Is Joe Finley the next whipping boy?

Fighting Sioux senior to be Joe Finley has consistently been the Sioux's +/- (plus minus) leader his three seasons at UND, however, much like his former team mate Brian Lee, Finley has gotten the ire of a good number of Sioux fans. Why? I don't know why? Heck Brian Lee was so bad that he ended up playing for the Ottawa Senators in the Stanley Cup playoffs. I guess that is why we are fans and not general managers.

This is merely speculation but I suppose maybe big Joe just isn't tough enough for some Sioux fans. It is possible that Joe just doesn't score enough goals or isn't a fast enough skater. I guess Joe isn't going to be able to satisfy a fair number of Fighting Sioux hockey fans, no matter what he does on the ice. So Goon's World is going to hand out some leafy spurge to the Sioux fans that don't appreciate Joe Finley, the Sioux will be better with Joe Finley in the line up.

I personally am happy as hell that Big Joe is coming back to the Fighting Sioux for one more season, it is not every day that a player plays four years for their college team when they are a high end draft choice, but hey I will take it. Contrary to what some of the hockey geniuses say UND is a better team with big Joe. SJHovey sums it up best on USCHO.COM so mascots beware big Joe is coming back for his senior season.

Any UND fan who is not overjoyed with having Joe return is a fool, imho. You don't lead the team in +/- without playing extremely good defense. Even if he's not constantly punching someone's lights out, i.e. Commordore or Greene, just having someone of that size out there can be intimidating and important. I believe that Joe's play is directly responsible for the outstanding play we saw out of Genoway last year.

I also firmly believe that Chay's late season injury affected him more than we thought in the playoffs. After his return neither his puckhandling nor shot was as effective as before the injury and lead to some problems for that defensive pairing.

The two of them will be the best defensive tandem in the WCHA this coming season, bar none.

Rewind to last spring; in retrospect the season ending debacle in Denver was painful to watch as Fighting Sioux fans, however, teams don't lose 6-1 because of one player. Teams lose 6-1 because they lost as a team; colectively as a group the Fighting Sioux did not play well and lost. So because the team did not play very that day and you can not single out one player to blame on the lost, the Fighting Sioux all played bad. Lets just hope that bad taste still lingers in their mouths.

Go Fighting Sioux...