[nascar99]

1 hour ago, Fratt Mattin said:

I’m very confused by Wisconsin’s struggles in the last 15 years. You can blame a lot on Eaves, but Hastings, an objectively great coach, has had mixed results there at best. He actually seems to have a similar problem to Berry in terms of constructing his roster. It’s like he’s not sure what he wants their team identity to be

I'm not. It's been pretty well documented that Barry Alvarez didn't care about hockey when he was AD (his tenure coming at a time where Wisconsin Football became a great 2nd tier FBS program and Wisconsin Men's Basketball was a B1G power & Final Four/borderline National Championship contender) and just let Mike Eaves and Tony Granato do whatever the hell they wanted. Eaves got his National Championship in 2006 and back to the Frozen Four Final in 2010, but they were clearing dipping as a program (recruiting especially) near the end, culminating in the final 2 seasons of Eaves where they won single digit games in 2015 and 2016. Plenty of fans talk about the dissolution of the old WCHA and creation of the B1G as a reason for Wisconsin's decline, but that's more relevant to their attendance decline, not a great excuse for on ice decline.

Granato was hired because he was a program legend, but had a questionable track record of coaching in the NHL (Avalanche fans will tell you how in over his head Granato was in 2003 and 2004 as a young head coach, choking/underachieving with stacked rosters) and had no experience coaching at the NCAA level. Granato recruited pretty well, getting future NHLers to come to Madison, but didn't develop talent well at all (with the exception of Caufield, who you can argue developed more before & after he got to Wisconsin).

Current AD Chris McIntosh has been chastised for also not caring much about hockey, but he made the right move firing Granato and hiring Hastings. But overall, Alvarez and McIntosh have not placed importance on the Badgers Men's Hockey program being successful, such is life at a B1G school where they've been able to have long stretches of contention in football and men's basketball.

Mike Hastings will need to pick a lane of how he wants to recruit and build a roster: Does he want to go full Minnesota State (recruit gritty depth guys who play more years of junior and come in at 20 or 21 years old), does he want to go out and get higher end talent especially with CHLers eligible, or does he want a Denver esque mix of semi high end, but elite older depth?

Overall, one can look at the Badgers' program history and call them "Bob Johnson merchants" (3 National Championships, 7 Frozen Four appearances in 15 seasons as Head Coach), as the rest of their program's history is fairly pedestrian, minus a great stretch from Jeff Sauer between 1988 and 1995 as well as 2006 & 2010 under Mike Eaves.

The negligence of Wisconsin Badgers Men's Hockey may be in part due to the place that hockey stands in the state of Wisconsin's sports pecking order: from what I understand, most Wisconsinites are aware of hockey's existence but have a relative indifference towards it. Hockey isn't that popular in Southeast Wisconsin where much of the state's population is, and only becomes popular the further north & west you go in the state, and even then, many of the small towns further north & west in Wisconsin don't seem to care much about hockey. A lot of people believe this stems from a lack of an NHL team in the state, lack of rinks in most mid sized & small towns, as well as the Packers obsession across the state that will always dominate attention.

Wisconsin Men's Hockey's most successful period coincided with a time where Wisconsin Football & Men's Basketball were completely irrelevant, before Barry Alvarez/Bret Bielema & Dick Bennett/Bo Ryan turned both around & into relevant semi-powers in their respective sports. Now that those things happened, I just don't know how many around Madison, around the state of Wisconsin, and alums actually care about making sure Wisconsin Men's Hockey is a National Championship contender, most Badgers fans just want Football & Men's Basketball to be great, and if Men's Hockey is good, fine, but if they aren't, then whatever. I feel that attitude has seeped into their athletic department, in major part because Alvarez and McIntosh aren't hockey guys at all.

[SIOUXFAN97]

1 minute ago, burd said:

UND is my alma mater (x2), and I will always cheer loud for them, but away with blue blood classifications; especially in the age of NIL.   Go St Thomas, Augustana, and Lake State, et al.  

I get the point of the thread, though, Hawksfan.  There will be some interesting posts. 

?

[hawksfan12]

12 minutes ago, burd said:

UND is my alma mater (x2), and I will always cheer loud for them, but away with blue blood classifications; especially in the age of NIL.   Go St Thomas, Augustana, and Lake State, et al.  

I get the point of the thread, though, Hawksfan.  There will be some interesting posts. 

Realistically I see all these bluebloods being able to compete in NIL at some fashion.

I mentioned in my most some others that could emerge...Michigan State, Penn State, Notre Dame, heck maybe ASU

But who else is going to emerge with NIL? most of the non blue bloods are small schools.

[Fratt Mattin]

26 minutes ago, nascar99 said:

I'm not. It's been pretty well documented that Barry Alvarez didn't care about hockey when he was AD (his tenure coming at a time where Wisconsin Football became a great 2nd tier FBS program and Wisconsin Men's Basketball was a B1G power & Final Four/borderline National Championship contender) and just let Mike Eaves and Tony Granato do whatever the hell they wanted. Eaves got his National Championship in 2006 and back to the Frozen Four Final in 2010, but they were clearing dipping as a program (recruiting especially) near the end, culminating in the final 2 seasons of Eaves where they won single digit games in 2015 and 2016. Plenty of fans talk about the dissolution of the old WCHA and creation of the B1G as a reason for Wisconsin's decline, but that's more relevant to their attendance decline, not a great excuse for on ice decline.

Granato was hired because he was a program legend, but had a questionable track record of coaching in NHL (Avalanche fans will tell you how in over his head Granato was in 2003 and 2004 as a young head coach, choking/underachieving with stacked rosters) and had no experience coaching at the NCAA level. Granato recruited pretty well, getting future NHLers to come to Madison, but didn't develop talent well at all (with the exception of Caufield, who you can argue developed more before & after he got to Wisconsin).

Current AD Chris McIntosh has been chastised for also not caring much about hockey, but he made the right move firing Granato and hiring Hastings. But overall, Alvarez and McIntosh have not placed importance on the Badgers Men's Hockey program being successful, such is life at a B1G school where they've been able to have long stretches of contention in football and men's basketball.

Mike Hastings will need to pick a lane of how he wants to recruit and build a roster: Does he want to go full Minnesota State (recruit gritty depth guys who play more years of junior and come in at 20 or 21 years old), does he want to go out and get higher end talent especially with CHLers eligible, or does he want a Denver esque mix of semi high end, but elite older depth?

Overall, one can look at the Badgers' program history and call them "Bob Johnson merchants" (3 National Championships, 7 Frozen Four appearances in 15 seasons as Head Coach), as the rest of their program's history is fairly pedestrian, minus a great stretch from Jeff Sauer between 1988 and 1995 as well as 2006 & 2010 under Mike Eaves.

The negligence of Wisconsin Badgers Men's Hockey may be in part due to the place that hockey stands in the state of Wisconsin's sports pecking order: from what I understand, most Wisconsinites are aware of hockey's existence but have a relative indifference towards it. Hockey isn't that popular in Southeast Wisconsin where much of the state's population is, and only becomes popular the further north & west you go in the state, and even then, many of the small towns further north & west in Wisconsin don't seem to care much about hockey. A lot of people believe this stems from a lack of an NHL team in the state, lack of rinks in most mid sized & small towns, as well as the Packers obsession across the state that will always dominate attention.

Wisconsin Men's Hockey's most successful period coincided with a time where Wisconsin Football & Men's Basketball were completely irrelevant, before Barry Alvarez/Bret Bielema & Dick Bennett/Bo Ryan turned both around & into relevant semi-powers in their respective sports. Now that those things happened, I just don't know many around Madison, around the state of Wisconsin, and alums actually care about making sure Wisconsin Men's Hockey is a National Championship contender, most Badgers fans just want Football & Men's Basketball to be great, and if Men's Hockey is good, fine, but if they aren't, then whatever. I feel that attitude has seeped into their athletic department, in major part because Alvarez and McIntosh aren't hockey guys at all.

What a thoughtful post. Very much appreciate it.

All of that makes me wonder then if we’re putting too high of expectations on Wisconsin. Maybe, despite their successful runs, the blue blood distinction can’t be given out to schools where hockey is playing 3rd or 4th fiddle

[cberkas]

27 minutes ago, nascar99 said:

I'm not. It's been pretty well documented that Barry Alvarez didn't care about hockey when he was AD (his tenure coming at a time where Wisconsin Football became a great 2nd tier FBS program and Wisconsin Men's Basketball was a B1G power & Final Four/borderline National Championship contender) and just let Mike Eaves and Tony Granato do whatever the hell they wanted. Eaves got his National Championship in 2006 and back to the Frozen Four Final in 2010, but they were clearing dipping as a program (recruiting especially) near the end, culminating in the final 2 seasons of Eaves where they won single digit games in 2015 and 2016. Plenty of fans talk about the dissolution of the old WCHA and creation of the B1G as a reason for Wisconsin's decline, but that's more relevant to their attendance decline, not a great excuse for on ice decline.

Granato was hired because he was a program legend, but had a questionable track record of coaching in NHL (Avalanche fans will tell you how in over his head Granato was in 2003 and 2004 as a young head coach, choking/underachieving with stacked rosters) and had no experience coaching at the NCAA level. Granato recruited pretty well, getting future NHLers to come to Madison, but didn't develop talent well at all (with the exception of Caufield, who you can argue developed more before & after he got to Wisconsin).

Current AD Chris McIntosh has been chastised for also not caring much about hockey, but he made the right move firing Granato and hiring Hastings. But overall, Alvarez and McIntosh have not placed importance on the Badgers Men's Hockey program being successful, such is life at a B1G school where they've been able to have long stretches of contention in football and men's basketball.

Mike Hastings will need to pick a lane of how he wants to recruit and build a roster: Does he want to go full Minnesota State (recruit gritty depth guys who play more years of junior and come in at 20 or 21 years old), does he want to go out and get higher end talent especially with CHLers eligible, or does he want a Denver esque mix of semi high end, but elite older depth?

Overall, one can look at the Badgers' program history and call them "Bob Johnson merchants" (3 National Championships, 7 Frozen Four appearances in 15 seasons as Head Coach), as the rest of their program's history is fairly pedestrian, minus a great stretch from Jeff Sauer between 1988 and 1995 as well as 2006 & 2010 under Mike Eaves.

The negligence of Wisconsin Badgers Men's Hockey may be in part due to the place that hockey stands in the state of Wisconsin's sports pecking order: from what I understand, most Wisconsinites are aware of hockey's existence but have a relative indifference towards it. Hockey isn't that popular in Southeast Wisconsin where much of the state's population is, and only becomes popular the further north & west you go in the state, and even then, many of the small towns further north & west in Wisconsin don't seem to care much about hockey. A lot of people believe this stems from a lack of an NHL team in the state, lack of rinks in most mid sized & small towns, as well as the Packers obsession across the state that will always dominate attention.

Wisconsin Men's Hockey's most successful period coincided with a time where Wisconsin Football & Men's Basketball were completely irrelevant, before Barry Alvarez/Bret Bielema & Dick Bennett/Bo Ryan turned both around & into relevant semi-powers in their respective sports. Now that those things happened, I just don't know many around Madison, around the state of Wisconsin, and alums actually care about making sure Wisconsin Men's Hockey is a National Championship contender, most Badgers fans just want Football & Men's Basketball to be great, and if Men's Hockey is good, fine, but if they aren't, then whatever. I feel that attitude has seeped into their athletic department, in major part because Alvarez and McIntosh aren't hockey guys at all.

The word is Berry Alvarez didn't like Wisconsin playing D3 schools no one heard of and was pushing hard for the B1G schools to play each other during the year home and away not just the Minnesota/Wisconsin vs Michigan/Michigan State series each year. Alvarez got his wish with Penn State and B1G starting a hockey conference. 

[nascar99]

5 minutes ago, Fratt Mattin said:

What a thoughtful post. Very much appreciate it.

All of that makes me wonder then if we’re putting too high of expectations on Wisconsin. Maybe, despite their successful runs, the blue blood distinction can’t be given out to schools where hockey is playing 3rd or 4th fiddle

Hockey is 3rd or 4th fiddle at Michigan, but they clearly still place an importance on Men's Hockey being a contender. Criticize Michigan all you want for their arrogance or mercenary approach at times, but the program, athletic department, & alums clearly want Michigan Hockey to be great. Even with the National Championship drought, they've only had 1 stretch since 1998 under Berenson/Pearson/Naurato where they've been irrelevant.

Michigan Hockey wants to be innovative & dynamic, Naurato talked about it in his recent interview with Jeff Marek. They recruit essentially everywhere aggressively, one of the few programs in the country who does so. When was the last time Wisconsin Men's Hockey did anything you considered innovative, dynamic, or aggressive in recruiting/program building? They've seemed to just recruit Minnesota, as much talent as there is in Illinois & Wisconsin, and a few (Western) Canadians. You rarely hear anything about them going above & beyond to get back to National Championship contention in the news, which is why the Hastings hiring was so notable.

[hawksfan12]

18 minutes ago, nascar99 said:

Hockey is 3rd or 4th fiddle at Michigan, but they clearly still place an importance on Men's Hockey being a contender. Criticize Michigan all you want for their arrogance or mercenary approach at times, but the program, athletic department, & alums clearly want Michigan Hockey to be great. Even with the National Championship drought, they've only had 1 stretch since 1998 under Berenson/Pearson/Naurato where they've been irrelevant.

Michigan Hockey wants to be innovative & dynamic, Naurato talked about it in his recent interview with Jeff Marek. They recruit essentially everywhere aggressively, one of the few programs in the country who does so. When was the last time Wisconsin Men's Hockey did anything you considered innovative, dynamic, or aggressive in recruiting/program building? They've seemed to just recruit Minnesota, as much talent as there is in Illinois & Wisconsin, and a few (Western) Canadians. You rarely hear anything about them going above & beyond to get back to National Championship contention in the news, which is why the Hastings hiring was so notable.

Wisconsin can still land blue chip players and has recently. They still have staying power. A nice arena. The floor at bluebloods is much higher than most other programs. But I don't disagree they care less than other bluebloods.

As for Michigan, nobody in here denies they are a great program. Lots of tradition, what looks like a historic arena, a commitment to winning, passionate alums/fans.

[Godsmack]

Anyone have any insight as to how Wisconsin landed Cole Caufield? Anyone know what other schools he was considering? They had that season a few years back where he seemed to carry the load and got them into the tournament. 

[nascar99]

4 minutes ago, hawksfan12 said:

Wisconsin can still land blue chip players and has recently. They still have staying power. A nice arena. The floor at bluebloods is much higher than most other programs. But I don't disagree they care less than other bluebloods.

As for Michigan, nobody in here denies they are a great program. Lots of tradition, what looks like a historic arena, a commitment to winning, passionate alums/fans.

They do, but the only ones they've landed recently have been in their target recruiting territory of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and occasionally Western Canada. Not that hard to recruit locally/regionally, every notable NCAA program in every sport is able to do that. Wisconsin needs to get a Shane Pinto (New York), Matty Beniers (Massachusetts), Logan Cooley (Pennsylvania), Matthew Knies (Arizona), Zeev Buium (California), Drake Caggiula (Ontario), Alex Newhook (Newfoundland). Hell, Hastings did that on a much smaller scale recruiting Nathan Smith & Lucas Sowder (Florida) while at Minnesota State.

Hastings has no excuse for recruiting losses/weak talent rosters in the age of CHLers being NCAA eligible. Just not sure how aggressive he'll be in Canada to get both high end talent & solid depth out of all 3 CHL leagues. Tulk & to a lesser extent Hauser were nice starts, but that's clearly not enough.

[nascar99]

2 minutes ago, Godsmack said:

Anyone have any insight as to how Wisconsin landed Cole Caufield? Anyone know what other schools he was considering? They had that season a few years back where he seemed to carry the load and got them into the tournament. 

He's from Stevens Point Wisconsin and was committed to Ohio State before opting to stay closer to home and play for his home state team.