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Shaping Up: The 2011-12 Sioux Hockey Roster

2011-05-17T15:31:00.008-05:00

With the announcements of F Michael Di Puma and D Dan Senkbeil it seems the final shape of the 2011 UND mens hockey roster is fairly well set.

I know some are fretful that F Jason Gregoire may still choose the professional option over a senior year, but I know two things on that front: 1) with the addition of Di Puma I still only see 15 forwards on the roster and that's the minimum UND normally carries, and 2) no amount of worry by me will alter what is ultimately Jason's decision.

I see 15 forwards. That's traditionally the roster size as it makes five complete lines for practice. And 3 goaltenders is traditional also. I see no surprises there.

What is unusual is 9 defensemen. Traditionally that number is 8 (four pairs). But thinking more about that number I think I understand why 9 going into this fall.

In the spring of 2012 UND will lose senior Ben Blood; but, it may also face losing Andrew MacWilliam and Derek Forbort to the professional ranks. That scenario would leave UND with Gleason, Hill, Simpson, the 2011 freshmen, and 2012 recruit Jordan Schmaltz. (That's just seven, so expect to hear at least one more 2012 defenseman recruit.)

Adding defensemen with potential to develop (Panzarella, Senkbeil) now, fall 2011, should smooth out a spring 2012 bump if UND were to see Blood, MacWilliam, and Forbort all depart.

Those are my thoughts given what I see right now. But what I also see is that Hakstol and his staff are playing both checkers (immediate impacts and tactics) and chess (long-term strategic roster planning). That's a lot strategy and tactic to manage off the ice.

UND vs. Michigan: A statistical analysis

2011-04-14T17:51:00.002-05:00

Understandably, most North Dakota hockey fans don't have much interest in dwelling on the painful 2-0 loss to Michigan April 7 at the NCAA Frozen Four in St. Paul. It's still difficult for me to comprehend that the opportunity for the Fighting Sioux to win an eighth national championship has come and gone.

After watching the game again and reading some of the analysis that's been done, I decided to delve into the game statistics and shot charts provided by the NCAA. My apologies to those who aren't stats geeks, but I think the value of studying shot charts and statistics serves to debunk some of the statements made about how the Sioux performed and were coached against Michigan.

One area in which I was most interested was shots on goal by each team from the prime scoring area (PSA). I defined the PSA as the area from the goal line out to the top of the faceoff circles with the faceoff dots forming the left and right edges of the box. I was also interested in the shots from beyond the blue line because the chances of scoring on them is probably less than 1 percent.

Here are some interesting facts:

35% (7) of Michigan's 20 shots on goal were from the prime scoring area
50% (20) of UND's 40 shots on goal were from the prime scoring area
Michigan blocked 23% (16) of UND's 70 shot attempts
UND blocked 31% (15) of Michigan's 40 shot attempts
35% (7) of Michigan's 20 shots on goal were from outside UND's blue line
5% (2) of UND's 40 shots of goal were from outside Michigan's blue line
18 of UND's 20 shots on goal (90%) from the prime scoring area were taken by the team's top 10 scorers
4 of Michigan's 7 shots on goal (57%) from the prime scoring area were taken by the team's top 10 scorers
In the third period, UND had 4 shots from the prime scoring area that missed the net (wide or high) and 3 that were blocked
UND had 8 scoring opportunities from just outside the crease
Michigan had 1 scoring opportunity from just outside the crease
UND's top line had 10 shots on goal from the prime scoring area
Michigan's top line had 2 shots on goal from the prime scoring area

Overall, UND had it's top-end players in prime scoring position throughout the game and was generating quality scoring opportunities. UND did an excellent job of shutting down Michigan's highest-scoring players, blocking shots and nearly eliminating any second chances on rebounds.

Based on these statistics, UND played an excellent defensive game against Michigan, effectively bottling up the Wolverines' top scorers. The Sioux were also very disciplined in giving Michigan just one power play. Much was made afterwards about Michigan's shot blocking, but UND's defense was better at not only limiting the Wolverines' shot attempts, but also at blocking a higher percentage of shots and limiting scoring opportunities from just outside the paint.

Offensively, with the exception of the power play, UND did everything well but put the puck in the net. Throughout the game, the top Sioux scorers had the puck on their sticks in prime scoring territory. But, as Michigan coach Red Berenson said, goalie Shawn Hunwick played the game of his life. If he hadn't, the Sioux would have lit up Michigan like a Christmas tree. Hunwick -- not Berenson's game plan or Michigan's defense -- deserves full credit for shutting down and shutting out UND.

There's no question in my mind that UND dominated the game. Without Hunwick's performance, Michigan would have been sunk.

First Period

UND shots on goal = 14 (1 from outside the blue line)
Michigan shots on goal = 10 (3 from outside the blue line)

UND prime scoring area shots = 7
Brad Malone 2; Matt Frattin 2; Danny Kristo 1; Brock Nelson 1; Derrick LaPoint 1

Michigan prime scoring area shots = 3 (30%)
Ben Winnett 1 (scored); Jeff Rohrkemper 1; Carl Hagelin 1

Second Period
UND shots on goal = 11 (1 outside the blue line)
Michigan shots on goal = 3 (1 from outside the blue line)

UND prime scoring area shots = 6
Evan Trupp 2; Jason Gregoire 1; Andrew MacWilliam 1; Danny Kristo 1; Chay Genoway 1

Michigan prime scoring area shots = 0

Third Period
UND shots on goal = 15
Michigan shots on goal = 7 (3 from outside the blue line)

UND prime scoring area shots = 7
Brad Malone 2; Evan Trupp 3; Matt Frattin 1; Danny Kristo 1

Michigan prime scoring area shots = 4
Scooter Vaughn 2 (scored empty net goal*); Luke Moffatt 1; Louie Caporusso 1

Game Totals
Michigan shot attempts = 48
42% shots on goal
31% blocked by UND

UND shot attempts = 70
57% shots on goal
23% blocked by Michigan

*Note: Vaughn's empty netter was actually from outside the prime scoring area, but with UND's goalie pulled, I decided the area should expanded.

The funny game

2011-04-11T17:20:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday afternoon at the Xcel Energy Center, the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Roman Augustoviz asked me: "Do you see any way North Dakota loses this?"

It was an interesting question because after the Fighting Sioux beat the University of Denver to become the only No. 1 seed to make the Frozen Four, everything seemed to be lining up for UND to win its eighth national championship.

None of the teams that ousted the Sioux from the NCAA playoffs during the Dave Hakstol era – DU and Boston College in particular – were still playing. The location of the Frozen Four in St. Paul assured an atmosphere at the Xcel Energy Center that heavily favored UND.

Hakstol had a 2-0 record against Red Berenson’s teams the two times they’d met in the NCAA playoffs. Most believed that this year’s Wolverines weren’t as deep or as talented as some previous Michigan teams. Also, during the regular season, UND went 2-1 against Minnesota-Duluth and 1-0-1 against Notre Dame.

Going into the Frozen Four, UND appeared rested and relatively healthy, which meant that Hakstol would be able to play his best lineup and roll all four lines. And most importantly, the Sioux were peaking at exactly the right moment and playing their best hockey of the season. The players and coaches were more focused than any Sioux team I'd ever seen. Their goaltending was solid, every line was producing, the defensive corps was outstanding and the special teams were excellent. So there was every reason to be positive.

However, while driving to St. Paul the night before the Frozen Four started, I began thinking about the ways in which many great Sioux teams had fallen short since I began following UND hockey in 1996. Dean Blais’ teams of 1997-1998, 1998-1999 and 2003-2004 were highly regarded, but never made it out of the NCAA regionals. The four previous times Hakstol’s teams had made it do the big dance, hopes for a national championship were high, but the expectations were never realized.

So when I pondered Roman’s question, the realist in me recalled what had happened the past 11 times UND had been in a position to win a national championship, only to fall short of the ultimate goal.

I remembered poor goaltending, untimely penalties, flat performances, unlucky bounces, badly executed line changes, leads that evaporated, last-second goals in regulation, costly turnovers, goals in overtime and – most of all – opposing goalies who play the best games of their lives. (Do the names Adam Berkhoel and Peter Mannino ring a bell?)

And nobody should forget that the other team always gets a vote in determining the outcome. Any team still playing in April has a great deal going for it.

As much as I hoped UND would take advantage of the opportunity to win its eighth championship, if there’s one lesson I’ve learned from the past 15 years of following the Fighting Sioux, it’s that in hockey, there’s no such thing as a sure thing.

The 2-0 loss to Michigan reminded me of something former UND player Jason Notermann once said (which I’ll paraphrase because I can’t find the exact quote): Hockey is a funny game. Sometimes you score five goals on 10 shots, and other times you can’t score one goal on 50 shots.

Against Michigan, UND fell victim to one of those funny games at the worst time of the season. There were so many times that the top Sioux scorers had the puck on their sticks in prime scoring territory, only to be denied by goalie Shawn Hunwick. As Corban Knight put it, "The plays we were looking for weren't there. When they were, the goalie stood on his head."

What's become apparent over the 10 seasons I've been covering Fighting Sioux hockey for US College Hockey Online is that the team that looks like the favorite to win a national championship often isn't the one that prevails. And that's one reason college hockey fans return again and again to watch this funny game.

Evan Trupp's magic moment

2011-03-22T19:12:00.001-05:00

On Inside College Hockey's latest podcast, Evan Trupp’s lacrosse-style carrying of the puck on his stick during North Dakota’s Friday game against Colorado College was compared to a move Denver University forward Ryan Dingle tried against the Tigers during the 2005 Frozen Four.

Other than the fact that both players did something similar, in terms of sportsmanship, there’s a great deal that sets them apart. Based on what I’ve read and remember about the Dingle incident, DU was leading 5-2 with about 2 minutes left in the game. Dingle had a chance to score on a breakaway. Rather than skating in on the CC goalie and shooting the puck, Dingle elected to show off by using a lacrosse-style move that didn’t come close to working.

Denver coach George Gwozdecky chewed out Dingle and benched him. After DU won 6-2, Pioneers' captain Matt Latsch apologized to CC coach Scott Owens and the Tigers’ captain.

There was good reason for Gwozdecky and Dingle’s teammates to be embarrassed by his actions. The Pioneers had the game won and Dingle was attempting to rub salt in the wound of his team’s biggest rival by showboating on national television. Nobody would have criticized him if he’d deked CC’s goalie and scored on the breakaway. But attempting to humiliate an already-beaten opponent went too far, and everyone knew it.

When Trupp did his bit of puck-toting wizardry, it was with more than 15 minutes remaining in the third period of a tie game. He used his incredible hockey skills in a novel manner with the objective of putting his team ahead. He wasn’t all alone on a breakaway in a game that had already been decided. There were three Tigers players between him and the CC goalie.

Had Trupp scored or even set up an opportunity that led to a goal, it would have been widely praised and celebrated by hockey fans, just as the goal scored by Michigan’s Mike Legg during the 1996 NCAA tournament today is considered one of the most famous goals in college hockey history.

The answer to INCH’s question of why Trupp did this is easy: It was to create confusion and gain the element of surprise for the purpose scoring -- just as Trupp did when me made a no-look, behind-the-back pass to set up Matt Frattin's game-winning goal. The lacrosse move nearly worked because not even Trupp’s own teammates, who’d seen him do similar things in practice, knew how to react.

If Trupp tried the same move again in one of UND’s remaining games, it likely wouldn’t work because the element of surprise is gone. However, at that moment in that game, it was worth a try. Although Trupp didn’t succeed in scoring, even INCH had to admit that “…his trick play with the puck re-ignited his team and the crowd in a tough third period when energy levels had begun to wane.”

Late in the season during the playoffs, players are expected use every arrow in their quiver (within the rules) to help their teams win. Just as nobody criticizes Frattin for shooting the puck too hard and too accurately, nobody should criticize Trupp for using the creative hockey skills he possesses when the outcome of a playoff game is in question. He would be shortchanging himself and doing his team a disservice if he didn’t.

While I'm at it, INCH's criticism of the Fighting Sioux players not wanting to touch either the MacNaughton Cup or Broadmoor Trophy is silly. This hockey superstition didn't begin with UND, nor will the Sioux be the last hockey team to practice it. Singling out UND makes about as much sense as complaining about the time-honored practice of growing playoff beards.

Post-Final Five thoughts

2011-03-20T12:08:00.037-05:00

Congratulations to the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux men's hockey team for bringing home its second consecutive Broadmoor Trophy. UND won the tournament championship in St. Paul by defeating two highly skilled teams -- Denver and Colorado College -- in games that should serve as a good tune-up for the upcoming NCAA playoffs.

As should be expected this time of year, UND's seniors made the big plays when they were most needed to earn the wins. It was senior Matt Frattin with the game-winning goal for the championship, assisted by seniors Chay Genoway and Evan Trupp. What impressed me most about the play Trupp made to set up the goal was the fact that when he passed the puck back to Genoway, Genoway had just come off the bench and hadn't even entered the DU zone yet.

Genoway not only used his speed to intercept the puck before it left the zone, but he also had the presence of mind to one-time Trupp's pass without breaking stride. It was the speed at which the play happened that gave Frattin the best look at an open net that any Sioux player had seen since the second period. As Colorado College learned on Friday night, if you give Frattin that type of opportunity, he's not going to miss.

In Friday's game against the Colorado College Tigers, it was Genoway's pass that sprung Frattin shorthanded and led to senior Brad Malone's goal after what appeared to be a momentum-changing 5-minute major penalty against UND. And it was Trupp's no-look, behind-the-back pass to Frattin in the slot that gave the Sioux their 4-3 victory over Colorado College.

Senior Brent Davidson deserves recognition for scoring big goals in both games. Just when you're wondering how the Sioux will make up for the loss of Jason Gregoire, along comes Davidson and sophomore Danny Kristo back from a serious bout with frostbite to add some offensive punch. Denver coach George Gwozdecky correctly noted that throughout the season, UND has found a way to roll with the punches whenever key players were out with injuries.

That brings me to another point: Where would this team be without players like senior Jake Marto and sophomore Joe Gleason who have demonstrated their willingness and ability to change rolls from defenseman to forward and back again? Beginning with former Sioux Kyle Radke and Brad Miller, players with that type of versatility have become a staple of UND's teams the last several seasons.

Senior Derrick LaPoint has quietly become the unsung hero on the blue line. Although he was considered an offensive-defenseman when he came to UND, he has turned into a defensive force who's seldom noticed simply because he rarely makes a mistake. Nobody should forget that he suffered a concussion at the end of his freshman season and a devastating leg injury in his sophomore season that would have ended the careers of many players.

Turning to goaltending, I was disappointed that Aaron Dell was not named to the Final Five All-Tournament Team. It was Dell who kept the Sioux in the championship game when they were being outplayed and heavily outshot by the Pioneers. He made many saves on shots through traffic that perhaps were not as spectatular as some of the saves by Denver's Sam Brittain, but were nonethless difficult stops. He was also the goalie on the championship team that won two games against quality opponents. Dell was a major part of UND's tournament success and deserved recognition for it.

Finally, the Sioux coaching staff -- Dave Hakstol, Cary Eades, Dane Jackson, Karl Goehring and Pierre-Paul Lamoureux -- all deserve kudos for keeping the team focused, prepared and motivated. Leadership from the upperclassmen no doubt makes their jobs a bit easier. However, in the ten season I've covered Fighting Sioux hockey for U.S. College Hockey Online, I've never seen Hakstol so determined to have the team forget the last game and concentrate on the next one. From a sports writer's perspective, it's a little annoying at times, but if it brings UND an eighth national championship, I won't complain.

There are many others, such as UND trainer Mark Poolman, who work behind the scenes to help assure the continued success of the team throughout the long season. They, too, deserve kudos for putting the Fighting Sioux in position to win another championship. It's been a great run so far, and I suspect the best is yet to come.

Really?

2011-03-18T21:45:00.004-05:00

Let's see...

Two guys back in the lineup who've been out for a while.
Three lines scrambled.
Defensive pairs scrambled.
Two defensemen playing forward.
Hottest scorer on the team out of the lineup.

And yet, the Fighting Sioux beat Colorado College 4-3 at the Final Five.

If only Dave Hakstol knew how to coach.

About that goal...

2010-12-02T18:35:00.004-06:00

Almost nobody (excluding Fighting Sioux fans) seemed too upset about the goal Notre Dame scored with just over three minutes left in Saturday's game against North Dakota that resulted in the a 2-2 tie. It's usually not difficult to tell when Sioux coach Dave Hakstol is unhappy with a call that went against his team. But in his post-game comments, he seemed more than willing to accept the ruling that enabled the Fighting Irish to escape Ralph Engelstad Arena with a tie.

And Sioux goalie Aaron Dell? He's not exactly a wordy or an emotional kind of guy. He didn't say that he felt as though the Notre Dame player in the crease had interfered with him, although it certainly looked as if that was the case at the time the Fighting Irish scored.

So I didn't think there was any reason to make an issue of the game-tying goal until I watched this replay and reviewed the NCAA ice hockey rule book. I had assumed the goal was allowed because the puck was in the crease at the time Notre Dame's Bryan Rust (No. 21) appeared to slide into the crease totally on his own. But as this frame from the video shows, Rust was well into the crease and the puck was well out of it before Notre Dame's Sam Calabrese swept the puck on goal.

It's quite obvious in the video that Rust physically interfered with Dell's ability to make a save. So given that Rust went into the crease after the puck came out and Rust clearly interfered with Dell, how could the referee award the goal to Notre Dame? I submitted that question to the WCHA. Head official Greg Shepherd was kind enough to provide this response:

The only view that the officials have for replay is the overhead view, and talking to the on-ice officials live they thought the North Dakota player caused the Notre Dame player to go into the goalie by the use of his stick, and from the overhead view there was nothing to overturn that. If we had other angles it could have been different.

Unfortunately, Shepherd raises more questions than he answers. The North Dakota player in question would have been Matt Frattin (No. 21) who was closest to Rust. In the video, Frattin ties up Rust's stick with his stick and lifts it to keep Rust from putting in the rebound off Dell's save. Frattin appears to do nothing that would have caused Rust to fall. In sliding into the crease, Rust makes contact with Dell and comes between the goalie and the puck.

Had Calabrese swept the puck straight into the net, the referees might have been able to make the case that Dell was in no position to make a save. Thus, Rust's contact would have made no difference. But the puck appears to hit the post and then travel at an angle away from the goal line. It deflects in off either Dell or Rust. Dell had virtually no chance of making a save with Rust in contact with him and lying between him and the puck.

The most important question is this: If the officials saw Frattin use his stick in a manner that caused Rust to fall, why didn't they call a penalty? Certainly Frattin would have been guilty of interference on a Notre Dame scoring opportunity. A penalty would have been warranted. But because no penalty was called, it severely weakens the case that Rust went into the crease because of Frattin's stick work.

Besides that, the video from various angles in no way supports the on-ice officials' claim that Frattin's stick caused Rust to lose his balance, slide into the crease and make contact with the goalie. While I can sympathize with the fact that the referees don't have access to anything but the overhead view in making their call, the fact remains that their decision was based not only on something that didn't happen, but also on something that the one video replay they viewed didn't support.

Shepherd leaves open the possibility that had the referees been able to see the replays of the goal from different angles, they might have made a different decision. That's nice, but what does the WCHA do about an officiating crew which allowed a goal that shouldn't have counted, a goal that might have important implications at playoff time in March? What do you do with an officiating crew that claims to have seen a penalty on a scoring opportunity, but didn't call it and then uses the non-call as its rationale for allowing the goal?

It makes no sense.

Hockey needs to figure this out

2010-10-31T11:23:00.012-05:00

What is and what isn't a legal hit? Is it permissible to blast a player in a vulnerable position -- such as having his head down -- or isn't it? For many years, the thinking in hockey has been that if a player puts himself in a vulnerable position, he gets whatever he deserves. But it should be evident by now that allowing such hits can cause serious injuries.

So does hockey want to eliminate these types of hits or not? The check UND's Brad Malone delivered to Denver's Jesse Martin during Saturday's game that sent Martin to the hospital is a perfect example of hockey's indecisiveness on the issue. (The latest reports say Martin was seriously injured on the play.)

Was Malone guilty of charging? Perhaps, but that's unclear from the video. I'd like to think that if what Malone did was a flagrant charge worthy of a five-minute major penalty and ejection from the game, it would have been obvious not only to the officials on the ice, but also to almost everyone watching the game, but that was not the case.

None of the four officials on the ice put an arm up to signal a penalty. UND continued to play for five seconds with possession of the puck. Matt Frattin had a good scoring opportunity during that time. If he had scored, would it have counted? Or would the officials have retroactively wiped out the goal when they retroactively got around to assessing the penalty they didn't originally call?

A score by UND at that point could have had a significant impact on the game's outcome. It demonstrates why it's necessary to have an established policy and concrete rules in place rather than making something up on the spot depending upon the seriousness of the injury to the player.

Either you say that some hard hits are part of the game and allow them or hockey's regulatory authorities should take substantive action to make it clear to players, coaches and officials that they will no longer be tolerated because they're simply too dangerous. It's too important an issue to make it up as you go, and hockey has put off dealing with it far too long.

Football, for the most part, seems to have figured this out. Players are no longer permitted to deliver dangerous hits just because an opponent is in a vulnerable position. As a result, sometimes players are flagged for hits that were completely accidental, unintentional or because an opposing player did something they couldn't have anticipated.

This leads to players occasionally being unfairly penalized for a situation that was completely out of their control. That's the down side of attempting to eliminate dangerous hits from contact sports. However, it is the best way to insure that player safety is the top priority.

Football hasn't suffered from attempts to take dangerous hits out of the game, and it's doubtful that hockey would, either. Hockey should follow football's lead.

Sioux in good hands with Eidsness

2010-03-29T20:47:00.004-05:00

Worth noting at season's end is that Fighting Sioux sophomore goalie Brad Eidsness in on track to be one of North Dakota's all-time best goalies, especially if he plays four years. He's already made a name for himself in the UND record books.

For the second straight season, Eidsness tied his fourth-place record for most wins in a season by a UND goalie (24). His goals against average this season was 2.11, which ranks him fifth in UND's record book, with only Karl Goehring, Phil Lamoureux, Jordan Parise and Bob Peters above him.

Eidsness' .914 save percentage ties him with Lamoureux for the ninth best season ever by a Sioux goalie. His three shutouts this season tie him for seventh with Lamoureux, Ed Belfour, Goehring and Lefty Curran. His 41 games played this season is second only to Lamoureux's 42 in 07-08.

In career stats, after two years, Eidsness is already tied for seventh with 82 games games played. He's in sixth place with 48 career wins. He needs only five more wins to pass Jon Casey and Toby Kvalevog, eight more to pass Parise and 13 more to pass Lamoureux in second place. If he stays four years, he could potentially pass Goehring for all-time number of wins (80).

Eidsness' current career winning percentage of .667 ranks ninth and his 2.34 career goals against average ranks third behind Lamoureux and Parise. More impressively, his .910 career save percentage ranks fourth in the Sioux record book, tied with Casey and behind Goehring (.918), Lamoureux (.920) and Parise (.921)

What more could you expect from a sophomore goalie? Yes, Eidsness has given up some soft and untimely goals, but what goalie hasn't? Besides being very durable his first two seasons, he's also improved significantly. His save percentage went from .906 his rookie season to .914 this year and his goals against average from 2.56 to 2.11. It will be interesting to see if he can be even better in 2010-2011.

My greatest concern about UND's goaltending for next season is that Aaron Dell needs to develop into a reliable backup who can spell Eidsness on occasion and substitute for him should it become necessary.

It's a team game after all

2010-03-28T08:52:00.006-05:00

As another Fighting Sioux hockey season comes to an unsatisfying end, I'll state the obvious: size, speed, skill, talent and past victories will only take a team so far. The team that consistently plays inspired hockey and plays together stands the best chance of winning a national championship. Until Yale ended UND's season with a 3-2 win yesterday, I had no reason to believe that the Sioux weren't such a team.

Little RIT brought down the regular season champions from the nation's two most powerful conferences, the WCHA and Hockey East. And if Wisconsin doesn't bring its best game against the Tigers in the Frozen Four, all the Badgers' NHL draft picks and Hobey Baker finalists won't save them from the same fate.

For the rest of the season, I'm a Wisconsin fan if for no other reason than to prove ESPN commentator Bob Norton wrong about the WCHA. Last night, he couldn't resist taking a swipe at the league when reporting on Yale's win over UND. I like Norton because he actually knows something about college hockey, but his perpetual eastern bias is annoying, and it doesn't help when he goes out of his way to put in on display.

So, on Wisconsin!

Right and Wrong
There's no sugarcoating a season-ending loss, but it's worth noting that the Sioux did some of what they needed to do against Yale. It's what UND didn't do that ultimately cost it the game.

UND didn't get the quick start it needed. Yale had played just three games in the past three weeks. Bulldogs coach Keith Allain took a gamble when he went with a goalie Ryan Rondeau who had played only three games all season. That made a strong Sioux start imperative, but UND came out flat, which gave the Bulldogs time to shake off the rust and Rondeau time to gain confidence.

Yale got the first goal of the game when the Sioux flubbed the opportunity to clear the puck from their zone. Denny Kearney made a beautiful deflection off Thomas Dignard's point shot, and suddenly the underdogs had momentum. The Sioux cause wasn't helped when Jason Gregoire made an uncharacteristically bad decision that cost UND a chance for a two-man advantage.

So why the slow start? Did seeing Rondeau in net give the Sioux a false sense of confidence? Did it have something to do with playing a sparsely attended game without the usual number of supportive Sioux fans? Was it too many injuries? Or did physical or mental fatigue finally catch up with the team? Whatever the case, UND coach Dave Hakstol said after the game that he didn't see the letdown coming, nor could he explain why it happened. He didn't, however, think it had anything to do with fatigue.

Going into this game, I believed that if the Sioux could get Yale out of its game, they would stand a good chance of success. In some respects, UND achieved that goal. Yale came into the contest averaging 40 shots on goal per game. The Sioux held them to 23.

Rensselaer was the only other team to hold Yale to fewer shots on goal. That happened Jan. 30 in a game Renssalaer won 4-0 while outshooting the Bulldogs 26-22. Defensively, UND deserves credit for limiting Yale's high-powered offense to so few opportuntiies. Unfortunately, the Bulldogs took advantage of the few they got.

I also believed that UND needed to stay out of the penalty box to avoid giving Yale's power play – second in the nation – a chance to be a factor. The Sioux did that, too, limiting the Bulldogs only three power plays and killing them all.

The Bulldogs' defensive strategy appeared to be that any time the Sioux had a "Grade A" scoring chance, they would take a penalty rather than risk giving up the goal. It worked because UND didn't capitalize on any of its four power plays and Darcy Zajac just missed on his penalty shot. UND's power play has run hot and cold for much of the season. In a one-and-done playoff game, it was a poor time for UND's power play to go cold.

I noted in this blog back on March 12 that 7 of UND's 11 losses to that point had come when the Sioux were outscored in the second period. Now it's 8 of 12 as the Bulldogs outscored the Sioux 2-0 in the second period, thus becoming the only team to accomplish that feat since St. Cloud State did it on Feb. 12 and won 4-3. This was also the only period in which Yale outshot UND (10-6). Until Saturday, the Sioux had put their second-period lapses behind them.

Missing Pieces
Freshman Joe Gleason is the type of defenseman who's well-suited to play a team like Yale. But an injury suffered during the playoff series with Minnesota kept him out of the game. And although Jake Marto played exceptionally well, Hakstol admitted that the junior defenseman has been injured, not practicing for the past month and operating with limited ability. The Grand Forks Herald's Brad Schlossman reported in his blog that defenseman Ben Blood was playing hurt, too.

Under the circumstances, UND did a remarkable job defensively by limiting Yale to 23 shots on goal and keeping the Bulldogs' power play off the board. And while there's no point in crying over spilled milk, it's difficult not to think about how much of a difference Chay Genoway could have made in this game, both as a player and an on-ice leader.

UND's downfall throughout the season wasn't defense, it was scoring. That turned out to be the case against Yale when the Sioux didn't begin to generate quality scoring chances until the third period, capitalizing twice. As forward Matt Frattin noted after the game, by then it was "too little, too late."

Defensively, the Sioux were two bounces away from doing all they needed to do to win the game. They cut Yale's average number of shots on goal nearly in half; they held the nation's top-scoring offense to a goal less than it averaged; and they shut out one of the most potent power plays in the country. If the Sioux underachieved in any area, it was on offense.

Was it Coaching?
In each of the nine seasons I've covered Fighting Sioux hockey for U.S. College Hockey Online, I always learn something new from Hakstol and other coaches with whom I'm fortunate to interact.

When unranked Ohio State defeated Bemidji State in overtime at the Subway Holiday Classic at Engelstad Arena, I asked Beavers coach Tom Serratore if his team had a hard time getting up for the game against the Buckeyes after defeating No. 1 Miami the previous day.

The ever-glib Serratore replied, "I'm a coach. I think our team should be up for every game."

That's an important lesson because no matter how much coaches and fans want to believe that their team is completely fired up and totally motivated to play any team it faces, human nature and plain-old bad luck are always waiting in the wings to throw a monkey wrench into the best laid plans.

It's easy to think that UND should win a national championship every year -- until you stop to consider all the factors that conspire against it. As Gen. Tommy Franks says, "...the enemy gets a vote." In other words, no matter what you plan for your team, the opposition will do all it can to make the plan go awry.

One of Hakstol's favorite expressions is: "Control what's yours to contol." Throughout six seasons of covering Sioux hockey under Hakstol's guidance, I have no reason to believe that he doesn't do his best to control what he can. In the course of a season, he must make hundreds of judgement calls with the potential to produce negative results. He deserves credit for getting the vast majority of them right.

Compared to even the elite teams in college hockey, UND under Hakstol has been a model of consistency, going to the Frozen Four four times, making the NCAA tournament six years, winning the WCHA tournament twice and claiming a league championship. That's to say nothing of the reputation UND has garnered for producing pro-caliber players.

Even some of the UND's harshest critics express grudging respect for what Hakstol and his coaching staff accomplish season after season. How many times has he been asked: "How do you do it?" To say that most college hockey programs are envious of UND's record of success is an understatment.

I'm as disappointed as anyone that another hockey season has come to an end without the Fighting Sioux adding a national championship banner to the rafters of Ralph Engelstad Arena. But I can't wait until next season when I walk into the arena, remind myself that, yes, I am in Grand Forks, ND, and feel confident that no matter happens, Hakstol, Cary Eades and Dane Jackson will have the team primed and positioned to make a run at No. 8.

There's really nothing else that anyone can reasonably expect.

Sioux shouldn't take Yale lightly

2010-03-21T22:00:00.002-05:00

The Yale Bulldogs concern me because they're a small, fast team that scores a lot of goals. They're the top offensive team in a nation, averaging slightly more than 4 goals per game. Yale has the second highest rated power play in the nation (23.5 percent). They remind me of the skilled, offense-minded Hockey East teams that have given the Sioux trouble in recent years.

Nobody can say that Yale hasn't beat anybody. The Bulldogs beat Cornell twice, a team that split with UND. Having noted this, I'll also say that the Fighting Sioux are a better team than the one that split with Cornell. Barry Melrose aside, UND's record against Cornell in January isn't the most reliable measuring stick at this point of the season.

On the plus side, I can see the Sioux matching up very well with Yale. UND's size could give the Bulldogs problems, especially in front of their net. If Yale is forced to take penalties, they could be in trouble. The Bulldogs' penalty kill is ranked 29th nationally. It hasn't had to be great because Yale takes very few penalties (38th nationally). UND will have to stay out of the box to keep Yale's potent power play off the ice.

One surprising aspect about Yale is the fact that they don't seem to have a top goalie. They've played four different goalies throughout the season. Their top netminder, freshman Nick Maricic, is 46th nationally in GAA (2.95) and 73rd in save percentage (.888). That explains why the Bulldogs are ranked 32nd in the nation on defense, giving up 2.94 goals per game.

It seems a bit unfair that UND, the top-rated No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament, should have to play the top-rated No. 3 seed. However, Yale has lost three of its last four games, two of them to Brown, which finished 11th in the ECAC. The Bulldogs haven't been the same since losing senior forward Sean Backman, the team's third leading scorer.

Yale's had a week off since being ousted from the ECAC tournament by Brown. By the time the puck drops against UND, the Bulldogs will have played only three games (losing two) in 21 days. That might work in their favor when facing the Sioux, who are coming off six games in nine days. Or it could work to UND's favor because the Sioux are accustomed to winning playoff hockey games against good teams on neutral ice.

UND can't afford to take Yale lightly or look ahead to Boston College. Coach Dave Hakstol knows that and will be hammering the message home to the team throughout the week. The Sioux must also keep in mind that they won't be dealing with WCHA officiating, and that the games might be called much more tightly. They will have to be more disciplined than they were against St. Cloud State on Saturday.

Although the Sioux shouldn't look past Yale, I can. If UND gets past the Bulldogs, it will be an excellent tune-up game before taking on Boston College -- assuming the Eagles don't look past Alaska.

Don Lucia is right

2010-03-15T00:41:00.003-05:00

After North Dakota's 4-1 victory over Minnesota to win the series, Gophers coach Don Lucia was visibly upset about Matt Frattin's hit that knocked defenseman Kevin Wehrs out of the game.

The moment I saw the hit, I knew the result would be bad and that Frattin would get a 5-minute major for it. He deserved it. He came a long way to make the hit, and both his skates left the ice when he delivered it. It was a classic case of charging. If the WCHA suspends Frattin, it will be because he deserves it.

In his post-game comments, Lucia said: "That’s a vicious hit. Say what you want, it’s not the kind of hits we want to see in the game. My own personal feeling is that it was more than a five. Obviously, Wehrs is not in great shape right now. They’ve got a defenseman (Chay Genoway) that hasn’t played all year because of a hit, and those are things that I don’t think need to be part of the game."

I'm in complete agreement with Lucia. I, too, thought Frattin should have been tossed out of the game and was surprised he wasn't.

I suspect that the league will suspend Frattin for at least one game, and that's too bad because he has proven himself a valuable part of the team at a critical point in the season. If Fighting Sioux fans are honest with themselves, they'll admit that it's the right course of action.

UND is the last team that should be delivering dangerous hits to the head because of what happened to Genoway. And because of what happened to Robbie Bina five years ago, it should be the last team taking checking from behind penalties. There's no defending those types of hits.

So much for that theory

2010-03-14T00:12:00.004-06:00

For just the second time this season, North Dakota lost when it outscored its opponent in the second period.

Going into Saturday's game against Minnesota, the Fighting Sioux were 19-1-4 when they held the second period scoring advantage. Corban Knight's goal Saturday, which made it a 1-1 game, meant that UND outscored Minnesota 1-0 in the second. When Matt Frattin made in 2-1 in the third period, I thought the Sioux were on their way to ending Minnesota's season, but it was not to be.

Give Minnesota credit: When they fell behind in a hostile environment, they didn't crumble as they did Friday. They pushed back hard and gutted out a 4-2 win. The Gophers looked nothing like the team that gave up in the first period Friday. They seem to respond well to hostility and abuse from fans, media and former players.

I mentioned in my blog Friday that UND was a different team from the one that played at Minnesota in January because it was without Knight and Frattin was not yet a factor. Those two players have certainly come through for the Sioux in the first two games of this series.

The big mystery is: What's happened to Brett Hextall and UND's power play? The Sioux are 1-19 with the man advantage in their last four games. The power play outage Friday didn't matter, but it did matter in Saturday's game. The power play must get back on track if UND hopes to win Sunday and go far in the playoffs.

Finally, WCHA officials have shown that when given the opportunity to play a role in influencing the outcome of a game, they will. UND's victory Friday was so decisive that there wasn't anything they could do to keep the game close, but Saturday's game was a different story. In the first two games of the series, Minnesota has a nearly two-to-one advantage in power plays.

If the Sioux are to win Sunday's third game against Minnesota, they'll need to do it in a decisive manner that doesn't give the WCHA's finest an opportunity to influence the final result.

It's not so much what the officials do call as what they don't. In Saturday's game, I witnessed two very obvious penalties on Mario Lamoureux that went uncalled at times when all eyes should have been on him. And while Brad Eidsness did trip Jacob Cepis in the first period of Saturday's game, Cepis should also have received a penalty for embellishment because that's what he did.

In the WCHA, players who are known divers and continually exhibit such behavior are frequently rewarded for it. At one time, the NCAA said that cutting down on diving was a point of emphasis, which led to the embellishment rule. But as with many NCAA points of emphasis, it got heeded for a short time by the WCHA and then ignored.

As Brandon Bochenski once remarked about players who dive, "It's unmanly."

Besides that, it's dishonest and unsportsmanlike. The WHCA needs to put divers down.

Gophers or Sioux? Just a second...

2010-03-12T12:19:00.003-06:00

Many look at Minnesota's and North Dakota's 1-1-2 records against each other and declare the series a toss-up. They could be right, but certainly on paper, UND is a better team statistically. Its won-loss record, its finish in the WCHA and its Pairwise ranking all point to that conclusion.

However, I would argue that the team the Gophers will be playing at the Ralph this weekend has much more in common with the Sioux team they played in Grand Forks in November than it does with the Sioux team they played at the Mariucci in January.

One positive in the Gophers’ favor is that this time in Grand Forks, they’ll have forward Jacob Cepis, a player who’s provided the team with a significant offensive spark. In contrast, UND is without captain and top defenseman Chay Genoway, who the Sioux had when they went 1-0-1 against the Gophers at Engelstad Arena.

So…advantage Gophers, right? Not necessarily.

Much has changed for the Sioux since they last played Minnesota. When UND went to Minneapolis in January, Brett Hextall and Corban Knight were out with injuries. While it’s arguable that Knight would have been a difference-maker in that series, the Sioux have been a much improved team since Hextall’s return. And it’s not just because he helps make the power better and provides added scoring punch. Coach Dave Hakstol acknowledged that Hextall’s leadership on the bench and in the locker room was missed. UND was 3-4-1 without him and has gone 7-1-0 since his return.

Knight had just begun to play up to his potential when he went down with an injury the weekend before the Gopher series. While his offensive stats aren’t gaudy, the number of minutes he’s played in key situations have increased, which shows that Hakstol relies on the freshman forward to play a steady, consistent game. Knight deserves some credit for his role in UND’s turnaround, and he makes the Sioux a better team in the upcoming playoff series.

In addition, when UND played at Minnesota in January, Matt Frattin had only been back for four games since his half-season suspension. It would be another five games before he scored his first goal of the season. Since then, he’s scored five goals in seven games and is playing well on a line with fellow juniors Evan Trupp and Brad Malone. His overtime goal at Colorado College assured UND of home ice in the playoffs and might prove one of the most important plays of UND’s season.

One of the most significant changes for UND has gone unnoticed. In seven of UND’s 11 losses and in its tie at Minnesota, the Sioux were outscored in the second period by a 19-3 margin. During the team’s current seven-game winning streak, the Sioux have outscored opponents 14-4. That stat is somewhat skewed by a six-goal second period at St. Cloud, but it’s worth noting that UND’s performance in the second game against SCSU marked the beginning of the team’s second-half surge.

For whatever reason, the second-period letdowns that were a trend for UND earlier in the season (and which contributed to the Gopher win and tie at Mariucci in January) have all but disappeared. The one game in which the Sioux were outscored in the second period (1-0 at Colorado College), they won. Even throwing out the six-goal second period against SCSU, UND is outscoring its opponents 2:1 in the second rather than being outscored by better than 3:1.

When the Sioux outscored their opponent in the second period, they were 12-1-4. When second period scoring was even, UND went 6-3-0. In other words, the Sioux are 18-4-4 when outscoring or holding their opponents even in the second period. If the Sioux can continue the trend of strong play in the second period, I like their chances in this series.

WCHA head games vs USCHO mind games

2010-02-26T09:39:00.007-06:00

In her US College Online column on the WCHA this week, Theresa Spisak addresses the issue of the WCHA's inconsistency in calling penalties for hits to the head. I'm in full agreement with her about the ridiculousness of the league's handling of contact to the head penalties and its seeming unwillingness to discipline players when they engage in dangerous on-ice conduct.

That being said, it's unfair to compare the hit by UND's Corban Knight on UMD's Mike Connolly to the hits made by Aaron Marvin on Chay Genoway and Blake Geoffrion. We still don't know if Genoway will return this season. And who knows how long Geoffrion might be out? Knight's hit wasn't even close to the hit on Minnesota's Nick Leddy. He was out for weeks with a broken jaw, which the WCHA apparently doesn't consider part of the head.

Connolly practiced this week and will play this weekend for the Bulldogs. While it's unfortunate that he was injured as a result of Knight's hit, it is not at all clear that his injury was caused by an elbow or any other deliberate blow to the head. Saying something happened does not make it so. The video doesn't conclusively prove anything regarding the claim that Knight's elbow was the cause of Connolly's injury.

In no way do I condone hits to the head. I'm in total agreement with the NCAA's zero tolerance policy against them. If the video proved that Knight went after Connolly's head, I'd be among those calling for the WCHA to suspend him.

However, I believe that if Knight was guilty of anything when he hit Connolly, it was boarding. To me, it appears that Knight got lower than Connolly and brought up his right shoulder, which drove the UMD player backwards. The left side of Connolly's helmet violently impacted the glass. An elbow wasn't needed to cause the injury, which turned out to be nowhere near as serious as Genoway's, Geoffrion's or Leddy's.

I can see this now because I have the benefit of watching the video in slow motion. But when I was at the game covering it for USCHO, Knight's hit didn't look dirty or illegal. Usually when such hits occur, there are reactions and comments made in the press box, such as, "He got away with one there." I don't recall anybody saying anything about this particular hit during or after the game. As the video shows, the crowd barely reacted to it. I can understand why no penalty was called at the time. It simply didn't look that bad.

Sioux players have been getting called for contact to the head penalties all season long, so I know they're not angels in this regard. One would hope that players and coaches would have a clear understanding of what "zero tolerance" means. If they did, it would greatly reduce incidents of headhunting.

However, when WCHA officials don't consistently call contact to the head in cases where it's clearly warranted and the league office displays great reluctance in giving suspensions to players whose hits result in serious head injuries, it should come as no surprise that such dangerous plays continue to occur.

So, by all means, criticize the WCHA for its lackadaisical attitude toward head injuries and its unwillingness to enforce the NCAA's mandate against the plays that cause them. But there's no need to create new controversies where they don't exist, especially when there are already plenty of glaring examples of WCHA ineptitude on the record.

Why now?

2010-02-23T11:41:00.002-06:00

Folks, I've provided that history of Bruce McLeod to let some of you know just that: History.

What must be dealt with now is how the WCHA is being run today.

Is the league looking out for player safety?

Are the rules being enforced by the book?

More Revelations

2010-02-23T09:55:00.004-06:00

After my last post recapping the past adventures of WCHA Commissioner McLeod I've received more information (this time from the Star-Tribune) about his past exploits. Enjoy.

UMD athletic official was at the center of police probe; In an investigation of suspected witness-tampering and bribery, authorities taped conversations in 1992-93 between Bruce McLeod and a student who told police she was assaulted by a hockey player.(NEWS)

Article from: Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
Article date: June 19, 1996
Author: Oakes, Larry
More results for: bruce mcleod duluth investigation
Copyright 1996 Star Tribune

Bruce McLeod, the University of Minnesota-Duluth's athletic director, offered to arrange payment to a UMD student if she would decline to testify against a hockey player who assaulted her, according to a police investigation that included recordings of their conversations.

Transcripts show that during a private meeting in his office, McLeod discussed with Erin Masser, then a UMD sophomore, the disadvantages of pursuing an assault case and offered to act as "middleman" in passing money to her from hockey player Sergei Krivokrasov, who had signed a pro contract worth $900,000. ...

McLeod: " . . . Maybe you should be compensated in some way for your, you know, anguish and your time."
Masser: "Whose money would it be?"
McLeod: "It would be his."
Masser: "Sergei's?"
McLeod: "Yup. . . . I was trying to figure out in my mind if, in fact, that something was done, how you could kind of keep it as private as possible or something like that. I even thought of, you know, acting as a middleman or something like that and just tell him that, you know, write Bruce McLeod the check. . . . "

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This is the commissioner of the premier college hockey league in the country? This is how he operates?

We Expected Better?

2010-02-22T13:51:00.002-06:00

Many, including me, have expected better from WCHA Commissioner Bruce McLeod for numerous reasons, primarily related to player safety and officiating.

It seems that expectation is naive given his track record.

But can someone explain to me how the premier college hockey league in the country can have a guy who was investigated for witness tampering (in a sexual assault case no less) and charged with felony theft and swindling as commissioner?

Grand Forks Herald (ND)
June 20, 1996
Edition: FINAL
Section: SPORTS
Page: D03

MCLEOD LINKED TO PAYOFF OFFER
WCHA COMMISSIONER, MINN.-DULUTH AD AT THE CENTER OF CONTROVERSY

Author: Associated Press
Dateline: DULUTH

Article Text:
The athletic director at the University of Minnesota-Duluth offered to arrange a payment to a student if she would decline to testify against a hockey player who assaulted her, a newspaper reported.

In a copyright story Wednesday, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis cited a police investigation from 1992 and 1993 that did not result in charges against Bruce McLeod, who is also the commissioner of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. The player, Sergei Krivokrasov, pleaded guilty to an assault charge in 1993 and now plays for the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks.

Transcripts show that during a private meeting in his office, McLeod discussed with Erin Masser, then a sophomore, the disadvantages of pursuing an Krivokrasov, who had signed a pro contract worth $900,000, the newspaper said.

As part of the investigation into suspected witness tampering and bribery by McLeod, Duluth police taped conversations between McLeod and Masser.

The St. Louis County attorney's office never filed charges against McLeod, in part because no money changed hands, according to the attorney who examined the case. However, police Lt. John Hall, who directed the investigation, told certainly see why somebody could think that. But that was certainly never the McLeod's involvement with Krivokrasov puzzled investigators, not only because it potentially violated the law, but also because Krivokrasov was never a Minnesota-Duluth student.

And while the school took no disciplinary action against McLeod, a senior college official ordered a workshop for athletic department personnel about appropriate ways to counsel students.

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Grand Forks Herald (ND)
October 19, 1996
Edition: FINAL
Section: SPORTS
Page: C03

NO ACTION PLANNED AGAINST WCHA'S MCLEOD

Author: Associated Press
Dateline: MINNEAPOLIS

Article Text:
Members of the faculty committee overseeing the Western Collegiate Hockey Association say they plan no immediate action against WCHA commissioner Bruce McLeod who has admitted stealing money from the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

The Star Tribune on Thursday surveyed several committee members to ask about any possible plans against McLeod, who has resigned as athletic director at Minnesota-Duluth.

On Wednesday, McLeod entered into a court-approved program for first-time offenders. If McLeod completes the program, es will be dismissed after one year.

Several WCHA committee members in the 10-university association said they want more information about McLeod's case before making a decision on any action against him as commissioner.

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Grand Forks Herald (ND)
October 23, 1996
Edition: FINAL
Section: SPORTS
Page: D01

TIME FOR MCLEOD TO STEP DOWN AS WCHA COMMISSIONER

Author: Gregg Wong, Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Article Text:
It's time for Bruce McLeod to step down as commissioner of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. Now. Not in January or at the end of the season.

McLeod resigned in August as athletic director at Minnesota-Duluth because of several misdeeds in his administration, the biggest an admission that he stole $18,000 of the school's money for his own use. He later made restitution.

Last week McLeod entered into a pretrial diversion program for first-time offenders. If he completes the program, felony theft and swindling charges against him will be dismissed after one year.

McLeod also was involved in other questionable actions while he was Umd's athletic director, among them offering to arrange payment for a woman student so she would not testify against a Russian hockey player, a non-student, who had assaulted her; secretly giving an assistant coach a bonus; and diverting money from the women's program to men's athletics.

There have been no revelations of any misdeeds in his role as Wcha commissioner, a position he has held since July 1, 1994. Nonetheless, for the good of the league, he must step down now. If the Wcha is to remain the best college hockey league, which it claims, it cannot have a leader with this kind of baggage.

The Wcha's executive committee has ordered an outside audit of the league's books. The committee, led by Pat Merrier, Umd's acting athletic director, has indicated it probably will not act on McLeod's status with the league until January, when the audit is complete and the committee has its regularly scheduled meeting.

"I've been proud of the fact that all the Wcha people are doing justice to someone they all know and like and who has made many contributions to the league," Gophers men's athletic director Mark Dienhart said. "I'm not alarmed that nobody has pulled the trigger. That wouldn't be appropriate at this time. But I know there may be some discomfort between now and January."

Yet, Dienhart added, "We need a commissioner who is functioning at the highest level, who is empowered and who has the confidence of the league behind him or her."
Before McLeod admitted that he took the money, most of the league coaches and administrators voiced their support. Now, since his admission, some of that support is waning. And, according to a source, McLeod's predecessor as commissioner, the retired Otto Breitenbach of Wisconsin, already has been alerted that he might be asked to step in as acting commissioner.

McLeod probably realizes his fate. He has sold two of his three houses, including a lake cabin, and reportedly plans to move to Denver. He was in Denver over the weekend, perhaps seeking a new job and home. He was traveling on Monday and did not return a phone call.

In any case, when McLeod does resign or is fired, the Wcha must try to find an independent commissioner, one not concurrently employed by one of the league schools, so as to avoid any hint of partiality. The new commissioner also must know hockey and be well versed in marketing, media (notably television) and public relations.

With new arenas in Denver and Colorado Springs and the probability of Mankato State and Nebraska-Omaha joining the Wcha in the next few years, the league and its popularity should grow immensely. And the commissioner has to be the point man for that growth.

On another disciplinary matter, Gophers coach Doug Woog merited being reprimanded for passing on tuition money to former Gopher Chris McAlpine.

Woog should have known better. You don't hand over an envelope with cash to a student-athlete, even if his eligibility has expired.

Woog's intentions were admirable -- helping a kid without any money stay in school. But he should have thought it out. The money could have been given to McAlpine without Woog's involvement -- and then there would be no suspension or loss of scholarship.

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Grand Forks Herald (ND)
November 29, 1996
Edition: FINAL
Section: SPORTS
Page: D02

MCLEOD LEAVES MINN.-DULUTH, BUT STAYS ON AS COMMISIONER

Author: Virg Foss, Herald Staff Writer

Article Text:
Former Minnesota-Duluth athletic director Bruce McLeod, who resigned after he was charged misappropriating school athletic funds, sold his house and lake cabin and moved to Denver last weekend, Bulldog hockey coach Mike Sertich said.

The cloud of the investigation into McLeod's activities has hung over the UMD athletic department for eight months, Sertich said. "It's important we have some closure to all of this," Sertich said. McLeod's departure from Duluth may lead to that, he added. McLeod, who still serves as Western Collegiate Hockey Association commissioner, will run the league office from Denver.

The WCHA still is conducting an audit of its funds under McLeod. If the WCHA takes steps to remove McLeod, that would come at a league meeting in January.

There is talk that McLeod could tell the WCHA in January that he will resign, effective at the end of the season. He's reportedly looking to find a job with a professional sports franchise in Colorado.

If McLeod does resign, there's already speculation that his replacement could be former UND head hockey coach Gino Gasparini.

Gasparini is beginning his third season commissioner of the United States Hockey League, which supplies many of the players for the WCHA.

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Gasparini back in WCHA?
With Bruce McLeod's forced resignation as athletic director at Minnesota-Duluth and subsequent move from Duluth to Denver, his days as commissioner of the WCHA may be numbered.

If so, perhaps the leading candidate to replace him would be ex-UND coach Gino Gasparini, in his third season as commissioner of the United States Hockey League.
For the record, Gasparini is taking the stance that's he's perfectly happy doing what he's doing. "I have a wonderful job that I enjoy immensely," Gasparini said Monday. "I'm not in the market of looking for a new job."

But if the WCHA needs a new commissioner and is interested in him, he said he would talk.

Gasparini would be the perfect candidate. He not only has a background in the league as a long-time coach, but he knows the inner workings of the USHL, now the prime feeder league for WCHA schools. Another bonus would be that Gasparini has no ties to a WCHA school as McLeod did in his dual role as AD at Duluth and commissioner of the WCHA. McLeod's two jobs created the potential for a conflict of interest.

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Grand Forks Herald (ND)
February 5, 1997
Edition: FINAL
Section: SPORTS
Page: D01

Topics:
Index Terms:
COLLEGE ATHLETICS
EX-MINNESOTA-DULUTH PLAYER IS SUING SCHOOL OVER GENDER EQUITY BULLDOG SOCCER PLAYER ASKING FOR $75,000 IN DAMAGES
Author: Associated Press
Dateline: DULUTH, MINN.

Article Text:
A former University of Minnesota-Duluth soccer player says she was forced to quit the sport because scholarships were unavailable to the team but were offered disproportionately to male athletes.

Julie Grandson filed a lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, saying Minnesota-Duluth has violated a federal law by denying female athletes the same opportunities it extends to male athletes.

Grandson says that although women made up 33 percent of the school's athletes in the 1995-96 school year, their teams received only 21 percent of the total athletic budget, 18 percent of athletic scholarships and 18 percent of athletic recruiting money.

The suit demands that soccer be funded equitably and asks damages of more than $75,000.

Wide disparities have persisted despite an annual state subsidy whose intent is to help Minnesota-Duluth attain gender equity in sports. The school has accepted more than $5 million in such funds since 1985, records show.

Last summer, after an internal probe, Chancellor Kathryn Martin acknowledged that the school's spending on women's sports was unfair and promised to fix the problem by 1999.

The investigations also led to the discovery that Athletic Director Bruce McLeod made $18,000 in undocumented withdrawals from a fund-raising account. He resigned, was charged with theft and was accepted into a pretrial diversion program. He still heads the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.

Grandson suit cites 19 defendants including Martin, McLeod and each member of the university Board of Regents. University officials declined to comment.

Strange Bedfellows: Why a Big Ten Hockey Conference Could Push UND Hockey and UND Football to Join Forces

2009-10-20T11:55:00.002-05:00

Strange as this may sound, a Big Ten Hockey Conference (BTHC) could benefit UND Football. Here’s how:

Big Ten (BT) commissioner Delaney seems to be pushing for it. He has some backing. Wisconsin Athletic Director (AD) Alvarez has threatened to move Wisconsin from the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) to the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA). Speculation on this subject is that Wisconsin wants to play more “name” opponents and fewer {town name here} State University type schools. A BTHC would solve that issue for Wisconsin as it would be made up of CCHA members Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State plus WCHA member Minnesota. However, Minnesota seems to have put a halt to those efforts, for now.

How do we know this isn’t just more speculative BTHC chatter that’s raged for well over a decade? Delaney used names of potential affiliate members for a BTHC. That means the commissioner has thought about this, and not just with a fan in a pub after a contest. Why affiliates? The BT does not have enough hockey playing full members (just five) to fill a conference. You really need six to eight to make it work.

Delaney is looking for Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) based affiliate members. Names used were Miami of Ohio, Western Michigan, and Bowling Green. All are presently CCHA members and all presently play FBS football in the Mid-America Conference (MAC). The MAC has a scheduling arrangement with the BT in football today. Finding hockey affiliates in the MAC would only seem logical given that.

(Side note: Does Minnesota, or Wisconsin for that matter, really want those MAC schools? Or would they rather have affiliates that have better potential to put fans into their football and hockey venues? MAC based affiliates only seems to really benefit Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State in that regard.)

If all of this were to happen, UND would be left in a “no Minnesota, no Wisconsin” WCHA. Some may be fine with that. However, is that what is best for UND Hockey and the University of North Dakota?

In this case, I’ll side with the Alvarez point of view. I’d rather UND be playing hockey peers like Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

So, to team with the BT, per the words of BT commissioner Delaney, UND would need to move from the Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level that it is presently at to the FBS level. And which group of UND fans would be pushing for this? As strange as this sounds, hockey fans would be pushing. Would they have any other backing?

Well, some UND Football fans and friends questioned making the leap only to FCS, and not going the full way to FBS. They’d be in support. Also importantly, UND Hockey fans would also have a vested interest in the growth and success of UND Football as it could be their ticket, and continuing relationship, to a BTHC membership.

This is a scenario where both UND Football and UND Hockey would be working together for an outcome that would end up benefitting both, but for different reasons. I’m not sure if this has ever happened. I must say: strange bedfellows indeed.

What would be required? The move from FCS to FBS is not as large as the move from Division II to Division I FCS. Roughly 20 mens and 20 womens (don’t forget Title IX) scholarships would need to be added. Otherwise, most of the Division I requirements overlap as the FBS/FCS designators only apply to football.

However, the move is far larger. The key stumbling block would be having a football stadium large enough to meet the 15000 average attendance minimum of FBS. Alerus Center is limited at about 13000. Some will say “Average 15000? No way.” But that’s not the real issue as other schools have come up with creative ways to meet that minimum and UND could follow suit. And a schedule with interesting teams on it would bring out football fans of all sorts.

The keys come down to what any shift in UND Athletics comes down to: Money (scholarships and stadium) and Conference. That’s where the combined benefits of hockey and football working for a mutually beneficial outcome would work to the benefit of both, and seemingly all of UND as it would become even more prominent nationally.

Yes, it seems that there is a scenario where a BTHC would make strange bedfellows of UND Football and UND Hockey.

And who would have believed it would come from Jim Delaney and Barry Alvarez.

Closing Disclaimer: Before you, gentle reader, start shooting this to ribbons for thousands of good and logical reasons allow me to state that there are lots of issues that would need to be addressed and overcome to make this work. I’m not ignoring those; I’m just too lazy to bring them all up and address them all here.

It's a 400?

2009-06-29T22:09:00.002-05:00

There's an old line about baseball: It's a marathon, not a sprint.

The same could be said of the NHL season, but the NHL really has two seasons: one for post-season seedings and one for winning.

I'm looking at college hockey and trying to decide what it is. It's too long to be a sprint, but it's not a marathon either. At most, college teams will play 48 games. So, what's between a sprint and a marathon? Track legend Edwin Moses would tell you, "The 400." Folks in the track world say you can't run the 400 like a distance race or like a sprint. It's a hybrid of getting off to a decent start, setting a pace, and a dash to the finish. And that sounds like a college hockey season to me.

It also sounds a lot like the Stanley Cup playoffs. You need to get out and set a pace. And you have to maintain that pace well and long enough that a strong finish will let you hit the tape first.

The Cup playoffs are at most 28 (bone-jarring, grinding, gut-wrenching) games.

Sometimes I wonder if Dave Hakstol isn't building his UND teams to look and act like the college season is a Stanley Cup season. You really don't want to dig an 0-2 series hole in any situation, you can't get away with being below 0.500 for any stretch (Cup series loss in the NHL, or buried too deep in the PWR in college) but defeats along the way are going to come. Don't believe me? The conference finals losers post-season records were 8-10 (Carolina) and 9-8 (Chicago) and no one would say they had bad post-seasons. Pittsburgh was 16-8 on their way to the Cup; Detroit was 15-7 in coming up just short.

The masters of Cup play in recent memory are the Detroit Red Wings. And what's their formula for success? First ... as a side thought ...

Who are the best players in the NHL? When I ask that question most of you came up with a list of three to five names, and no Red Wings names were on it I'm guessing. (Ovchekin, Crosby, Malkin are probably the first thoughts.) I'm not sure many of you came up with Datsyuk, Franzen, or Zetterberg right away. And there was a point to that. We'll get there.

The Red Wings do it fairly simply by their formula:

- They have a top line that is lethal and can make opponent lesser lines look foolish, but they really don't have that "Ovchekin" or "Crosby".
- They have a second line that can score but can also neutralize the opponent top line. (Guys on these top two lines are virtually interchangable as everyone understands the roles and goals.)
- They have a "grind line" that shuts down everyone (and this tradition goes back to the original "Grinders" of Cleary, Draper, and Maltby).
- They have a fourth line made up of role guys (usually younger folks who are learning the Cup trade), where one of them may be skilled enough to show up on a second power play unit (Jiri Hudler anyone?) or able to "spot" a top six guy who misses a shift.
- Their defense is asked to make all the steady plays and really not much else. They'll occassionally have one "mover" but normally they play smart and tough (think: Lidstrom, Chelios).
- Their goaltender is expected to make all the "ordinary" stops, and maybe one or two more.

And then I think of the teams Dave Hakstol seems to build each year. And then I realized the formula.

It appears to this (admittedly far from expert eye) that Dave is building a team in the same mindset and framework.

Now let's again jump to a strange question ...

Who are the best individual skill players in college hockey? Have your list? Did you come up with Chris Vande Velde right away? Dare I call him the UND "mule" (tip of cap to Johan Franzen).

UND doesn't have the names that jump out at you right now, but they do have names that have shown they know how to, or are quickly learning to, play in the college "Cup-season ... season": Vande Velde, Brad Malone, Jason Gregoire's emergence.

These aren't the names that jump out at you as "the best in the game" but they are names that know how to play and seem to be playing to a system and philosophy that has taken Hakstol and UND to Frozen Fours four of the last five seasons.

I'm not saying UND is Detroit (although if Datsyuk, Franzen, Zetterberg, or Lidstrom had eligibility I'm sure we could find a jersey).

I am saying I think I see some of Hakstol's philosophy and where it may come from: The college season looks more like a Cup season so create a college team that looks like a team that does well in Cup season.

Where it may break down is the lack of margin for a loss in the last four games of a college season, as all of us learned, in some cases harshly, in the last few seconds of many games college games this spring.

Let's try this "roster prediction" thing again ...

2009-05-08T13:28:00.005-05:00

Another season has come and gone. This can only bring one thing: Speculation about recruits and what the team roster will look like in the fall. I gave it a shot a year ago and missed badly in one area: I picked Andrew MacWilliam, not Corey Fienhage, to come in for 2008-09.

Part of last year was also not knowing if there would be early departures. That's been answered: The team won't be facing early departures as it has for the last decade.

So, with that backdrop we'll begin to look at what I project as the ins-and-outs of the UND Hockey roster for 2009-2010.

For openers, thanks to Aaron Walski and welcome to Aaron Dell. (There's nothing like starting out with the gimme-of-gimmes to improve the prediction average.)

Moving to defense, Joe Finley and Zach Jones graduate and Andrew MacWilliam and Joe Gleason are the obvious replacements. We'll see Nick Mattson and Derek Forbort at some later date.

Forward is where the confusion and questions come in when I try to prognosticate the roster. Initially, do we consider Brad Miller a forward or a defenseman? For this conversation, and under the Hobey Baker caliber statement of Ryan "the Brad Miller I know is a forward" Duncan, I'm considering Brad Miller as a forward. That leaves UND with five holes at forward: Ryan Duncan, Matt Watkins, Andrew Kozek, Ryan Martens, and Brad Miller.

So, which five forward recruits in the UND pipeline do I expect to see skating in REA in the fall? Allow me to list them in my expected order:

1. Mike Cichy - Mike dominated the USHL Clark Cup playoffs, including taking home the playoff MVP award. That's the last checkbox on his "ready for the WCHA" punch list.

2. Dan Kristo - Dan's seen the World Junior Tournament for Team USA. Next question.

3. Brett Bruneteau - Brett was projected to come in during fall of 2008 but injuries led him back to the USHL for 2008-09 to help ensure he is ready for the next level.

4. Michael Forney - This is the first real question on my list. Is Michael returning to UND? He's coming off an outstanding, and healthy, season for Green Bay (USHL). I'd be very interested in seeing what a healthy Michael Forney would do for the home team in REA.

5. Corbin Knight - Here's another case of "Team Hak Recruiting". Knight wasn't highly known, touted, or visible before his commitment to UND. However, Knight went from that anonymity (unranked by NHL Central Scouting at mid-season) to being the 64th ranked North American forward as season's end. Team Hak Recruiting finds another gem in the coal mine.

6. Carter Rowney - Rowney, by being named AJHL playoff MVP, has put his name next to the likes of Dany (stinkin' Badger) Heatley, Mike (no-good Wolverine) Comrie, and Joe (dirty Pioneers) Colborne. That's pretty good hockey company, even though in my opinion they chose poorly when it came to collegiate squads. Most consider Rowney a late-bloomer but also a guy who does the hard work that's not always the glamorous part of the game. For some reason, that makes me smile.

7. Danny Mattson - I know some will call me a sinner for not expecting the Holy Angels (sinner, angel, get it?) star at UND this fall but I don't see him coming to Grand Forks until 2010. A year in the USHL would help a guy used to skating in open ice get ready for that part of the rink called "the corners" which is where the WCHA seems to play.

8. "The Rest" - meaning (still in order) Mike Fink, Derek Rodwell, Matt White, Michael Parks, Brendan O'Donnell - these folks, with maybe the exception of Fink, have all been recruited for 2010 or 2011 so to see them in Grand Forks this fall would be a true shock.

I'm pretty sure of 1 through 3, and like I stated, Forney, until something becomes official, is my biggest question. If Forney doesn't return to UND that would make 2009 space for the reigning AJHL playoff MVP.

Now, all we have to do is wait until September to see how well I did.

Enjoy your summer.

The anatomy of a game-winning goal: Kozek to Malone to Zajac?

2009-03-03T19:00:00.004-06:00

One fact that went largely unnoticed following Darcy Zajac's dramatic overtime goal against Colorado College last Sunday was that none of the three forwards involved in setting up and scoring the goal had been playing together on the same line.

While it's not unusual in the process of changing lines on the fly for a few players from different lines to be on the ice when a goal is scored, I couldn't recall an instance when teams were playing 5-on-5 in which all three forwards involved in a goal had each been playing on different lines during a game (Zajac third line center, Brad Malone fourth line center and Andrew Kozek first line wing).

When I asked Fighting Sioux coach Dave Hakstol how this happened, here's how he explained the situation:
When (Brett) Hextall came out of the box, he had an opportunity to join in the play, so he ended up staying out on the ice for about 30+ seconds, which made him unavailable for the next shift. With Rau up for CC, I wanted to get Duncan's line back on the ice. Malone was out in place of Hextall on the right wing. In the meantime, Duncan took a fairly short shift. Zajac's line was up next, so he took Duncan on the fly. After the partial change on the fly, instead of Kozek-Duncan-Malone, we had Kozek-Zajac-Malone. It made sense at the time, but I'm not sure if it does when I look at it in print!
Hakstol emphasized that the key element in making this work was Malone's reliability in playing any position in any situation, a trust he has gained over the past couple of months.

Who Is Running the WCHA?

2009-02-22T10:19:00.005-06:00

Just when you think the WCHA can't get any more screwed up, they challenge that notion, again.

We're aware of the Wandering Coach Hockey Association (courtesy PCM) merely rubber-stamping a wrist-slap on George "The Dashing Dasher Dancer" Gwozdecky by Denver University. Coach Gwoz got a one-game suspension for: a) standing on the dasher and delaying play, b) a stroll across the ice attempt to intimidate a uniformed league game official, and c) violation of the "no contact with team until the contest is complete" rule that is part of a game ejection. (Did I mention that Coach Gwoz was part of the rules committee not that long ago?)

We're aware of the WCHA rubber-stamping another DU action when they suspended Mullen for a vicious, and near bench-clearning brawl triggering, slash at the end of a game at UM-Duluth.

We're aware of the league doing nothing about MSU-Mankato's Trevor Bruess (who should have been called for checking from behind after a vicious hit on UND's Jason Gregoire but it was called "boarding"). Before that, Bruess had been penalized for kneeing. The next night, in a game he probably shouldn't have been playing in due to the check from behind, he ends up (I'm going to say it) slew footing UND's Derrick LaPoint, breaking LaPoint's leg in two places in the process. The league rubber-stamped the MSU-Mankato "no reason given" suspension of Bruess for a game.

Oh, and MSU-M's Geoff Irwin laid just as vicious of a slash on a UND player as the one that got Mullen suspended by DU (not by the league remember). And like Mullen, Irwin's was at the end of a game and could've trigged a post-game brawl. Irwin received no sanction for that: Thank you MSU-M and WCHA.

The WCHA doesn't lead when it comes to player safety. It appears to have abdicated that role completely.

Turns out the WCHA doesn't even have a contingency plan for the (given recent seismic activity) likely event of a volcanic eruption affecting games and travel with Alaska-Anchorage. Don't get me wrong, volcano plans aren't the norm, but the league has no "act of God" (think: blizzard) contingency plan that applies?

Now we find out that the penalty to Wisconsin's Mitchell (at the end of the Saturday game with DU) is a major and game DQ, no, a double-minor, no, wait, a major but only a game misconduct. (Dear Wisconsin president, after you decide what to do with Mitchell, make sure the WCHA gets a chance to rubber-stamp it.)

Read all about Mitchell and the "no reason given" MSU-M suspension of Bruess at USCHO.

If Milewski's blog is correct the change appears to fly in the face of the NCAA (you've heard of them I'd guess) rule that penalties after games can only be INCREASED, not reduced. Then again, the WCHA didn't seem to care about the Dashing Dasher Dancer violating the NCAA "team contact" rule.

Then again, the league seems to not care about NCAA points of emphasis regarding checking from behind and obstruction much either.

Just when you think the WCHA can't get more screwed up it shows its consistency:

The WCHA lacks consistent leadership, and worse, consistently just lacks leadership.

A good example of a bad precedent

2009-01-29T10:37:00.009-06:00

Perhaps I shouldn't attempt to paraphrase from memory what UND hockey coach Dave Hakstol said on Wednesday night's Fighting Sioux coaches show, but he made some good points worth examining. He noted that it wasn't up to him to determine what should happen to Denver University coach George Gwozdecky after last Saturday's game. Therefore, he wouldn't address that issue.

However, Hakstol was concerned about what happened during the game and how the officials handled it. He said that Gwozdecky's actions were calculated to fire up his team. Gwozdecky also admitted that he wanted "to get the attention of our officials."

Hakstol understood why Gwozdecky did this, but he believes that the in-game consequences should have been more severe than they were. Hakstol said that at a minimum, DU should have received a delay of game penalty for Gwozdecky's stroll across the ice, which would have resulted in a UND 5-on-3 power play.

Hakstol believes that when a coach resorts to such drastic action, his team should suffer the consequences. He didn't think the penalties assessed matched the level of the offenses committed by Gwozdecky, and I agree.

Of course, this begs the question as to whether UND could have capitalized on the two-man advantage. As bad as the Sioux power play was that game, I have my doubts. But if UND had scored at that point, it would have been a momentum swing in their favor and might have had a demoralizing effect on DU's bench. On the other hand, if DU had killed the penalties, the momentum might well have gone completely in the Pioneers' direction. Perhaps they would have won the game rather than settling for a 2-2 tie.

From my perspective, it's clear that the officiating crew was intimidated by Gwozdecky's actions. After he was tossed from the game, they refused to call the penalty on him that he richly deserved when he failed to comply with the ejection. The officials then proceeded to call five straight penalties on UND and none on DU. It was a shameful performance on many levels. Both coaches are justified in believing that they were shortchanged by the officiating.

During the post-game session with Gwozdecky, it became obvious that going into the series, there were issues between him and referee Todd Anderson related to the Mike Prpich-Geoff Paukovich incident in Denver a few seasons ago. In retrospect, having Anderson work this important series was an unwise decision.

What troubles me most is that Gwozdecky not only received no penalty for going out on to the ice to confront officials during the game, but that he also received no further discipline from Denver University or the WCHA (now known as the Wandering Coach Hockey Association) for this particular action. (He was later suspended a game by DU for communicating with the team during the game following his ejection.) Is this an appropriate message to send?

In hockey, as with all athletic contests, scarcely a game goes by in which a coach either disputes an official's call against his/her team or objects to a penalty or foul not being called. While coaches frequently display anger with officials, there must be limits on how far they go in acting on it. UND wasted no time in setting that standard when Hakstol made an obscene gesture toward officials during a game in Minnesota last season.

If neither DU nor the WCHA nor the NCAA will discipline Gwozdecky for his temper tantrum, his failure to obey a referee's decision, his willful interruption of a game attended by 11,800 paying fans or his display of poor sportsmanship witnessed by thousands of TV viewers across the Upper Midwest, who will?

A disturbing precedent is set when a league doesn't respond effectively to the intimidation of its officials during an athletic event and then refuses to discipline the coach who purposely engaged in the intimidation tactic. Does this mean that any WCHA coach who disagrees with an official's call during a game is now free to go berserk and storm on to the ice to debate the matter? Because that's exactly what happened here – and it worked. So why shouldn’t other WCHA coaches feel free to emulate Gwozdecky’s example?

In the end, it goes back to inconsistent, low-quality officiating in the WCHA and the inability of the organization's leadership to make prudent decisions. Until those issues are addressed, embarrassing episodes such as this will continue to happen and player safety will continue to suffer. Unfortunately, I fear that it will take a catastrophic event for any of this to change. Sadly, Robbie Bina’s broken neck wasn’t enough to transform the manner in which the WCHA operates.

So How'd I Do?

2008-07-06T18:49:00.003-05:00

So, how'd I do in my speculations ("Should I Stay Or Should I Go")?

At forward I picked (albeit with inaccurate logic):
- Oshie to be the most likely to leave, and
- Hextall and Lamoureux to be coming in.

Where'd I miss? David Toews (not Brett Bruneteau) is scheduled to matriculate on the UND campus this fall.

So the tally appears to be: Hextall, Lamoureux, and Toews for Kaip, Radke, and Oshie.

At defense, well, you win some and lose some.

Ben Blood as Robbie Bina's replacement was all but a gimme, but I'll take it.

Let's hope Taylor Chorney's replacement, Corey Fienhage, can make that jump from MSHSL to the WCHA/NCAA. (I'd figured a guy with AJHL time to be the most likely replacement but it seems MacWilliams is another year in Canadian juniors.)

All in all, not terribly bad predicting for strictly looking from the outside in.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

2008-04-27T21:49:00.002-05:00

It seems appropriate that The Clash (stay or go, conflicted, a clash, get it?) filled the airwaves with that question many years ago. I’m sure many UND players with professional aspirations are struggling with that question right now.

But before we delve into those considerations, let’s view this not from the individual’s but the team’s point of view.

UND has 9 forwards lined up to come in between now and September 2009. (Yes, that does say 2009 intentionally.) UND has 8 forwards who will run out of eligibility between now and 2009 and another named Chris VandeVelde who most likely won’t play a senior season given his size and talent (two of the NHL’s favorite commodities).

UND has 4 defensemen lined up to come in between now and September 2009. UND has 4 defensemen who will run out of eligibility between now and 2009.

Goaltending? JP Lamoureux leaves and Brad Eidsness arrives.

About the only non-alignment I see is a replacement in fall of 2009 for Aaron Walski.

To use a badly overused phrase: Coincidence? I think not.

Ever since I was first exposed to that data I was impressed. It seems to me that Dave Hakstol and his staff recruit with a plan much larger than just “this fall”. They seem to be thinking in terms of a couple of falls from now. The numbers bear this out.

So knowing that the numbers align nearly as well as one could possibly imagine I’m only left to wonder: “Who is going when? Who is coming when?”

Put another way, a lot seems to hinge on the answer to the question on the minds of some of UND’s top players, namely: “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” Only those players can answer that question for themselves.

Me, however, I can speculate on who would be coming in.

We know Lamoureux is gone. Welcome Brad Eidsness.

Robbie Bina has expended all of his eligibility. Ben Blood is the obvious choice. He’s USHL tested and will be 19.5 years old come September 2008.

Andrew MacWilliam, Joe Gleason, and Cory Finehage will all be 18.5 years this fall; however, MacWilliam is coming from an AJHL championship team this season, the others, the MSHSL and short stints in the USHL. MacWilliam seems next in line if there is a defensive early departure, with the remaining two filling the slots due to open for 2009.

Forward is where it gets tricky.

Rylan Kaip and Kyle Radke open immediate spots at forward. Given their ages (each will be 20+ when school opens in 2008) Brett Hextall and Mario Lamoureux appear to be obvious replacements.

But after that comes pure speculation. TJ Oshie? Kozek? Duncan? VandeVelde?

Oshie’s departure assures Jason Gregoire coming in (if that’s not the case already). Another forward departing early would seem to signal to me Brett Bruneteau’s position.

Some of you are wondering why I speculate Bruneteau and not David Toews or Mike Cichy. I based that on Bruneteau’s age (full year older than either) and extensive USHL experience.

Toews and Cichy would each be just past their 18th birthdays (18 years, 3 months or 2 months) at start of school this fall. In the recent era UND has only brought in three forwards that young: Jonathan Toews, Drew Stafford, and Zach Parise. (Michael Forney and Brad Malone each arrived at 18 years 4 months.)

David Toews’ late season injury adds further question to his entry. Mike Cichy led Tri-City (USHL) in scoring but didn’t crack the top 25 in the league with his 45 point tally. Those things make me wonder if they are ready for the WCHA and make me really glad I’m not Dave Hakstol having to make these calls.

More importantly for each, where’s their slot in the line-up?

Right now we have more questions than answers, with the key question being, for current roster members: “Should I stay or should I go?”

Season finale: Fighting Sioux Coaches Show

2008-04-16T18:27:00.003-05:00

Here’s a summary of UND hockey coach Dave Hakstol’s comments on tonight’s season finale of the Fighting Sioux Coaches Show with Tim Hennessy and Scott Swygman on KFAN (1440 AM).

On whether the Sioux are sick of playing Boston College:
I hope we get another shot at them. We’re beginning to work on getting back to the Frozen Four and trying to change that word “appearance.” We’re into our end of the season meetings. We turn the page and keep moving. That’s the excitement of college hockey in the playoffs. It’s one-game shots. Believe it or not, we did a lot of good things in that first period. In a matter of seven minutes we saw our season come and go. I give a lot of credit to BC. They were the better team and got the job done.

On not gooning it up when the score became lopsided:
There were a lot of shots thrown at our team throughout the year for playing good, hard- nosed hockey, playing together and sticking together. Once we got to that third period it was hard to keep our cool, but our guys did a great job of that. It wasn’t a lack of competitiveness. One of the hard things to do is to keep your cool and act with class. It was a tough way for that group to have their season end. I really wanted the seniors to go out with at least a shot at a national championship. That isn’t the way we wanted to see their season end.

On what he said to the team after the first two periods:
The real difference after one was that fourth goal. It was the one that really let the air out of the tire and we never recovered from. After the second period, all you can do is play for that crest on the front of the jersey. You try to get the first one and then try to get two. There’s no quit in our program. The one thing you do is you play for the program and the jersey. Under the circumstances, I think we did the best we could do. What else can you ask of the team?

On whether the Sioux would have acted differently in a regular-season game:
Yes, there was some chirping and jersey pumping going on, but you don’t come out on the right side of that. In the playoffs, it’s a different scenario and you’re working to build something.

On having BC on the ropes in the first half of the first period:
Somewhere after the Eagles scored their first two goals, we needed to get one. We had some great opportunities. We had 8 or 9 great opportunities that we didn’t capitalize on and they did. That’s the difference in the game. On both of our first power plays, we had a lot of good opportunities. Right off the first shift, Rylan Kaip’s line set a real good tone for us.

Were you surprised that Notre Dame was in the championship?
It wasn’t a surprise, but it was an upset. They had a tough second half, but they won some games late in the season and they started to get their confidence back. It was an upset to beat Michigan. The Wolverines couldn’t find their way out of the three-goal deficit. Notre Dame’s a good team. They’re really well prepared.

On a caller’s comment that he would have liked to see a third-place game between UND and Michigan:
It would have been one heck of an entertaining game. It’s hard to come back after a season-ending loss to play another game, and I think that’s why the NCAA did away with the third-place game. I would have liked to have played that game on Saturday in this case. It might have been easier for us to put our season in perspective. You have a chance to redeem yourselves and end on a high note. It’s tough when you take a look around the rink and see all the Sioux fans who were there and participating around the country. We had unbelievable support. I’ve never seen anything like it. You’d like to do something positive for the fans.

On whether Oshie, Duncan, Chorney, Finley and Kozek will leave early:
Those guys have decisions to make. We’re going to lose one or two or three guys. They have to look at the situation and figure out what the best opportunity is for them. If they’re ready to go, we help them out. That’s what we do. There are a lot of guys who are close. T.J.’s proven that he’s ready to go to the next level. For any of them, there’s nothing wrong with coming back to play a fourth year and getting a degree. We’ll know in the next two or three weeks. Nobody’s going to play, so they’ll stay here and finish up school. They’ll take several days to look at things and take their time. It comes down to a business aspect. Sometimes a player will want to play a game or two to earn the first year of a contract. None of our guys are in that situation.

On the importance of a player coming back for the right reason:
You have to come back for the right reasons. I believe all our guys who had opportunities to go last season came back for the right reasons. You have to be here for the right reason or it’s not going to work with the individual or the program. If there’s indecision and you spend half your time thinking you should be somewhere else, it’s not going to work. We have a very good relationship with our players and we’re able to talk to them about these things. We want to make sure everything’s in place and everything’s perspective. At the end of the day, it’s the players and their families who have to decide.

On next year’s goaltending situation:
We have to have three goaltenders. We have to give consideration to Landon Snider. I’m not going in with any preconceived notions. We know Aaron Walski is a good goalie and we know his work ethic. We know Brad Eidsness is a good goalie. We want to have a third goalie involved in that. Whether it’s Snider, I don’t know.

On whether some recruits scheduled for 2009-2010 could come next season:
Let’s be realistic and honest. It’s a combination of opportunity and readiness. I was in Chicago last night and Dane Jackson was in western Canada. We have to be part of making good developmental decisions for each recruit. We’re looking at a little bit of everything. We’re pretty comfortable with where we’re at with our guys. Jason Gregoire, Eidsness and Brett Hextall have all earned honors this season. All three are 19-20 year olds with great experience who could have come in last year.

On whether there will be any restructuring or revamping of the WCHA officiating system:
Officiating will definitely be on the agenda during the WCHA meeting in April. How in- depth we’ll get, I don’t know. What’s most important is the level of calls we want to hold our players to. That’s a tough one. You can show one video clip of a penalty to 10 people and get three or four different interpretations on how it should be called.

Does college hockey need a system where everyone calls penalties the same?
You have discrepancies from league to league and within the leagues. We have to get ourselves on the same page and keep working on it. From the last half of last year, our standards slipped. I thought we were getting away from clutching, grabbing and obstruction. I thought we slipped back there. That will be discussed in Florida.

On whether differences in officiating styles are what makes hockey unique:
To a certain degree, the personality of the referee has some bearing. But there has to be a more standardized, specific level. For example, what is a hook? What constitutes a penalty and what doesn’t? Two seasons ago, if you put an arm around a guy for two counts, it was a penalty. That has slipped back. Maybe I’m off base and I’m the only one who thinks that way. I’ve been the first one to say that we can’t go to the level of the NHL. They’re the best of the best and they still make mistakes. But I think we can get closer to that level of efficiency. We all have to be part of helping with that. One of the best ideas came from Dean Blais who said that after a 10-minute cooling down period, the coaches would meet with the officials after every game. He thought that would solve everything. (laughs) I thought that was a great suggestion, but I don’t think it was ever put to a vote.

Now, Sioux! Now is your time!

2008-04-08T09:21:00.024-05:00

I'm a bit of a military history buff. The battle I've probably studied more than any other is Waterloo. It occurred in Belgium in 1815 when a British-allied force led by the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian force led by Blucher teamed up to defeat a French army led by Napoleon.

The painting here depicts a defining moment of the battle. The French Imperial Guard, which to that moment had never known defeat, believes it has broken Wellington's defensive line and is marching to victory. But the British commander has cleverly concealed some of his best troops behind a ridge. They are lying down in corn fields. At the right moment, Wellington waves his hat and shouts an order to his brigade commander: "Now, Maitland! Now is your time!"

With that command, lines of red-coated British troops rose up and fired the devastating volleys of musketry for which they'd become famous. After mowing down France's finest infantry in waves, the British infantry followed up with a bayonet charge that sent what remained of the Imperial Guard fleeing back down the slope. Seeing the Guard running for their lives sent a shockwave through the French army, which crumbled under the pressure from the advancing Prussians. The French went down to defeat at Waterloo and Napoleon was vanquished for good.

Wellington went into the campaign not knowing how much he could trust the Prussians or the allied units of his army. But he knew that the British infantry, which provided the backbone of his force during the Napoleonic war in Portugal and Spain, were absolutely reliable and dependable in critical situations.

What does this have to do with Fighting Sioux hockey? To me, the British infantry of North Dakota's team heading to the NCAA Frozen Four in Denver this week are the seniors and juniors. If UND brings home its eighth national championship, it will be because the older, more experienced players on the roster stepped up and provided leadership when it was most needed and made the key plays at the critical points in two games.

Against Princeton in the NCAA Midwest Regional at Madison, it was senior goalie Jean-Philippe Lamoureux who prevented the Tigers from taking advantage of UND's slow start. It was junior forward Andrew Kozek who got the first goal. And it was Ryan Duncan, a junior and last year's Hobey Baker winner, who took the team on his back by scoring three straight goals to put the game out of reach.

In the game that sent the Sioux to the Frozen Four, Lamoureux once again came through with stellar goaltending that kept Wisconsin from running away with the contest after two periods of dominance. As assistant coach Dane Jackson noted on last week's Fighting Sioux Coaches Show, it was senior captain Rylan Kaip who scored the first UND goal against the Badgers and sent the message to his teammates: "Follow me!"

Forty-seven seconds later, Duncan tied the game after being set up beautifully by junior T.J. Oshie, who was playing in pain after blocking a shot during a Wisconsin power play. In overtime, it was Oshie's faceoff win in the Badgers' zone and senior defenseman Robbie Bina's shot from the point that resulted in the rebound that Kozek pounced on and stuffed in to end the game with a UND victory.

Much has been written about the pact that brought juniors Oshie, Duncan, Taylor Chorney and Joe Finley back to Grand Forks for another season of Sioux hockey rather than signing NHL contracts when they had the opportunity. But championships at UND aren't won by individuals. They're won by teams with players who lead by example and inspire everyone around them to be their best.

That's why I look back at the Battle of Waterloo and put my own spin on Wellington's famous line: Now, Bina, Kaip, Lamoureux, Radke, Chorney, Duncan, Finley, Jones, Kozek, Martens, Miller, Oshie, Walski and Watkins.

Now is your time!

Fighting Sioux Coaches Show: Special Frozen Four Edition

2008-04-02T19:03:00.004-05:00

Here’s a summary of UND assistant hockey coach Dane Jackson’s comments on tonight’s special Frozen Four edition Fighting Sioux Coaches’ Show with Tim Hennessy and Scott Swygman on KFAN (1440 AM).

On being in the Frozen Four his first two years as assistant coach:
It’s an exciting time and we’re excited to get it done again this year. Dave Hakstol’s going to watch a couple of our kids for next year to make sure we have the right ones coming in. Getting to the Frozen Four helps a lot with recruiting. Players know what they’re getting when they come here. They know they’re getting into a big-time program. Our players do such a good job of recruiting. We always have the recruits talk to our players and tell them what it’s like to play here.

On the team being in four straight Frozen Fours:
It says a lot about Hakstol and the guys we have here now. It’s been a standard of excellence and we all feel accountable to the guys who came before us who started it. It was a standard Gino Gasparini set when he became head coach at UND in 1979. It’s not just a sign on the wall. It’s something we talk about. We have former players come in and talk about what it was like to play at UND and what a neat thing it is a part of. Sometimes it takes the younger guys a while to understand what it takes to play here. You find out that the guys who really want to be Fighting Sioux are the most successful in our program.

On starting slow and finishing strong:
It’s a matter of amalgamating the new guys into the process. They need to learn how hard they have to practice and play. Hakstol does a good job of letting the guys run their own team. He wants them to figure some things out and learn how to lead. It’s important that we have character guys and big-time leaders. It’s the guys beside you like Rylan Kaip who say, “I’m going to get the first one. Follow me.”

What impresses him about Hakstol:
It’s his calm under fire. When we’re down a couple, he’s always so stern on the bench. A lot of NHL coaches are like that. They’re planning the next move because they know what needs to be done. They’re the coaches who hold themselves accountable and they’re not freaking out. Hakstol’s under control at all times.

What he likes about coaching at UND:
I love the access we have to our rink. I like running the penalty kill. My role on the team is to be a go-between. The guys like to play for Hakstol, but sometimes I’m a little more approachable. I might talk with them a little bit more about school and other problems. It’s important to have a go-between to get a little more information to the head guy. Hak’s not aloof to our players. They know that he’s hard, but he cares about them. Some of the younger guys are a little more intimidated about talking to him than the older guys. Rick Wilson, the former Sioux player who coaches with the Dallas Stars, takes care of his defensemen. He sticks up for his D-corps if he thinks the coach is messing with them too much. They have their own little tight group. I feel like we have that with our penalty kill guys.

On T.J. Oshie, Ryan Duncan, Taylor Chorney and Joe Finley coming back for another season:
They all had firm offers. We had a meeting in St. Louis a couple hours after our Frozen Four game where there were agents and general managers talking to guys about leaving. We didn’t include Jonathan Toews because we thought he was ready. We thought Oshie could use one more year. It’s a dream the guys have been working at and chasing all their lives. It says a lot about the character of the guys and how much they care about UND when they decided to come back. You don’t want guys to come back and have a “big wheel” attitude when they think they have to be treated special. We don’t have that. It’s more than just putting a bunch of great talent together. We thought Michigan had the most talent last year. You have to have talent, will and team attitude.

On practicing at Gambucci Arena instead of Engelstad Arena:
They treat us great over there. It’s been great. We had a good skate over there. The ice is nice and cold and hard. It makes for good practices.

On preparation for Boston College:
The emphasis is on their speed. They play so fast and have so many quick skill guys. We have to attack, attack and go to the net. We’ll have to play better than we’ve played our last two years at the Frozen Four. They’re a quality team that plays well in big games. Against Princeton we had some nerves because people think they’re a team that you’re supposed to beat. That doesn’t happen any more. They were actually a good team. With Wisconsin, the crowd got them going and got them pumped up. When we battled through that and got a goal, they didn’t seem so much like Supermen. Our guys showed their champion’s heart. We settled down and took over the game after we took a few punches.

On the difference between NHL and NCAA playoffs:
In the NHL, I played in some seven-game playoff series. You struggle to get your mind around the finality of the NCAA tournament. In the NHL, you play to get to game seven and then you realize that this is it, you have to elevate your level of play to its highest. We will have to raise our level of play a lot for Boston College.

On Jean-Philippe Lamoureux not being in the Hobey Hat Trick:
We felt that the numbers Phil had were remarkable. He’s had an incredible year. Look at the weekend he just had. I talked to Oshie and Phil after practice to let them know that they weren’t finalists and they were totally fine with it. They’re team guys.

On how well Duncan plays for his size:
Robbie Bina can eat apples off the top of his head. Those little guys, I give them a lot of credit. Duncan might not give a lot of hits, but he goes into hard areas where he takes a lot of elbows to the jaw and crosschecks to the back. Boy, did he come up big for us last weekend. He’s such a focused kid. He’s one who has maturity beyond his years. We’re fortunate to have a lot of our guys who can be professional, no matter what.

Is there extra motivation knowing that BC ended UND’s season last two years?
There’s definitely going to be a readiness in knowing that we have to play very well to win. They’ve been successful and you better be ready when the puck drops. They can score a couple goals in a hurry.

Senior goalie Jean-Philippe Lamoureux
The win over the Badgers at the Kohl Center was one of the most exciting, unbelievable wins I’ve been part of. I couldn’t be prouder. I saw the picture of me at InsideCollegeHockey.com. My Mom printed it off. It was embarrassing. I tried to jump on the pile and I fell off. I hit the ice face first. I thought I chipped my tooth. We were watching it on YouTube last night. I’m getting made fun of on a national scale now, but I’d rather be the one jumping in the air than the one hanging his head.

On playing at UND with four Frozen Four teams:
I’m equally proud of each team I’ve been on. We’ve got a veteran crew here and hopefully we can figure out what we need to do to beat Boston College.

On playing his best in the biggest games of the season:
I like to think I’ve been turning it on at the right time. My preparation is always the same, both physically and mentally. I felt pretty loose going into this weekend. Now that we’re going into the one-game shots, I wanted to make sure that I left it out all on the ice. I’m going to do the same thing against BC and leave it all out on the ice. I try to do everything that I can to make timely saves for the team. Whether I’m facing a lot of shots or a few, I’m comfortable in either situation. I’m focused and ready for whatever situation I’m in.

Is he ever critical of a teammate’s mistakes?
I just know what my job is. I have 100 percent confidence in our coaching staff and the guys in front of me. The guys always answer the bell when it matters the most. That’s all you can ask of your players. They play their hearts out for me I and I try to do the same for them. I feel like if I’m going to ridicule a teammate, then it’s going to come around to me.

On whether he’s a leader in the locker room:
I’m not really a big talker. I just try to lead by example through my work ethic and preparation. If there’s a spur-of-the-moment thing where I feel I need to say something, I will. But our captains do a really good job with that. The nature of the position is that you’re playing more of an individual position in a team sport. In practice, the coaches and players give me my space to prepare and do my thing. I just do what I can to play on the weekend.

On how much goalies need to know:
I need to know the offensive zone systems of other teams. I’m always in our penalty kill meetings. I need to know which opposing players have a lot of goals and assists and who shoots with which hand. I haven’t had a chance to look at any tape of BC. You have to have your eye on Nate Gerbe, Dan Bertram and Ryan Whitney. He’s a guy who’s been scoring timely goals for them.

Is he disappointed about the Hobey?
I haven’t thought about it. I don’t really care. Playing for UND isn’t about individual stats or rewards. My focus has always been on extending our season. If anything, it’s nice because it’s not going to be a distraction. It might be something to help motivate my game.

Junior defenseman Joe Finley

On the Sioux peaking at the right time:
It’s a marathon not a sprint. This week, we have to take time to let bumps and bruises heal up to be at 100 percent going into the game with BC.

On wanting to pay back Boston College:
At first glance, that’s what it seems like. This BC team is different from their past teams and the makeup of our team is different, too. This year, they might have a little more depth up front. I’d compare them to Colorado College with their team speed. Gerbe and Whitney really get things going for them offensively. Getting back on the NHL ice is going help us do what we do well, which is making them take shots from the outside.

Comparing this season to last season at the same time:
Maybe we were a little burnt out or self satisfied last year after beating Michigan and Minnesota. The most important thing at this time of year is to put yourself in the position to win the game.

On the Eagles being a quick, small team:
Getting back on NHL ice sheet will be good for our defenseman. It makes it easier to get into the shooting lanes because you know exactly where the net is. Getting back on an ice sheet that we’re more accustomed to gets us back into our comfort zone and what we’ve done well all season long.

On improving his game each season:
Looking at my game and some of the things I do, I try to simplify my game. It’s learning the decision-making and knowing what the right play is. Once you get that down, you get to the comfort level where you can advance the puck out of your zone.

On playing in his third Frozen Four:
We’re accustomed to playing in big games. All we’re looking to do is advance. All the stuff that goes with it, that’s other stuff we have to put out of sight, out of mind. We’re familiar with Denver since we played at the regional there last year. It was like playing in the Kohl Center last weekend. It wasn’t something new to us. This time of year, it’s all about making that smart play about getting the puck past the defensive blue line and letting our forwards take care of things.

Fighting Sioux Coaches Show summary

2008-03-26T20:46:00.005-05:00

Here’s a summary of UND hockey coach Dave Hakstol’s comments on tonight’s Fighting Sioux Coaches’ Show with Tim Hennessy and Scott Swygman on KFAN (1440 AM). Denver Pioneers coach George Gwozdecky joined the show later by phone.

On UND being placed in the NCAA Midwest Regional in Wisconsin:
It’s probably the one place nobody really predicted us to go. I’m not surprised because every prediction over the last two or three years hasn’t been close. Wherever you’re going, you’re excited to be there.

On UND being sent east to play Boston College and Boston University in 2005:
We felt like the sacrificial lamb being sent out there. We messed up the plan. It’s an exciting time of year. It’s what the guys in the locker room work for all year. You have to be playing well going into the tournament and then play well when you get there.

On the Sioux players being loose before last Saturday’s game against Colorado College:
Our guys were not tight before the game. Pat Swanson pointed out Saturday that our locker room was loose. That’s when we play best, when we’re loose and focused. That’s the way the team was today and we had a great practice. When you play at a high tempo and practice that way, it’s fun.

On failing to capitalize on the power play against Denver on Friday:
In the 5-on-3 power plays alone, we had eight great scoring opportunities. A couple missed the net. Mannino made a couple of great saves. A few others we just didn’t bury. We were sharp on the power plays, we just didn’t finish. For whatever reason, we were on our heels for the second period against Denver. We had a good 5-on-5 period in the first period and a good third period that we carried over to Saturday against the Tigers.

On bouncing back after the Friday loss to Denver:
At that point in time, that was our biggest game of the year. We wanted to be playing Saturday night for the Broadmoor Trophy. We were disappointed, but the guys kept it together and played for a full 60 minutes against Colorado College. At times during that game, we were outstanding. But they key was that we were solid for the whole 60 minutes.

On depth being a strength of this year’s UND team:
An area that’s been a strength has been our depth. On Saturday, everyone contributed. On Friday, there was one guy on each line who wasn’t contributing. The strength of this team is through 25 guys. If we’re going to be successful this Saturday against Princeton, it’s going to be because the 20 guys in the lineup do their jobs and contribute.

On the Princeton Tigers and their coach Guy Gadowsky:
They’ve only given up one goal in last three games and they’re the ECAC champions. They’re playing well. I’ve known Guy for a long time. I knew him growing up in Alberta. He played at Colorado College. Dixon Ward and I went on a recruiting visit and Guy Gadowsky was our player representative. Princeton has been very, very good since Christmas. Style-wise, they go. They have very good team speed throughout the depth of their roster. They’re very aggressive and play on their toes. They have good size and good puck-moving ability. Their goaltender has been outstanding for them. They’re a good hockey team. They’re not a trapping, defense-oriented team. It’ll be an entertaining game. We have to concentrate on what we’re going to do, not on what they do. We’ll learn a little bit about their tendencies, but the key for us is to play our game.

On the possibility of playing Denver or Wisconsin:
If we get there, we’ll be happy to play either one. You have to beat two good teams to keep playing. One team is on a heck of a roll and has been playing very well. One’s at home and has a lot of rest.

On playing a number-four seed:
Take the seeding and throw it out the window. There are 16 teams in the tournament and they all have the same goal. We don’t want to match their intensity. We have to match the intensity level that we expect. When we do that, we play our best.

On injuries:
The biggest question mark is Derrick LaPoint. The hit from behind that he took gave him post-concussion syndrome. That was from a two-minute penalty. The signs of the concussion didn’t show up until after the game. There’s no real answer as far as timeframe when LaPoint can play again. It’s probably not an injury where he’ll wake up Thursday and be 100 percent. Evan Trupp isn’t available for Saturday, but he is making great progress.

On the officials for games this weekend:
We won’t have any officials from either the WCHA or ECAC. We’ll probably have Hockey East or CCHA officials. There’s a pre-game meeting between the referee and the captains from each team. You need to pay attention and listen to the referee’s expectations and the things he’s going to key on. Hopefully, we’ll discover the level that the game’s going to be called in the first 10 minutes. He’ll say what his points of emphasis are. He’ll give the guys an idea of what to expect.

On which of the four NCAA regionals is the toughest:
Every regional is tough. I thought they did a good job this year of being fair. They had some curve balls thrown at them with Wisconsin getting in as the sixth WCHA team. There are always arguments you can make against every region. There are four pretty good regionals. They protected the No. 1 seed versus the No. 16, which they had to do.

On which regional is the toughest one to pick:
It’s probably Colorado College against Michigan State. Richard Bachman is good in goal for the Tigers and Jeff Lerg is good for the Spartans. MSU is a team that’s been through the battle of winning a national championship. CC is a team that’s been great at home and just won the MacNaughton Cup.

On predicting other regional outcomes:
Last year, two four seeds were playing the next day and two one seeds were on their way home. There are a lot of very, very good teams. If you’re in this tournament, you’re playing well and you’re a good team. The team that plays the best is going to win nine times out of ten.

On whether the NCAA selection process should factor in how a team is playing near the end of the season:
How do you add reason into the computer if two teams are so close? You could add an element of how you’re playing in the last ten or fifteen games. If you want to have the best tournament, you should find a way to include the teams that are playing the best. Wisconsin was playing well before they lost to SCSU in the playoffs, so I don’t know how I’d pick between them and Minnesota State.

George Gwozdecky, head coach of the Denver Pioneers joined the show via phone. DU will play Wisconsin in the Saturday game at the Midwest regional. Gwozdecky’s first words were: “Gopher pride, baby!”

On winning the Broadmoor Trophy at the WCHA Final Five last weekend:
We played well. It’s become such an event that every player on every team has a desire to get there. The Final Five is the highlight to cap the regular season. Everyone was very concerned when the event was first taken to the Xcel Energy Center. Everyone just assumes that if the Gophers are playing, they’ll have an advantage. That Minnesota doesn’t win every year is a testament to the parity of the league. League parity also shows in how many teams the WCHA placed in the NCAA tournament. Next to the Frozen Four, the WCHA Final Five is the best college hockey event in the country.

On whether Wisconsin should have been included:
They met the criteria and they’re in. They’re a quality team. We had our issues at some parts of the season and were struggling. It will be a terrific regional. Three of the teams playing in Madison have a lot of experience in the national tournament.

On the importance of goaltending in the playoffs:
This tournament is all about goaltending. If your goaltending is suspect, you’re not going to win all four games. Last season, Michigan State came out of nowhere because Lerg was phenomenal. Peter Mannino is playing well for us right now and he has experience playing in the NCAA tournament.

On how the Pioneers got through the adversity they faced this season:
We had some challenges, such as when Brock Trotter, our leading scorer, left the team and when Tyler Ruegsegger went down with an injury. We were challenged to figure a better way to play to give us a chance. We had to because we weren’t a team that scored a lot. We had to tweak the playing philosophy a little bit. Certain guys were able to get back into the roles they were good at. We’ve been able to score enough games and Peter’s played well enough to keep us in games. We’re playing well, but we’re not the kind of offensive team we were the first two-thirds of the season.

On the WCHA’s declining trend in goal scoring:
The problem is that the league's top goal scorers are playing in the NHL. If guys like Jonathan Toews and Paul Stastny were playing in the league, scoring wouldn’t be down as much. We’d still have Ryan Dingle and Geoff Paukovitch. The top-end players have left way early. Our team has to rely on freshmen to score. I think that’s part of the reason scoring is down. Wouldn’t you like to see Toews and Brian Lee playing for UND? There’s a ton of firepower in the NHL that could be playing in the WCHA right now.

On whether WCHA officiating is part of the problem with lack of scoring:
I think the officiating is a lot tighter in the NHL. I think the officiating in our league is similar to the way it is in other leagues across the country. It would be different if the NHL let college players get to their senior years. It used to happen in the old days when we were scoring a lot of goals. It’s a sophomore league now.

No Fighting Sioux Coaches' Show summary

2008-03-19T18:31:00.003-05:00

There is no Fighting Sioux Coaches' Show summary tonight because UND coach Dave Hakstol and the hockey team are on the road to the WCHA Final Five tournament in St. Paul. Hakstol was expected to call in to visit with Tim Hennessy and Scott Swygman on KFAN (1440 AM), but apparently was unable to do so. We'll try again next week.

Dear SiouxSports.com members

2008-03-14T12:00:00.006-05:00

On SiouxSports.com, one of my favorite Web sites, there's been ongoing speculation as to why I'm no longer posting in the forums there. Following standard Internet operating procedure, some pretend to know "the truth" about why I'm no longer active on the board. Suffice it to say that their knowledge of events and their ability to read my mind is pathetically inadequate.

First, I don't owe the public an explanation for my decision. I didn't announce my reason to start posting and there's no need to announce the reason behind my decision to stop. There are a few people who know the specifics as to why I stopped posting at SiouxSports.com. They are the only people who need to know. There are a few more who know some of the story, but not all of it. That's the way it's going to stay.

Second, I didn't abandon SiouxSports.com in favor of the U.S. College Hockey Online forums. The fact is that I was an active poster at USCHO for two years before SiouxSports.com even existed. I've never stopped posting on USCHO.

In addition, given the fact that I've written for USCHO for nearly seven years, nobody should be surprised that I participate on its forums. Some have theorized that my USCHO participation has something to do with money. They are 100 percent wrong.

Third, I don't choose to participate at USCHO because I consider it more civil, more polite or vastly superior to SiouxSports.com. Both sites have more than their fair share of trolls, flamers and idiots. There are also knowledgeable, thoughtful and reasonable posters on both sites.

I began posting in Internet newsgroups 15 years ago, which means that I've been around long enough to understand the nature of the Internet. I'm well acquainted with the "bravery" of people hiding behind the cloak of anonymity and what passes for "the truth" in the online world. That isn't going to change, no matter how much I detest it.

Fourth, my decision to stop posting on SiouxSports.com wasn't made on an impulsive whim or in a juvenile pique. It was literally at least two years in the making. I spent several months thinking about what to do before I actually stopped participating. There was no single incident that caused me to stop. It was a culmination of events over a number of years.

Finally, I have met some great Fighting Sioux fans as a result of my time on SiouxSports.com. I hope that I can continue to have contact with them. I invite people to e-mail me here. The most difficult part of my decision was knowing that I'd be closing off future opportunities to meet wonderful fans of UND athletics. So it wasn't an easy decision and I didn't treat it lightly. But for a variety of reasons, it was the best decision for me at this time.

Now, I'd appreciate it if everyone would please stop talking about this subject. Life will go on.

Those who wish to continue reading my opinions and recaps of the Fighting Sioux Coaches' Show can do so on this blog. And because I enjoy interacting with college hockey compatriots, I will continue to do that in the Men's Division I Hockey Forum at USCHO, the place where I originally began posting my thoughts on and observations about Fighting Sioux hockey.

WCHA: Control what's yours to control

2008-03-13T23:07:00.005-05:00

So we have yet another officiating incident in the WCHA. This time, it’s referee Jon Campion being reprimanded by Commissioner Bruce McLeod for grabbing Minnesota-Duluth goalie Alex Stalock from behind. It happened during an altercation last weekend in a game between the Bulldogs and the Gophers. For the second time this season, a league referee has been reprimanded for inappropriately grabbing a UMD player during a game.

A trend I find disconcerting in the WCHA is officials losing control of games and, as a result, players and coaches losing respect for the officials. Perhaps I’m suffering from selective memory, but it seems that there are more and more incidents in which officials literally fight to maintain control of players while the players mostly ignore the officials’ efforts to restrain them.

Interestingly enough, the WCHA didn’t issue any public reprimands following UND’s Feb. 2 game at Minnesota. In that game, an official ripped the helmet off Sioux player Brad Malone and caused him to fall while being pushed into the penalty box. At the time I didn’t feel too badly for Malone because he wasn’t doing what the official told him to do. But having his helmet violently ripped off his head probably didn’t do much to improve Malone’s mood at the time.

At the end of the same game, another fight erupted between the Gophers and Sioux. When an official broke up a fight between UND’s T.J. Oshie and Minnesota’s Ryan Flynn, Flynn continued to struggle and resist the official as he pulled him away, nearly punching the assistant referee in the face. Oshie and Flynn each received double minors for roughing and 10-minute game misconducts, but Flynn received no penalty for resisting the official.

This need not continue. The NCAA ice hockey rule book is chock full of regulations designed to allow the on-ice officials to control all aspects of the game, including who is allowed to come on the ice at certain times for specific purposes. There’s an entire two-and-a-half-page section on abuse of officials that spells out the penalties that can be applied when players and coaches get out of hand. Unfortunately, these rules are not always enforced.

Some are aghast when a fight breaks out during a college hockey game because student-athletes aren’t supposed to engage in such activity. These incidents could be minimized if the officials would simply enforce the fighting rule as it’s written which is: “A player shall not fight an opponent or participate in a fight, on or off the playing surface (punching or attempting to punch is considered fighting).”

Note that nowhere in the rule does it mention the dropping of gloves. If a player attempts to punch another player for any reason – even if the other player throws no punches in return – a fighting major and game disqualification should be assessed to the puncher. Just imagine how many players would be tossed out of games if this rule was enforced as written. It wouldn’t take long for fights to become rare occurrences.

It would also help if officials broke up fights the moment they had the opportunity to do so and worked harder to protect players when they're attacked and in defenseless positions. But we've seen fights happen that could easily have been prevented. And we've seen players exacerbate volatile situations by coming to the aid of their teammates as officials looked on with seeming indifference to player safety.

There are other more mundane details that would help avoid conflict and tension. For example, the scrum that broke after the second period ended during the Feb. 16 game at Engelstad Arena between UND and Denver University was a direct result of the Pioneers coming off the bench and on to the ice. This caused the few Sioux players left on the ice to traverse the large gathering of Denver players. A bump led to a punch which led to a melee and a fight.

While allowing players to come on to the ice at the start of an intermission isn’t against the rules per se, under the section on protocol, the NCAA rule book states: “Game management officials should avoid having teams cross when entering or exiting the ice surface. Conferences and institutions are encouraged to establish a written policy for visiting teams.”

In other words, it’s recognized that allowing players to mix during the course of a game invites the potential for trouble, as was demonstrated during the UND-Denver game. However, two weeks later when UND played conference opponent St. Cloud State the Huskies engaged in the same practice of pouring on to the ice at the end of a period. Why?

Didn’t the WCHA learn from experience? Players should not be allowed to come on to the ice between periods when it’s totally unnecessary and has been demonstrated to cause problems.

As UND coach Dave Hakstol is fond of saying, “Control what’s yours to control.” The WCHA has the authority to control the games it schedules. The NCAA rulebook gives on-ice officials the tools they need to maintain control of the games in most situations.

However, if the participants are allowed to flout the rules and the league doesn’t use common sense to minimize volatile situations, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when the officials find themselves having to use greater amounts of force to establish or regain control of a game. Such actions wouldn’t be necessary if players and coaches respected the authority and the ability of on-ice officials to do their jobs properly. But based on what I’ve seen this season, that’s not the case.

Fighting Sioux Coaches' Show summary

2008-03-12T18:32:00.002-05:00

Here’s a summary of UND hockey coach Dave Hakstol’s comments on tonight’s Fighting Sioux Coaches’ Show with Tim Hennessy and Scott Swygman on KFAN (1440 AM).

Wisconsin was very happy up until the point when Ryan Lasch scored the overtime goal for St. Cloud Saturday night. It was right down to the wire for everybody in the league. When you spread it out over 120 minutes in the weekend and it ends up a tie, it has a lot of significance. On Friday night, we had ample opportunities to score and just didn’t. It would have been a different game if we had scored a goal or two in the first or second periods.

Our goal for either night wasn’t to tie. On Friday, we wanted to be in position to have a shot at the McNaughton Cup. We wanted to win that game. Other than finishing our opportunities, we did a pretty good job. We just didn’t finish. We needed to be a little bit hungrier. It’s important to finish this time of year because you don’t have a second chance once you hit the playoffs.

In Saturday’s game, I thought we stumbled a little bit in portions of the first and second periods. We knew where we were health-wise. We just didn’t have a ton of energy. We were ready to play. I felt like we got ourselves in great position in the third period. Rylan Kaip nearly scored a minute before the penalty call, and that probably would have been the game. SCSU took advantage of a bounce on the power play and scored to tie it.

Lasch is a good goal scorer. That’s his position on the power play. He puts himself in good position to get rebounds. Phil Lamoureux was probably trying to put the rebound in a different spot, but it just didn’t happen. His awareness is usually good enough that it doesn’t happen.

There is always something to play for this time of year. You put the jersey on and you have something to play for. You want to keep momentum going this time of year. We put out best foot forward and just didn’t quite get it there. The last 10 minutes of the third period on Saturday, we were playing very solid hockey. We were still creating chances and opportunities. One of the lessons is that you have to be ready to deal with the hooking and slashing penalties because they can cost you.

Regarding the injuries to T.J. Oshie and Chay Genoway, I don’t know if they will be ready. It’s up to the two players and our medical staff. We want them in the lineup, but it’s still too early to say if they will be. We’re only half way through the week. The track record of Mark Poolman, our athletic trainer, is outstanding. Once you get past a certain point, it becomes a decision of the staff and the player. It depends on whether the player can contribute anything on the ice.

Hakstol doesn’t think coaches should go after players who have made verbal commitments to other teams. Our gentleman’s rule in college hockey, which is different than Division I basketball and football, is that we’ve always honored verbal commitments. I hope that doesn’t change. That’s been the way it’s been in NCAA Division I hockey and among the small group of coaches. At some point in time, maybe that will change, but I hope it doesn’t. I like the way we’re doing business now.

I hope the discussion is larger than honoring verbal commitments. I hope we’re thinking about what’s right for the development of a young man. I hope we’re talking about other things than our jobs. It’s a competitive job and we understand what our jobs are and where our loyalties are. Right now, there’s a good level of professional respect between all programs. We don’t all love each other, but there is mutual respect.

Hakstol isn’t concerned that beating Michigan Tech twice might hurt UND’s standing in the PairWise Rankings. At this time of year, I take the PairWise, RPI and throw it out the window. I want our team to play as well as we possibly can. This is the time of year you want to play well. There are a lot of things we can’t control, but we can control how well we’re playing and the momentum. For the NCAA tournament, it doesn’t matter what seed you are, you’re going to have to play two good teams to get out of the regional.

Regarding the upcoming series with Michigan Tech, Hakstol said: We’re going to expect what we always see from them. They’re extremely competitive. Michael Lee Teslak is as good a goalie as you’ll see in the league. They’re dangerous on the counterattack and they’re based on a sound defensive system. We’re going to have to go through some hard areas in the offensive zone. We’re going to have to win some battles down low and use our defenseman to get some pucks through to the net. You can’t get too fancy. These games will be battles.

Hakstol wouldn’t make any predictions for the upcoming WCHA series. He thinks Scott Sandelin and the UMD Bulldogs have a real opportunity in Denver. He thinks Colorado College has the upper hand because of how well the Tigers have played in their building. The others series, UND’s included, will be very close and hard-fought series. Some will go to three games.

Hakstol said the Fighting Sioux just want to be one of the teams that get to the WCHA Final Five in St. Paul. They’ll be happy to see any other four teams there.

Will things change or stay the same?

2008-03-06T17:28:00.002-06:00

During the four seasons of the Dave Hakstol era, St. Cloud State has engineered some big wins over the Fighting Sioux. But it’s been UND that’s come up with the important late-season victories over the Huskies when they mattered most.

For example, in 2005, the Sioux went to St. Cloud for their last regular-season series desperately in need of points to secure home ice and to improve in the PairWise Rankings. UND and SCSU played to a 2-2 tie in the Friday game and the Sioux won the Saturday game 2-0. That finish, combined with a three-point series against Wisconsin the previous weekend, secured home ice and began the momentum that carried UND all the way to the national championship game against Denver.

During the 2005-06 season, coach Bob Motzko’s first year at SCSU, the Huskies went 3-1 against the Sioux during the regular season, including a sweep of UND at home. But in the game that mattered most – the WCHA Final Five championship – the Sioux won their fourth Broadmoor Trophy by defeating the Huskies 5-3.

The 2006-07 season saw UND travel to St. Cloud once again for the final series of their WCHA schedule. The Huskies, ranked second nationally, went into the weekend with a chance to catch league-leading Minnesota. Eighth-ranked UND had a chance to move up to third place in the WCHA. The Sioux tied the first game and dominated the second game, winning 7-2. That gave UND enough points to capture third place in the conference and avoid the Final five play-in game.

UND and SCSU met again in the conference tournament and, once again, the Sioux put on a dominating performance, defeating the Huskies 6-2. UND went on to defeat Michigan and Minnesota in the NCAA West Regional to gain a third consecutive Frozen Four appearance. SCSU never recovered from its losses to the Sioux and was “one and done” in the NCAA playoffs.

None of this is to say that the Sioux can afford to take the Huskies lightly. I don’t think they will. However, history shows that UND under Hakstol has traditionally used its late-season games against SCSU as a springboard to success in the playoffs while the Huskies have faltered. Will history repeat itself this weekend? Stay tuned.

Fighting Sioux Coaches' Show summary

2008-03-05T19:10:00.001-06:00

With UND coach Dave Hakstol somewhere on the road and Fighting Sioux basketball on the radio tonight, Tim Hennessy had captain Rylan Kaip and assistant captain Taylor Chorney on the show. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that the show started early tonight because of basketball, so I only caught a small portion of what they had to say. Hakstol called in by cell phone later to give a few comments.

Both Kaip and Chorney think Denver and Colorado College will split this weekend. Chorney called it one of the better rivalries in college hockey.

On the upcoming series with St. Cloud State, Chorney said that the Sioux would have to be sharp defensively. Every team in the league has enough skilled players that it you take off a shift or two, the puck will be in the back of your net.

When Hakstol phoned in, Hennessy asked him about his votes for the All-WCHA team. He said that he hadn’t done his voting yet. There are a lot of guys in contention. He’s going to sit back and take some time before he votes. There aren’t really any can’t-miss players this year like there are some years. He hopes that everyone around the league takes some time to look at the players and what they’ve done throughout the season, not just statistics. He said it’s important to consider consistency and what a player brings to the table besides scoring.

Regarding the success of former Sioux player Jonathan Toews with the Blackhawks, Hakstol agreed with Kaip and Chorney that nothing he’s accomplished in the NHL surprises them. Watching him day in and day out for a couple of years at UND, Toews acted like a pro then, not just for games, but for practices and how he prepared. “What he’s doing is pretty special, but you can’t say it’s a surprise,” Hakstol said.

Hakstol said the Sioux want to be in position to take advantage of whatever might happen between Denver and Colorado College.

Regarding the injuries to Chay Genoway and Evan Trupp, Hakstol said he didn’t know if Genoway would play this weekend. He said it was safe to say that Trupp won’t be available, but he doesn’t know how long that might be. With Genoway, he’d just be guessing and he really doesn’t know, even at this point in the week.

Whether or not Genoway plays will first be based on what’s best for him and then what’s best for the team. They’re not going to put him at risk for further injury. The team comes second. They have a lot of confidence in the guys who can step in for Genoway. He said Jake Marto has done a good job for the team this season.

Hakstol said he doesn’t agree that SCSU has more to play for than UND and will play with more desperation. He said both teams have a lot to play for. The Sioux are playing to get better every week and to build momentum by winning games. He can only assume that the Huskies will be hungry and play desperate hockey. But he also assumes that the Sioux will show up and play the same way.

Hakstol said that both Kaip and Chorney are even-keel as team leaders. Throughout the season in practice and in games, they’re even keel, hungry, focused and driven to play well.

And Hakstol said: Let there be depth!

2008-03-04T21:09:00.008-06:00

All season long, UND coach Dave Hakstol has touted the depth of this year's Fighting Sioux team. Fortunately, they have gone through most of the season without serious injuries. But now with sophomore defenseman Chay Genoway and freshman forward Evan Trupp out indefinitely, the team's depth will be tested this coming weekend against St. Cloud State and probably beyond during the playoffs.

It's a terrible time of year to lose players such as Genoway (6 goals and 16 assists) and Trupp (8 goals, 5 assists and 5 game-winning goals) who have contributed so much to UND's 15-game unbeaten streak. They're key parts of the second power play unit, which clearly suffered in their absence during Sunday's game at Duluth. They also play on UND's penalty kill.

Hakstol has been through this before. The 04-05 Sioux lost Rylan Kaip at mid-season and a number of players were in and out of the lineup with injuries. To make matters worse, Robbie Bina, Brady Murray and Mike Prpich went down during the WCHA Final Five. Prpich returned and played hurt for the NCAA tournament. A cobbled-together line of Erik Fabian, Brian Canady and James Massen helped carry that team all the way to the Frozen Four championship.

The 05-06 team lost Fabian in the last game of the regular season against Michigan Tech. In the first game of the best-of-three series against Minnesota State, leading scorer Drew Stafford went down with an injury in an overtime loss to the Mavericks. Stafford sat out the Final Five, but Kaip picked a good time to score the first two goals of his career in a 3-2 win over Wisconsin. The Sioux went on to win their fourth Broadmoor Trophy by beating SCSU 5-3.

Last season, the team struggled through injuries to T.J. Oshie, Jonathan Toews and Jean-Philippe Lamoureux, but rebounded in time to make a third straight appearance in the NCAA Frozen Four.

So although the Sioux will certainly miss Genoway and Trupp, all is not lost. The wisdom of Hakstol's decision to give playing time to freshmen defensemen Derrick LaPoint and Jake Marto now becomes obvious. Both of them have strong offensive upsides. Can one or both of them combined make up for Genoway's absence? Can they limit rookie mistakes? We will soon find out.

Trupp's absence might be somewhat easier to cover. Brad Miller has shown occasional flashes of brilliance during his three years at UND. He could certainly help fill the void, and his playoff experience is a definite plus. And what of Matt Frattin? He began the season playing on the top line with Ryan Duncan and Oshie. Now would be a good time for him to break out of his scoring slump.

Kaip has demonstrated a knack for scoring big goals in the playoffs. Junior forward Matt Watkins has also shown scoring ability. Ryan Martens has gotten better as the season progressed. It could be his time to shine.

The good news is that the Sioux are virtually assured a spot in the NCAA tournament. That means there's time for players to step up their games and fill roles they haven't needed to fill during the season.

As Desaix told Napoleon at the Battle of Marengo: "There is yet time to win another battle!"

Don't look now, but...

2008-03-04T11:34:00.008-06:00

Following North Dakota's last series at Minnesota-Duluth, Fighting Sioux opponents now have more penalties and penalty minutes than UND.

UND: 268 penalties, 685 penalty minutes
Opponents: 270 penalties, 694 penalty minutes

In addition, the gap between UND's power play opportunities and those of its opponents continues to grow. The Sioux have had more or the same number of power plays per game as their opponents 20 times while opposing teams have had more power plays in 13 games.

UND is 12-1-2 when it has more power plays, 3-2-0 when it has an equal number of power plays and 8-5-0 when it has fewer power plays. Therefore, as the stats demonstrate, it's not to UND's advantage to "goon it up."

The weakest link? It's not Lamoureux

2008-03-03T21:20:00.003-06:00

When I interviewed UND goalie Jean-Philippe Lamoureux for US College Hockey Online near the end of January, I reminded him that before the season started, many "experts" considered goaltending UND's weak link. He responded by saying:

"The confidence that I have in myself and the amount of work that I put in to be successful and be prepared, it’s almost music to my ears. To know that if I’m going to be the only weak link on the team this year, that’s going to be fine with me because I know what my abilities are. I understand the amount of work I have to put in and the type of preparation I need to be mentally and physically ready to play. If I’m going to be the only weak link, then so be it. If I’m the weakest link, we’re going to be all right."

Just look at where UND's "weak link" is today. Lamoureux's 1.68 goals-against average is No. 1 in the nation and his .934 save percentage is tied for first nationally. His .719 winning percentage is fifth nationally. He's a big reason why UND gives up a nation-best 1.79 goals per game and why the Sioux kill 89.3 percent of their penalties, despite being the second most penalized team in the country.

As the regular season winds down, Lamoureux is the one Sioux player with a legitimate shot at the Hobey Baker Award. Given the talented NHL draft choices on the team, who would've predicted that at season's start? Certainly not me. But just as Hobey winner Ryan Duncan was UND's most consistent player last season, Lamoureux has been Mr. Dependable this season.

It wasn't long ago that some Sioux fans were decrying UND's inability to recruit a world-class, shutdown goaltender. Well, now you've got him, and he was right under your noses all along.

Fighting Sioux: Yes, it's already gone

2008-02-28T12:00:00.007-06:00

Because of recent news reports, loyal backers of UND's Fighting Sioux nickname are finally waking up to the reality that the days of the name and logo are numbered. I attempted to explain this to Sioux fans three months ago, but few seemed to believe it. In fact, the writing was on the wall after the state of North Dakota settled its lawsuit with the NCAA last October.

The good news - if you want to look at it that way - isn't that the NCAA or the tribes won. No, it's that the state of North Dakota simply gave up. The opportunity to play football against the University of Minnesota was more important to some key UND alumni and athletics supporters than the principle of free expression, the reason many of us waged the battle to retain the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo for so long.

As Abraham Lincoln once observed, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Thus, when UND athletics could no longer present a unified front on the issue, the state's political leaders decided the most practical approach was to strike the best deal possible with the NCAA and put the issue to rest once and for all.

Knowing that the end is near for the once-proud Fighting Sioux nickname and logo, I dedicate this rewritten version of the Eagles 1974 song "Already Gone."

I’m Already Gone

Well, I heard some Sioux fans whinin' just the other day
'Cause they fear someone’s gonna take me off the shelf
So I’ll give to you a clue that will be news to you
Yet I know darn well it's true
It means you'll have to pin the blame upon yourself

Yes I'm already gone
And I'm feelin' wronged
I will sing the loser’s song
Boo, hoo, hoo
Boo, hoo, hoo

The wording that you sold me made me stop and wonder why
But I guess you felt like you had to quit the fight
Just remember this, my fans, when you’re fallin’ for the spin
You can play the game but it doesn’t mean you’ll win (that’s right)

So I'm already gone
And I'm feelin' wronged
I will sing the loser’s song
Boo, hoo, hoo
Boo, hoo, hoo

Well I know just who it was who held me dear
Someone knows it was them who sold me out
So many times it happened that you closed your eyes to shame
Now you act like you don't know what it’s about

But me, I'm already gone
And I'm feelin' wronged
I will sing the losers song
'Cause I'm already gone
Yes, I'm already gone
And I'm feelin' wronged
I will sing the loser’s song
'Cause I'm already gone
Yes, I'm already gone
Already gone

Most penalized compared to what?

2008-02-25T19:40:00.003-06:00

Whenever someone tosses out the factoid about the Fighting Sioux being the most penalized team in college hockey and uses it to claim that UND has a team of "goons" and "thugs," it's useful to ask the question: Most penalized compared to what?

Instead of picking on some other team from the current season, I'll make an apples-to-apples comparison with another Dave Hakstol-coached team from the recent past: the 2004-05 Sioux that made it all the way to the national championship game against Denver.

This was the team that ESPN commentator Barry Melrose said had an "NHL-style defense" during the 2005 Frozen Four. Given that four members of the defensive corps (Matt Greene, Matt Jones, Andy Schneider and Matt Smaby) were big, physical NHL draftees, the analogy was appropriate. That team also featured master instigator Mike Prpich and developed a reputation for rough play that resulted in numerous penalties.

Here's a comparison between the two teams.

2004-05 Sioux (36 regular-season games)
Penalties: 370
Penalty minutes: 800

Opponents
Penalties: 348
Penalty minutes: 731

2007-08 Sioux (32 regular-season games to date)
Penalties: 257
Penalty minutes: 663

Opponents
Penalties: 253
Penalty minutes: 630

Now it's possible that the 07-08 Sioux will end the regular season with more penalties and/or penalty minutes than the 04-05 team, but barring a bench-clearing brawl or two in the final four games of the regular season, it's not likely. What's more likely is that this year's Sioux team will end the regular season with far fewer penalties and penalty minutes than the 04-05 team.

To update and expand on the statistics The Sicatoka provided in an earlier blog here, compare the power play numbers and records of the 04-05 Sioux to the 07-08 Sioux.

2004-05 Regular Season Record with:
More power plays 6-5-0
Fewer power plays 6-6-4
Equal power plays 4-2-1

2007-08 Regular Season Record with:
More power plays 10-1-2
Fewer power plays 8-5-0
Equal power plays 3-2-0

When the 04-05 team had the same or more penalties, it was 10-7-1 (.583 winning percentage). When the 07-08 team has the same or more penalties, it's 13-3-2 (.777 winning percentage). This year's Sioux team not only takes fewer penalties, but it also takes better advantage of its power play opporunities and is more likely to win even when it has fewer opportunities with the man advantage.

The 04-05 team developed a reputation for being able to take a lot of penalties because it was so effective at killing them off. But this wasn't really the case until the Sioux hit the playoffs in 2005. Incredibly, during the post-season, that Sioux team was 5-0-0 when the opposition had more power plays, 1-1-0 when UND had more power plays and 1-1-0 when the power plays were equal.

Ironically, the only playoff game the 04-05 Sioux team lost when it had more power plays was the national championship game against the Denver Pioneers. One could argue that the Sioux might have stood a better chance of winning that game if they'd played the style of hockey that got them there.

The Boards Room: Now open for comments

2008-02-25T16:18:00.002-06:00

Due to popular demand, we've decided to open our blog to comments from the outside world. However, the comments here will be moderated. If I find myself spending too much time deleting trolls, flames, insults, personal attacks and baseless gossip, we will return to allowing comments from select individuals only.

So if you have something constructive to add to the discussion, please feel free leave a comment here. Thank you for your interest.

The Most Penalized Team In The Country

2008-02-22T10:09:00.004-06:00

The most penalized team in the country .... but what does that really mean?

UND has, over 29 games, taken 248 penalties for 645 PIM this year. That's 225 minors, 7 majors, and 16 other penalties (all 10 minute). But why?

UND's head-to-head opponents have taken 223 minors, 3 majors, and 13 other penalties for a summary of 239 penalties for 591 minutes.

So let's put some context around that ....

Penalty Minutes: Games PIM PIM/G
1 North Dakota 29 645 22.2
2 Canisius 31 681 22.0
( North Dakota's Opponents 29 591 20.4)
3 Bowling Green 30 589 19.6
4 RIT 30 574 19.1
5 Western Michigan 32 590 18.4
6 Nebraska-Omaha 32 589 18.4
7 Sacred Heart 30 552 18.4
8 Miami 32 574 17.9
9 Ferris State 30 538 17.9
10 Michigan 32 571 17.8

Now, tell me, are UND's penalties the chicken or the egg? To try to figure that out let's play "Run the Scenario":

Theory 1: UND is a bunch of dirty hacks: Those poor Opponent souls are just doing what they have to to stay alive.

Contradictory Indicators: If UND was a bunch of dirty hacks, how are they leading the WCHA, #2 in the polls, and holder of an NCAA region #1 seed as of today?

Theory 2: Opponents are a bunch of dirty hacks. UND is defending itself.

Contradictory Indicators: UND has more penalties and PIMs. Pure retaliation doesn't fit this notion.

Theory 3: UND comes out playing a "to the edge" physical game. They make some hits, take a couple penalties along the way, but drive the opponent to retaliate questionably.

Contradictory Indicators: In this theory, the opponent should be at par or higher as retaliatory may be more severe penalties. So we may be close.

Theory 3 Amended: UND comes out playing a "to the edge" physical game. They make some hits, take a couple penalties along the way, but drive the opponent to questionably retaliate. UND doesn't stand for the retaliation and deals with it.

Indicator: UND has more minors but otherwise reasonably comparable penalty numbers.

I think we've found our plausible solution. But can we do more to make it fit the numbers and reality of the situation?

Let stop looking at penalty numbers, but games, and see what that can show us. Wouldn't you expect the most heavily penalized team in the country to be playing net short-handed games far more often than they are playing net even or man-advantage games? You would, and you'd be wrong in this case.

In games in which UND has:
- more power plays than its opponents, the Sioux are 8-1-2.
- fewer power plays than its opponents, the Sioux are 8-5-0.
- the same number of power plays, the Sioux are 3-2-0.

Therefore, in the 29 games UND has played, the Sioux have had the the same or more power plays than their opponents 16 times and fewer power plays 13 times.

So there you have it folks, the most penalized team in the country is even or at a total powerplays advantage in more games than not.

A Game Day Observation Points To A Glaring Change In the WCHA

2008-01-25T10:57:00.000-06:00

I'm looking at the PDF from UND Sports Information for UAA at UND, page 3, lower left, and I'm struggling to believe my eyes.

The top two career active point scorers in the WCHA are juniors? And there are only 2 guys in the whole league with 100 career points? And there are sophomores, *three* sophomores, in the top 11?

All it takes to be top 11 in active career scoring in the WCHA right now is a mere 73 career points. And 119 points is the active career points leader (UND junior TJ Oshie).

To understand my wonderment, let me put this to you from my perspective:

Tony Hrkac put up 116 points (46-70-116) in a season (1986-1987, 48 games).

If that single season was active today it would put him tied for second (UND junior and fellow Hobey Baker winner Ryan Duncan) in active career points and almost in the top 11 using only the assists total (70).

Brad Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald has pointed to scoring being down, way down, in the WCHA. Brad is onto something.

Personally, I do not view scoring being down, this far down, as a good thing.

Here come your Fighting Sioux!

2008-01-20T11:20:00.000-06:00

Anyone who's followed Fighting Sioux hockey since Dave Hakstol took over as head coach in 2004 knows that a second-half surge is becoming trademark of his teams. In his first three seasons, Hakstol's teams got off to slow starts before ending up in the NCAA Frozen Four. All indications are that this season's surge has begun.

With 2-1 and 5-3 road victories over Minnesota State-Mankato this weekend, the Sioux broke out of another trend for the second straight weekend. Last weekend's home sweep of Michigan Tech ended the trend of splitting at home. This weekend's sweep of the Mavericks ended the trend of splitting on the road.

UND now has a five-game winning streak going. Prior to the sweep of MTU, the Sioux hadn't won more than two games in a row all season. With the lowly Alaska-Anchorage Seawolves visiting Ralph Engelstad Arena next weekend, the Sioux should keep that streak going. In fact, the way Minnesota has been playing, the road series at Minneapolis the following week looks less daunting than it once did.

When the Denver Pioneers visit the Ralph Feb. 15-16, the two teams might very well be playing for control of second place in the WCHA. Currently, while UND's fortunes appear to be on the upswing, DU seems headed in the opposite direction. Still, there's a lot of talent on the Pioneers and nobody should take them for granted.

One trend the Sioux must end if they're going to be serious contenders for their eighth national championship is their inability to come from behind to win in the third period. It's been nearly three years since UND trailed at the start of he third period and rallied for a win. That was Feb. 18, 2005, at Anchorage. Since then, the Sioux are 0-23 when behind after two periods.

This team has the talent to win it all, but it would be a mistake to pencil in the Sioux for a Frozen Four slot just yet. The Sioux are in a good position to control their own destiny, and that's exactly how Hakstol likes it.

Have we hit an all-time low in the state of WCHA officiating?

2008-01-18T13:54:00.000-06:00

Not that long ago I thought officiating in the WCHA had turned a corner. The league had just finished an experiment with cameras over the goals and was making the system league wide. The WCHA was calling obstruction and the game opened up for the top end players to showcase their skills. And more recently the league even experimented with a four official system on the ice.

But even with these positive factors showing the WCHA does care about the quality of the officiating we're left this season with not one but two controversial goals (DU at SCSU and UW at DU), technology or not, haunting the standings. Bruce McLeod and the league office are offering not much more than apologies.

Amidst this fiasco one (at least one) WCHA coach is calling for officiating to move to the NHL style of calls (strict enforcement). I do agree with this sentiment and believe it has to occur or the top end talent may stop coming to the WCHA, yet ....

I'm sorry Dave (and others): The WCHA office needs to figure out what is and isn't a goal before it can be credible in calling a style where a stick parallel to the ice and touching an opponent is a minor penalty.

I've stopped believing this WCHA administration is willing or capable of doing either any time soon.

Welcome to The Boards Room

2008-01-17T15:59:00.000-06:00

Welcome to a new experiment in the discussion of collegiate athletics. This blog focuses on the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux (yes, those Fighting Sioux) athletics teams. However, we will also invite contributors from competing schools to give their thoughts and provide comments on the blogs as they're posted.

The objective here is NOT to have a wide-open, no-holds-barred, free-for-all forum where rabid fans trash talk, vent and rip apart each other's opinions. There are plenty of sites on the Web for those who wish to engage in that sort of activity. Our objective is to provide intelligent, insightful and sometimes humorous analysis of the Fighting Sioux and their competitors.

This doesn't mean we're not interested in your opinions. If you want to comment on something here or have an idea for a topic that you'd like to see covered, send an e-mail to this address with your thoughts. Your viewpoint just might become a topic of discussion for The Boards Room.

Thanks for checking out The Boards Room.