A couple of pictures that I liked.

Respect! pic.twitter.com/9XhT4va6oD
— HockeyPerks® (@HockeyPerks) October 22, 2013

I really like this picture. Kind of grabs you by the heart strings.

WTF Moment... pic.twitter.com/Jd9PC0Y7Ms
— HockeyPerks® (@HockeyPerks) October 15, 2013

Rocco Grimaldi is trending in Omaha, Nebraska

Tough day at the Rink?

Because the CenturyLink Center suicide box is just for photographers again. #whycollegehockey pic.twitter.com/c39NGaolGl
— Matthew Semisch (@matthewsemisch) October 11, 2013

Caption for this picture?

Know your enemy DU Hockey Roster up

Let’s Go DU has the DU Hockey Roster Up for your perusing.

Goon the Magnificent Carnac: Ballard to the Wild

Back in May I was suggesting that the Minnesota Wild pick up Keith Ballard and yesterday the former Gopher defenseman was signed by the Minnesota Wild. Also, two players that I wanted to see gone from the Wild roster are no longer here.  I am thinking, I need to go out and buy a lottery ticket this weekend. Below is what I wrote...

Based on what I have seen during the past season, I would say that the Minnesota Wild are challenged defensively, after the first defensive pairing of Ryan Suter and Jonas Brodin, the Wild are thin on defense and need some help.

Granted, Jared Spurgeon is a great up and coming offensive defenseman and Marco Scandella proved to be a nice surprise during the Wild's short playoff run. After that, Justin Falk proved that he's a defensive liability and at times look like a big green road cone. Former Badgers defenseman Tom Gilbert looked to have taken a step back this past season and I was unimpressed with his play as well because he was a defensive liability.

In my opinion, the Minnesota Wild could use a solid stay-at-home defenseman or two. Former Minnesota Defenseman Keith Ballard "could" be a candidate for an amnesty buyout in Vancouver and might be available to come to the Minnesota Wild at a reduced rate.

I know people get lucky sometimes but here is what I submitted for the season grades for Tom Gilbert and funny how things worked out for the Minnesota Wild.

Tom Gilbert: D

The former Wisconsin Badger Tom Gilbert is an utter disappointment in my opinion, that Wild are being cheated, he’s not worth the money he’s being paid. Gilbert is being paid a hefty four million a year to be a turnover factory and an unimpressive top-six defenseman. If I was a general manager for a day, he would be the first Wild player out of Minnesota; Justin Falk would be number two. The Wild should consider his four million dollar contract for an Amnesty buyout this summer as well. If they Wild could trade him for a bag of wood hockey sticks I would urge them to consider the deal. One positive is that he can’t play any worse than he did this season. Nowhere to go but up for Gilbert, I don’t think he can play any worse. Looking at the stats, in the plus/minus department, -11 is brutal.

More Penguins Humor

Johnny Boychuk and Sidney Crosby picture

Anyone have a caption for this one?

Wow! Things have gotten bad in Minnesota

On occasion, I will visit the Gopher Puck Live webpage for a good laugh, and today I got a good laugh. Apparently, this picture was in one of the posts, of a thread titled Gophers Off-Season 2013. From reading the message board, I gleaned that Hammy of GPL podcast fame, is upset that Former Notre Dame Alumnus and current head coach Don Lucia would dare wear a Fighting Irish Jersey to his son’s hockey game.  

You coach another team...

You recruit against this team whose jersey you are wearing...

What the hell are you doing?

I understand family comes first in life but wearing the colors/jersey of another team while employed by a competing program is disloyal to our fans IMO. That annoys me.

Like I have said in the past, I am not an apologist for the Minnesota Gophers coaching staff, but this is kind of petty, and family does comes first, especially when your teams season is over.

Having been to a few post game pressers, these hockey coaches are under a lot of pressure and put their heart and souls into their seasons. I am not going to fault a guy for taking a minute to enjoy his son’s hockey game.

Funny rant on the NHL discipline

This article was in the Vancouver Sun today and it’s a scream… it’s a must read if you haven’t seen it.

Cam Cole, The Vancouver Sun --- *** Is Boston coach Claude Julien right? Are the Habs the biggest collection of divers and embellishers in the NHL? (Memo to Beantown bloggers: does this mean the Vancouver Canucks are off the hook?) Is it an affront to all that's right and good in this world that the Bruins are the third-most penalized team in the NHL, and that the Canadiens have had 100 power play chances this season, while Boston has had just 61?

Or does Boston's penalty total go with the territory of being Big Bad Bruins? Kind of like the enduring Broad Street Bullies tag that clings to the reliably rugged Philadelphia Flyers, who lead the league in penalty minutes per game. Or the Toronto Maple Leafs, who were never considered very hard to play against until they went out and acquired a series of heavyweight brawlers, and now are No. 2 in the NHL in average time served.

Or is Julien whistling in the dark? He might be. Because No. 4 on the average penalty minutes ranking is ... Montreal.

Putting a spin on things... handing out lumps of coal...

This past week, the University of North Dakota Hockey team received some very good news as they got commitments from two highly touted and much desired big time recruits (Shane Gersich and Austin Poganski) from the Minnesota Golden Gophers back yard.

Some Minnesota fans seem to think that this is a serious coup d’état and very unacceptable and very even hard for them to stomach.

Yep! Being a UND fan, I must admit that I was impressed by these pickups and want to see more of them in the futre.

I also predict, that this won’t be the last time this happens either.  

 I mean seriously, why would a blue chip Minnesota hockey player want to play for the hated villains from the west in North Dakota?

That seems preposterous.

It’s not like UND has a great storied hockey history or anything like that.

I can’t figure it out… It’s not like Hakstol can coach or has ever developed any of numerous players from the University of North Dakota that made it to the next level in professional hockey.

If you’re paying attention for half a minute – I would appear that history had repeated it’s self once again and I believe that it will continue to happen.

Like my father once told me, “you can’t win them all.”

Contrary to the outhouse lawyers – UMN can’t get all of the best recruits from Minnesota – there are only so many roster spots to be given out – other schools are going to get a few of these players as well. Notre Dame’s Roster is beginning to look like who’s who from the Twin Cities Metro area.

Gasp! Some great Minnesota hockey players go to other schools. If you look at Minnesota Duluth, Saint Cloud State, Minnesota State, Wisconsin and North Dakota there are some great players on those teams from Minnesota. A fair number of these players probably played their high school hockey in the shadows of Mariucci Arena as well.

Let’s face facts, not everyone wants to play for the hometown Gophers. On the flip side of that equation; not every potential college hockey player wants to call the palace that is known as Ralph Engelstad Arena home. In coming hockey players need to find their niche where they fit in.

One might also suggest that a highly regarded high school hockey player from North Dakota could very well end up playing for the Golden Rodents as well.

 Again, I know it’s very hard to believe that anyone from the Minneapolis Metro would want to play in such a beautiful hockey rink with 12,000 screaming hockey fans. It’s almost blasphemous to suggest something like this.

When you talk to UND hockey players and ask them what it’s like to play in the Ralph, words like incredible and amazing come out of their mouths.  Add to the fact that hockey players are treated well in Grand Forks, ND doesn’t help either.

I have been reading some of the comments of the Gopher hockey fans and the Hockey pundits as they have tried to put their own spin on the recent turn of events.

“We didn’t want him.”

“His health is an issue”

“He’s too short.”

“He scored the majority of his goals against A competition and not AA.”

“I wasn't sold he was a must get at this point.”

Things just don’t play out according to script sometimes. I also don’t think that we should be all that shocked by the recent turn of events. The fact that the University of North Dakota will soon be leaving the WCHA to play in the NCHC isn’t going to have that much of an affect on recruiting.

In the end, UND is still going to be UND and that still means something.

Open post.

Old Man Schlossman. The decline was swift. twitter.com/UNDSID/status/…
— Jayson Hajdu (@UNDSID) December 9, 2012

You never know what someone is going to take a picture of?

EDIT: The Sky is falling; not hardly...

A couple of things, I have reading the message boards this morning and obviously it hurts to see your favorite team lose a game where they had the lead with five minutes to go and looked like they were going to get the series sweep against the Terriers and let the lead slip away. Let’s also give credit where credit is due. BU is a very good hockey team and there is no shame splitting with them either.

Let’s not forget these numbers, UND is a traditionally slow starter that peaks during the second half of the season. The First column is the win total for Coach Hakstol before the Christmas break. The second column is Hakstol’s win total after the Christmas break.

2004-05: 13-7-2 (.636) - 12-8-3 (.587)
2005-06: 12-7-1 (.625) - 17-9-0 (.654)
2006-07: 7-10-1 (.417) - 17-4-4 (.760)
2007-08: 8-6-1 (.567) - 20-5-3 (.768)
2008-09: 9-8-1 (.528) - 15-7-3 (.660)
2009-10: 9-6-3 (.583) - 16-7-2 (.680)
2010-11: 13-5-2 (.700) - 19-4-1 (.813)
2011-12: 9-8-1 (.528) - 17-5-2 (.750)
2012-13: 3-2-1 (.583) - ?
Totals 83-59-13 (.577) - 133-49-18 (.710)

Related articles

• Terriers bite North Dakota back 4-2 (thehockeywriters.com)
• UND Men's Hockey Media Day (thehockeywriters.com)

The morning after the UND vs. UA game



Get off of the ledge...



DU suspends two players

Low and behold this morning we find out that a little karma has finally swung the other direction. I was under the impression that only certain teams and programs have issues and players that get suspended – it appears that another WCHA program has suspended two players for a total of eight games. Funny, in checking my favorite DU fan blog there is nary a word of these suspensions. I am sure we’re going to see a bad boyz post on this matter soon though?

Michael Chambers; Denver Post --- University of Denver hockey players Larkin Jacobson and Juho Olkinuora have been suspended for four games for violating team rules, Pioneers coach George Gwozdecky said. The suspensions stem from separate incidents and will include Saturday's exhibition game against the University of British Columbia at the Pepsi Center.

Jacobson played in 22 of 43 games last season as a fourth-line forward. He did not produce a point. Olkinuora was outstanding in goal, leading the team in starts (19), minutes played (1,236), goals-against average (.924) and shutouts (two).

oth players will continue to practice with the team. Both are sophomores.

Depth is not a concern at goalie, with senior Adam Murray and junior Sam Brittain.

I am wondering if we will see some fan retract their statements or finally grab some perspective that from time-to-time college athletes get into trouble and pay for their transgressions via suspension. No one college sports program is immune from this.

Tuesday afternoon humor

A decent read?



Kurt Snibbe/ESPN.com

Proposed Fighting Sue helmet logo.



Someone posted this article on Sioux Sports – I believe it was a Bison fan. If you haven’t seen this it’s worth a quick look. The reason that UND hasn’t been in March Madness is that UND just finally finished their transition to Division I in all sports, I expect that eventually UND will make the NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball tourneys as well.

Low Graduation Rates? Fine with the NCAA. Two Feathers? OMG! Over at the University of North Dakota, the state's voters recently endorsed a referendum to drop the Fighting Sioux nickname. Right now the school's teams are the -- we'll get back to you on that, as UND teams have no nickname at the moment.

The NCAA ordered the University of North Dakota to drop the Fighting Sioux nickname and cease using a Sioux head image drawn by a Native American artist. The NCAA also ordered William & Mary to cease using a two-feathers sports logo. Yet the NCAA is fine with the University of Utah's American Indian nickname, the Utes, and its two-feathers logo.

What's the distinction here? Money. The North Dakota men's basketball team has not made the March Madness event in 20 years. William & Mary has never made the men's tournament. Neither the University of North Dakota nor William & Mary provides the NCAA with the only thing it cares about: greenback dollars. The University of Utah, on the other hand, has 26 March Madness appearances, including 12 of the past 20 tournaments. Because in the case of the Utes, the American Indian imagery generates cash for the NCAA, all is well.

Since the University of North Dakota needs a new nickname, TMQ proposes the Fighting Sue, perhaps with Johnny Cash theme music.

That being said, UND is usually in the NCAA Division I playoffs for hockey every season but once (missed NCAA playoffs in 2001-02) since 1997 and last season was the first time during the span that UND didn't wear the Fighting Sioux logo during the NCAA tourney. I am not so sure that the Johnny Cash Logo would catch on either. :) I did get a good chuckle out of that one though.

I do think it’s funny sometimes how the NCAA picks certain issues like Sports Team logos over more important issues like graduation rates.

An early look at the PWR.

For a good laugh on this Monday afternoon, the Michigan Tech University Huskies are leading the Pair Wise Rankings after four games. You might want to take a picture because I am sure you will see this change as the season continues and the games play out. 

Former Sioux Dave Christian on SCSU opening day roster. :)

All in good fun... SCSU should be really good this season when former Fighting Sioux and 1980 Olympian Dave Christian laces up the skates for the Huskies. I am sure that Mick Hatten meant to say Jordy Christian who is from  Moorhead, MN. [Link to the article]

Sunday night humor

 One of my twitter friends sent me this tweet and I thought I was would share it with you.

Festivus - Airing of grievances...

This was one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes. I thought I would give hockey fans a chance "Airing of Grievances" and "Feats of Strength," and the labeling of easily explainable events as "Festivus miracles"....

Today I decided I would air a few of my personal grievances; 1.) is the poor quality of the officiating in the WCHA. 2.) the college hockey pollsters for picking teams number one that have no business being number one. 3.) the "mask" in college hockey time to go to the half shield. 4.) time to use the KRACH instead of the PWR to pick the teams for the NCAA tourney.

Go ahead and tell us a few of your grievances.