LOU NANNE-- I don’t feel that the university should have to cater to other Universities in football and basketball and in every other sport they will try to steal your players up to the last minute. Look how many players we had taken from us (Minnesota) right up to the dead line. A couple years ago three football players went to Wisconsin on the say of signing that were supposed to come here because that an assistant coach left. Well we have this situation in Minnesota where these kids are making their commitments early in the 10th grade and after a while some of them have a change of heart and if I was Lucia I would go over and recruit them. There is nothing that stops him from doing it except you know that these coaches not just Don but all the coaches in college hockey they sort of say well ok he is committed there I am not going to step on their toes, this is your livelihood this your job.
Fast forward to tonight; Fighting Sioux coaches show on 1440 am. Naturally Tim Hennesey had heard the broad cast on KFAN and asked Dave Hakstol about Lou Nanne's inflammatory comments. As usual Hakstol basically brushed it off and said that the coaches don't want to take the gloves off and he likes the way their is a gentleman’s agreement going on right now in college hockey. Hakstol also said that the Sioux have had players change their mind and decide to go to UND after making a verbal agreement to another team but they did not actively recruit these kids and these players did it on their own.
Personally I am not shocked by Nanne's comments as he is a blatant Gopher homer but honestly someone needs to remind Lou Nanne that the Gophers hockey doesn't want to get into that game. It is silly to assume that the Gophers are just going to start stealing top recruits from other teams because I am pretty sure that UND could get a few of the Gophers players to change their mind as well as some of the other programs around the league.
Nanne is a deuche bag... everyone knows that. Look at the crap he tried to pull with Zach Parise. At least Lucia is man enough to honor the agreement that was made. Who knows, another season like this one and he may start breaking the rules.
ReplyDeleteAfter the whole Parise thing I really lost a lot of respect for him. Remember fans can be homers but when you yeild a lot of power like Nanne does it is more dangerous. Especially with his status as a hockey figure in Mpls.
ReplyDeleteI also heard this interview last night as i posted it right away on siouxsports.com. Nanne is very likable but this statement oozes with the goofer arrogance. His statement to me says, "we're the UofMN and we deserve these players (especially Minnesotans) even if they've commited to a less prestigious program." Nanne makes it seem like they should be able to pull any kid over to MN if they deem them worthy of playing at their school no matter what verbal commitment has been given to the other schools. Nanne can't believe any kid would choose another school over the UM because he's got the goggles on. Nanne is just too much of a homer to believe that other schools could steal UM recruits as well.
ReplyDeleteFirst off I wonder how many calls Lucia got today? Also, I wonder if tDon told him to keep his mouth shut. Nanne and Solmor (sp) ooze arogance and they don't realize the UofMN has passed them by.
ReplyDeleteNanne shouldn't assume that the other programs in college hockey wouldn't take the goofs players away from them.
ReplyDeleteLUCIA HAS ALREADY RECRUITED A PLAYER WHO VERBALLED TO ANOTHER SCHOOL.
ReplyDeleteWhich player is that?
ReplyDeleteyeah, who is that? danny mattson is my guess but that's just my Sioux ARROGANCE showing. :) interested to hear who that player is. I think Nanne has opened a can of worms now so i'm waiting for some of the radio bo-bo's to catch onto this and start talking about it. soon it will be blown out of proportion.
ReplyDeletebtw, Go Devils! Go Zach! Go Travis!
Section C06 tonight!!!
You know what I do remember a player committing to UMD and then changing his mind and signing with the Goofs, I don't remember his name and I am not sure if he is there in MPLS already. It just got unlodged in my memory on my walk this afternoon.
ReplyDeleteMike Dorr is the player and it has been much speculated that Lucia pushed him to decommit.
ReplyDeleteMy thought on it is Dorr initially didn't think he'd get a better offer and verballed then when he did get better, he decided to try and become a Gopher and he did. More power to the kid. But if coaches do start aggressively going after kids who have verballed, that sets a dangerous precedent and it's not one I want to see in this game.
Now I remember that name. Isn't supposed to play for Minnesota next season?
ReplyDelete