Lucia, "referees made the right call"

Image via WikipediaThis was on Roman Augustoviz blog today.

Lucia said he felt the referees made the right call when they gave Kyle Rau a major penalty for boarding and a game misconduct for his hit on Denver forward Jason Zucker in Friday's game.

WCHA commissioner Bruce McLeod called Lucia that night, the Gophers coach said, to tell him the league was going to review the play. He watched it on video that night after not seeing it live.

The next morning Lucia said he talked to McLeod again and was told Rau would probably be suspended.

"At that time, we had the right to appeal the suspension, which would have allowed Kyle the right to play Saturday night," Lucia said. "But 99.9 [percent of the time] we probably would have lost the appeal and he would not have been allowed to play the next Friday night against Bemidji."

Lucia decided the best option was not to appeal, so he could prepare his lines better for the Beavers.

He said the difficult part of the situation was the supplemental discipline. "There were a couple of other major penalties on the weekend," Lucia said. "You can go back to incidents -- what deserves extra and what doesn't?"

After seeing the video of the Kyle Rau hit on Jason Zucker, it's good to see coach Lucia support the league decision on that Rau hit. Lucia does also make a good point, "You can go back to incidents -- what deserves extra and what doesn't?” I think that’s the question a lot of the fans are wondering as well.

Related articles

• Lucia, "referees made the right call" (ndgoon.blogspot.com)
• Controversial non call in St Cloud (ndgoon.blogspot.com)
• Did Lucia give his players an out. Did he lower expectations? (ndgoon.blogspot.com)
• WCHA unlikely to punish coaches for Saturday's dust up. (ndgoon.blogspot.com)

Controversial non call in St Cloud

While I was at the Sioux game versus the Badgers, and my twitter blew up and this the goal by the Huskies was the play that set the Gopher fans off.

So did the refs blow the call? Is this indicative of WCHA officiating? It looks like Nate Condon was hacked and pulled down causing an opportunity going the other way and Ben Hanowski scores on Patterson.

Here is what the Star Tribune had to say on the matter.

Even so, the Huskies scored the only goal of the first period. One second Nate Condon had a near breakaway for the Gophers before being separated from the puck.

The next, SCSU had an odd-man rush that ended with Ben Hanowski sliding the puck underneath Gophers goalie Kent Patterson.

Gophers coach Don Lucia chewed out the referee who dared skate over to the visitors' bench. Lucia wanted a hooking call on Condon's rush.

DQ Cup Redux?

This seems to be the talk of twitter this afternoon, seems like some fans aren't very excited about it as well. There is a little thing about perception. 

Roman Augustoviz, Roman Empire --- In 2013-14 the five Division I hockey programs in Minnesota -- now all in the WCHA -- will be in three different conferences.

But those same five teams are near finalizing an agreement to play in a four-team tournament in late January at the Xcel Energy Center, according to Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi.

"We are very close to getting it done," Maturi said. "It will be at the Xcel, that is what we are considering right now."

Maturi said on Saturday that all those schools have all agreed to the general format, but nothing has been signed. Presumably the Gophers would be in the field every year, and three of the other four Minnesota teams.

"We have to work out the finances and make sure everybody agrees to what it is," Maturi said, "and move forward."

Me personally, I agree with others that think it's a bit narcissistic on Minnesota's part, because the Gophers can have their cake and eat it too. The officials at Minnesota will claim that they are helping the have nots in out state Minnesota and will still be able to have their precious 20 home games at Mariucci Arena. Call it what you want, this is all about Gophers.

Let's not kid our selves, the chances of a BSU or a Minnesota State getting the Gophers to come to the Sanford center or the Verizon Wireless Center will still only happen maybe once every four or five years if they are lucky.

One last dance with an old friend.

There has been a lot of discussion about this weekend's series between the Gophers and the Fighting Sioux/UND Hockey team. This was the last regular season series at the REA between UND and UMN. It's only fitting that the series would end in split and a near line brawl between the two teams.

The arena was really electric this weekend and it was very loud at the Ralph on Friday night, especially during the third period.

After Friday's game the Ralph Englestad Arena lobby was still buzzing at about 10:30 pm and as I left the arena after the post game press conference, I thought this is what we are going to miss. One of the best rivalries in college hockey.

I can't see OSU vs. UMN or PSU vs. UMN matching this series in intensity, there is no way. Sure Michigan and Minnesota will be a good rivalry game and I am sure that Miami and UND will have some epic battles, but this is where it's at.

So in a season and a half we are going to no longer be able to see this historic series at the Ralph Englestad Arena again. FireHelmetGuy#26 post on Gopher Puck Live nails it.

As for Ben Blood going nuts this weekend, I would be willing to bet that he probably regrets that move today as he looks back on that incident.  Not the smartest move on Blood's part and it didn't portray him in a very positive light. We are all human beings and we all make mistakes. The near brawl at the end of the game also put a damper on an other wise great series. Here is the quote from head coach Dave Hakstol from Brad's gamer.

The last time UND and Minnesota skated off the Ralph Engelstad Arena ice as Western Collegiate Hockey Association rivals, they were unable to make it through the handshake line without a scuffle breaking out.

UND coach Dave Hakstol said he didn’t like that, nor did he like his team’s energy during a 6-2 loss to the rival Gophers in front of 11,964 in Ralph Engelstad Arena. [Grand Forks Herald]

That being said, I am not going to throw Ben Blood under the bus, what good would it do? Blood screwed up and broke a rule and violated tradition. Blood pulled someone out of the hand shake line after the game was over.

I got the impression that some wanted me to eviscerate Blood on my blog because he made a bad decision, he did. I don't think we are going to see Ben Blood do that again, and I am sure most of us would not like to see that again. Finally, there is an old saying, Let Him Who is Without Sin Cast the First Stone.

s/t to Puck Daddy for the Link today as Blood's post game reaction when viral around the hockey world.

Related articles

• UMN runs past UND 6-2 (mvn.com)
• College Hockey fan behavior. (mvn.com)
• A battle between two states; Minnesota vs. North Dakota? (mvn.com)
• North Dakota edges Minnesota (insidehockey.com)
• Fighting Sioux 1930-2012 R.I.P. (mvn.com)
• UND vs. UMN series notes (mvn.com)
• North Dakota vs. Minnesota Series Notes (insidehockey.com)
• Minnesota pastes North Dakota (insidehockey.com)

UMN runs past UND 6-2

Grand Forks, ND – The University of North Dakota and the University of Minnesota have had some epic battles over the years, and the opening game of this series was no different as UND gutted out a 2-1 win.

The second game of the series would turn out to be a one that the UND Hockey team will want to wipe from their memory bank as soon as possible.

Saturday night’s game was the last time that UND and UMN will play a regular season WCHA game in Ralph Englestad Arena, due to the formation of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference and the Big Ten Hockey Conference, both teams will leave the WCHA and go their separate ways. It’s unknown at this time when Minnesota will make a return trip to the Ralph Englestad Arena. It could be some time before the two teams play in the Ralph again.

Due to the fact that this was the last regular season WCHA match-up at the Ralph Englestad Arena, “ever” between North Dakota and Minnesota, tonight’s game should’ve had all of the makings of an instant classic, the game would turn out to be a stinker for the team from North Dakota.

Coming into tonight’s game UND and UMN were teams going in different directions, counting last night’s win against Minnesota UND had gone 10-3-1 in the last 14 games since they were swept by the Gophers at Mariucci Arena back on November 5^th, 2011. Even with the loss in tonight’s game UND has still put together a pretty nice run of 10-4-1 in the last fifteen games.

Not all is lost for the team from Grand Forks.

The Minnesota Gophers had lost three games in a row coming into tonight's game and had gone 6-7-1 in the last 14 games since sweeping North Dakota in Mariucci Arena. Minnesota would break that three game losing streak tonight with an impressive 6-2 win. What was more impressive with Minnesota’s win tonight was that they only scored one goal on the power play four even strength goals and one short handed marker).

The Gophers would come out during the first period with a lot of jump in their step, the Gophers were connecting on their passes and flying through the neutral zone with speed uncontested as the UND defenders didn’t have an answer for the Gophers speed and at times appeared to be standing around flat footed, watching the Gophers make plays.

The Gophers would easily race to a very comfortable 4-0 lead before the game was even 23 minutes old.

The Gopher’s top line of Kyle Rau, Nick Bjugstad and Zach Budish would lead the charge for the Golden Gophers out of the gate. Rau and Bjugstad would add two more points to their already impressive season stats totals before the first period was over.  While Zach Budish was the only one on the top line to not get any points during tonight’s game, Nick Bjugstad said that, “ Zach Budish played good and I don’t know if he got any points but he still played very well.“ The moral of the story is, if you don't pay attention to the Rau, Bjugstad, Budish line you could be in for a long night.

After getting beat to the puck and losing a lot of physical battles the night before the Gophers appeared to be a different team on Saturday night. Gopher forward Nick Bjugstad said, “that we played physical, we were blocking shots and doing all the things that we needed to do.”

If there is one positive to take out of tonight’s game, it’s UND’s penalty kill. During the regular season series between UMN and UND; UND killed 19/21 of Minnesota’s power play opportunities. That’s not a small feat considering who the Gophers have in their lineup.


The UND bench called a timeout at the 18:51 mark of the second period to settle the young UND team down, and it appeared to work for a while as UND got two quick goals by Michael Parks and Danny Kristo.
However, shortly thereafter, Minnesota returned to dismantling UND, as the Gophers added four unanswered goals to the score sheet. Six Minnesota Gophers players would finish the night with at least two points.

All around, it was not a good night for North Dakota as they were beat to the loose pucks all night long a
nd just seemed to be a step off. UND had no answer to the Gophers transition game.

After the game, UND head coach Dave Hakstol was asked what his team did differently today.

“I thought we were a step slow. I noticed that the way our team was playing, it was pretty evident early on,” Hakstol said. “We weren’t sharp with pucks in terms of completing passes and pushing pucks up ice, and the simple things, as far as even dumping pucks to good areas that we could forecheck.

“We just weren’t sharp.”

UND travels to St Cloud State next weekend to play the Huskies in a two-game WCHA series.

Box Score

Cross Posted at INSIDE HOCKEY...

Related articles

• Minnesota routs North Dakota 6-2 (mysanantonio.com)
• UND vs. UMN series notes (mvn.com)
• North Dakota edges Minnesota 2-1 (mvn.com)

He said what?

Image via WikipediaLol... I was wondering if Roman Augustoviz was trying to create some bulletin board material to fire up the Golden Gophers. Having been to numerous Wednesday press conferences and post game conferences, this is not an uncommon response for Coach Hakstol. In my opinion coach Hakstol is more concerned about his teams mental and physical make up then some meaningless poll ranking.

HAKSTOL SAYS

"We are finding ways to win games any way we can," said UND coach Dave Hakstol, who needs two victories to reach 200. A sweep of the Gophers this weekend at the Ralph would get him to that milestone.

North Dakota is 8-2-1 since being swept by the Gophers in early November.

Asked if the No. 5-rated Gophers are for real this week, Hakstol said, "I an not really worried about them. I care about the guys in our locker room and the steps they are taking. We will be ready to play Friday."

Uh-oh.

UND is coming off a 3-1 victory over Clarkson on Saturday in Winnipeg, Canada. Forward Carter Rowney had two goals in that game. He has 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in the last 11 games since they played at Mariucci.

Also hot for North Dakota is defenseman Dillon Simpson with 10 assists in 10 games.

* One of the key players hurt is first-line wing Corban Knight, who suffered a lower-body injury three games ago. He has missed the past two games.

Actually UND is 9-3-1 since they were swept by the Gophers, Minnesota on the other hand is 6-6-1 since the UND series.

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• WCHA Power Rankings - January 8 (insidehockey.com)

Gophers 2; Fighting Sioux 0

First of all I have to comment that it appears that the departure of John Hill from the coaching ranks certainly improved the Minnesota Gophers. I believe their record is now 8 and 1 with 5 shut outs. That's a far cry from recent Gopher teams that had the talent but have been missing the national tournament lately.

I think we all expected that as young as the Sioux team is this year that it would take a while for them to become real competitive. Where that's really showing up is in the scoring. The Sioux had a few good chances, but they still can't score like we need to.

The Sioux played the Gophers well through most of the game. The first goal was by Nick Bjugstad on the power play that wound up being a virtual 5 on 3 as Mario Lamoureux blocked two shots which broke his stick and left him nearly unable to stand. I give him a lot of credit for getting up and still attempting to block more shots, though it wasn't hard for the Gophers to move around him.

I have to give him credit. After a short stint on the bench he finished the game.

The Sioux didn't suffer many breakdowns in my opinion until late in the game. The one that hurt the most led to the second goal where the Gophers won a faceoff in the defensive end and managed to get by the defense in the scramble after the drop of the puck. That led to a break-a-way goal for Tom Serratore on a nifty little pass from Nick Larson.

It was a entertaining game with at least one old time scrum, without the punches. It's pretty clear that the Gophers came into the game with the idea that they weren't going to fold under the physical play like they have in some of the games in the past.

The one thing that's troubling is the officiating that's going to lead to a player getting seriously injured. In the first period, Gopher Nate Condon launched Derek Rodwell headfirst into the boards. The tandem of Derek Sheppard and Marco Hunt called Condon for a minor penalty. Of course when they let hits like that go by someone is going to do it again. In the second period Seth Ambroz hit Mario from behind and finished the game in the locker room.

Hits that launch a player headfirst into the boards have no place in hockey. The rules are very specific but the refs in the WCHA have no respect for the players safety.

I'll get off my soapbox now. I hate to say it but at this point of the season it looks like the Gophers are back to being a contender.

Behind Enemy Lines - Wally Shaver's Gophers-UND Preview

The boys over at Gopher Puck Live had this in their twitter feed today so I thought I would share it with you. Wally Shaver does the Gopher hockey radio broadcasts along with Frank Mazzocco. Should be a good series between the Fighting Sioux and the Minnesota Gophers.

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A trip down memory lane, 2007 West Regional... Sioux beat Gophers 3-2...

I was been reading the various message boards and I get a chuckle out of how Gopher fans love to bring up the Blake Wheeler goal against the Sioux in the Final Five, I have to give credit where credit is due, that was a great highlight goal, in fact it was one for the ages, that euphoria was short lived as a week later the Fighting Sioux got the last laugh with a great overtime winner in Denver.

Something to get you in the mood, Sioux vs Gophers

It's Sioux and Gophers week again and I would compare this historic rivalry to the Hatfield’s and McCoy feud. All you have to do is watch the videos to figure out that these two teams just that don't like each other very much. Some of it’s due to the fact that UND has quite a few players from the Metro area that like to play against the Gophers and beat them. I am expecting an awesome effort from Danny Kristo, Ben Blood, Nick Mattson, Joe Gleason, Brock Nelson, Derek Forbort.


Nothing like a big hit by one of the Sioux’s forward to fire the team up and then start a Donny Brook.I found this gem on Gopher Puck Live...

Why do Sioux fans continue to manufacture reasons to fuel the rivalry? There's this phantom incident, Wheeler insulting Finley's sister, the never seen Lucia spear and they also accused Bickel of "hiding behind a ref" a few years ago. I figure in a few years some idiot will recycle the spear and sister insult. Just embrace your goonery and stop trying to justify it.

As you just read above, we will hear from Gopher fans how the Fighting Sioux are a bunch of classless Goons. If you believe the hype, it's almost like the Sioux are a bunch of knuckle dragging Neanderthals straight out of the movie Slap Shot.

Me personally, I like to refer to the Gophers as being "Minnesota's Pansies on Ice". You know the team that won’t go head to head with your favorite team, but will stand behind the referee and yap (i.e., Stu Bickel, Seth Helgeson, Tony Lucia) and when they are called out beg for the ref to save them.



Just a reminder to folks, remember it’s just a game folks, we don’t need anyone getting into a fight outside the arena or in the bars on either side of the ice. When it’s all said and done hope everyone has a fun time and no one gets hurt or arrested. Back in 2009 I wrote a blog post on fan behavior at the Illegal Curve.


Here is the video of the after math of "the never seen Lucia spear," of course there wasn't going to ever be a video proving that there was a Lucia spear. FSN isn't going to come forward with a spear that showed on of their golden boys in a bad light.

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Jake Hanson, Minnesota is supposed to be the premier program

Image via WikipediaMinnesota Gophers forward Jake Hanson has stirred some discussion with his comments that he made in the Pioneer Press. If I was a head hockey coach I am not that I would want to hear that coming out of one of my players mouth. What do you think?

Ray Richardson, Pioneer Press --- The Bulldogs' title has magnified the questionable stature of the Gophers' program. For Gophers players, it's unsettling to know the NCAA championship trophy is only three hours north of the Twin Cities.

"For a lot of years, we have been the dominant program over Duluth," said defenseman Jake Hansen, one of only seven seniors on the Gophers' roster. "They have the crown now...that's a little strange. The University of Minnesota is supposed to be the premier program. That's what we're trying to get back to this year."

While I don't think historically Hansen is wrong, however, you don't want to wake up a sleeping giant. You let sleeping dogs lie. If I was the Bulldog head coach I would take these comments put them on the bulletin board and use these comments to my team's advantage. That being said, this should prove to be a great college hockey series and should be an early measuring for both the Bulldogs and Gophers.