He said what?

First off, I enjoy Roman’s articles and his blog posts… As a regular reader I find his blog post to be amusing and I like his style. Roman writes in a style that I find easy to read and enjoy and he doesn’t talk down or use a bunch of fancy words no one can understand… I admit that I usually read Goal Gopher a few times each day because there are usually lots of juicy nuggets that make good conversation pieces and blog posts. This post caught my eye and I couldn’t resist.

Goal Gophers --- Senior Jacob Cepis said the Gophers have beaten most of the best teams in the WCHA -- North Dakota, Denver and UMD -- and the top teams from other leagues, too.

The U beat Michigan 3-1 in the final College Hockey Showcase and took Union to overtime before losing 3-2 in its holiday tournament.

Michigan won the CCHA title this past weekend while Union won the Cleary Cup, symbolic of its first ECAC title.

The Gophers, of course, had a good weekend, too, sweeping Michgian Tech 5-2 both games. It got chippy Saturday as the U built a lead

That being said, I think this Star and Tribune blog post is an illustration of how far the mighty have fallen from grace; the Minneapolis Star Tribune is taking quotes from Jacob Cepis, just a few short years ago you would’ve seen more polished all American like players, you can picture the Gopher players names in your head. More prolific names like Jordan Leopold, Johnny Pohl, Thomas Vanek, Paul Martin, Alex Goligoski, Danny Irmen, Matt Koalska, Grant Polulny and Ryan Potulny. These all American like players would would be feeding the local media printable quotes and the media and their fans from the Metro area would be eating it up.

There would have been interviews in which the home town players would be talking about how the Minnesota Gophers had just wrapped up another league title or secured a high seed in the WCHA tourney and were looking forward to their upcoming trip to the Final Five and the NCAA tourney... Now the Gophers and the local media and their fans are talking about how their team can hopefully finish in fifth or sixth place in the WCHA standings so they can secure home ice. Gone are the annual trips to the NCAA tourney and as the Gophers are sitting on the bubble of making the NCAA tourney… They more than likely are going to be sitting on the outside looking in again, or playing golf when April comes around. Most of us would be grumbling about how Minnesota is going to get the evening game again on Friday, they will be lucky to play on Thursday.

Now the local Minneapolis/Saint Paul media talk about moral victories and how they took Union to overtime before they lost in overtime, in years past the former Gopher team would have taken the Dutchmen to the wood shed and hung a five or six spot on them. Now Minnesota is hard pressed to score five goals on anyione. Ironically the same Union team then lost the next night to the BSU Beavers... The Bemidji Beavers also are the same team that has gone further than the Gophers in the NCAA tourney the last two seasons.

So fast forward to present time, am I the only one that finds it funny that senior Jacob Cepis has become the face of the Minnesota Gophers hockey team? With nineteen NHL draft choices on the Minnesota Golden Gophers’ hockey team roster, some of which were taken in the first round; instead the have an undrafted player from Parma, Ohio that seems to have become the preferred spokes man for the Gophers hockey team. Wow! How times have changed.

Slashing is now sticking up for a teammate...

I have been reading this article a few times and I find it more amusing each time I read it. First off what is the Stib’s definition of a brawl? Does anyone see a problem with this paragraph? Usually if you going to take exception with something that an opposition player has done on the ice, in my opinion slashing would be an inappropriate and gutless response. It's not sticking up for a teammate, and it might get you fined, suspended and or probably beat up in other leagues.

* On whether brawl the Gophers' 3-2 win at North Dakota on Jan. 14 was a bonding experience: "We've got a lot of bonding experiences this year. We see each other too much. Every second of the day. We've got some young guys who are not afraid to mix it up. Enough of that stuff where people are criticizing us for not being tough. We showed we can be tough. Same with North Dakota. You want to try to bully us, it's not going to work. We are going to back ourselves up."

After a big hit on Gophers defensemen Kevin Wehrs, the 5-8, 170-pound Cepis actually took exception and started the donnybrook at the end of the second period. He got called for slashing.

* On the roughing calls and fighting on Saturday: "If somebody is going to take a shot at you, we are going to take a shot back."