WCHA Preview 2010-11, Part II: WCHA Preview, 2010-11.
North Dakota Fighting SiouxIn Case you haven't seen it. Delusion of Grandeur is whining about UND Fighting Sioux Hockey Coach Dave Hakstol not attending the coaches luncheon. I am sure the UND athletic director isn't going to care if Hakstol goes to the luncheon, Hak's reason he didn't attend seems legit to me. While I don’t need to give Delusions of Grandeur any extra hits to his blog, I do find his pontifications and his ranting and raving to be amusing. I can guarantee I am not Anon @838…
Head Coach: Dave Hakstol
2009-10 Record: 25-13-5 overall, 15-10-3 WCHA, (4th)
Who's Back: Jr. F Jason Gregoire (20-17—37), So. F Danny Kristo (15-21—36), Sr. F Evan Trupp (8-26—34), Jr. F Brett Hextall (14-12—26), Sr. F Brad Malone (11-14—25), Sr. D Chay Genoway (4-6—10), Jr. G Brad Eidsness (24-10-4, 2.11, .914).
2010-11 Outlook: North Dakota loses just one of its top eight scorers and regains the services of perhaps the best college hockey player in the land in Chay Genoway. The loss of Chris VendeVelde isn't a small one — he led the Fighting Sioux in scoring last season (16-25—41) — but his loss should be covered by returning forwards Jason Gregoire, Danny Kristo, Evan Trupp and others, along with a full season of senior Matt Frattin, who returned for the second half last season and scored 19 points in 24 games. If that's not enough, sophomore Corban Knight looks primed for a breakout sophomore campaign and freshman Brock Nelson could make an immediate impact. On the blueline, Genoway is back after a horrific concussion cost him most of last season. He is joined by fellow senior co-captains Jake Marto and Derrick LaPoint, junior Ben Blood and freshman phenom Derek Forbot to form perhaps the best defensive corps in the country. And oh yeah, UND also has one of the best goaltenders in the country in Brad Eidsness, a junior who was among the conference leaders in just about every category last season.
"Instead of looking at the predictions and the polls, our goal is to get our team back to the level they were playing at at the end of last season," said Fighting Sioux head coach Dave Hakstol. "We found that we could be a tough team to play against if we had everyone playing within their role and at a very high intensity level."
Prediction: North Dakota is the preseason favorite of the league's coaches and media for a reason — it's loaded at every position. There really appears nothing that can slow them down, especially if UND can avoid its traditional slow starts. Look for the Fighting Sioux to challenge for the MacNaughton Cup, the Broadmoor Trophy and the National Championship this season.
No, I say let's never invite them again because Dave Hakstol is discourteous. First, he doesn't show up for the coaches luncheon and passes along the excuse that it was the only time his team could schedule ice. Um ... the team wasn't invited to the luncheon ... Dave, you were. Apparently, Hakstol's two assistants are completely incapable of running a game day skate? He HAD to be there ya know? Weak sauce, Dave.
Here's the deal, the WCHA Coaches Luncheon's are a pretty frequent event across the WCHA realm. But there is one coach who really hates them. He's been openly negative about going to them. Donnie Lucia. He's elaborated his reasons and I won't get into them too deeply here. Suffice to say that tDon has lots of requests for his time from fans and media ... and the coaches luncheon is one place he thinks he shouldn't have to be if he doesn't want to go. Especially, on the road.
So Dave Hakstol thinks he's Donnie Lucia? Well, not exactly ... but in this case he's all about riding Donnie's anti-luncheon coattails. Gee, Dave. Do something original ... be your own man. Why you gotta try to act like tDon?
Here's the thing. It's a fucking tournament, not some regularly scheduled league game. Your team is going to get to schedule two home games and make hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from it's participation here by cashing in the exemptions it gets from playing here. Doubtless that along with the invitation, UAA paid some of your team's airfare here. So you get all that benefit from the trip and you're discourteous enough to not show up to the luncheon?
Did I mention how they apparently had to get to the airport to leave and didn't stick around to collect their championship booty? Weird, cause I saw them in the building late in the 3rd period last night.
Let's never waste another tournament invitation on UND eh? This is what happens when you invite trailer-trash ... they act like trailer-trash. It's ZERO skin off UAA's nose if they are never invited again.
And oh yeah Coach Hakstol, you wouldn't have been the only coach in Frank Serratore's speaking shadow. Why are you so skerred of Serratore? Does your wife like his brother Tom or something?
Brian Faison is the UND Athletic Director. His email address is brianfaison@mail.und.edu. Let him know how you feel about the lack of sportsmanship and discourtesy of his premier program's head coach. I'll give away a pair of passes (good to any regular season game) to any fan that actually get's Faison to reply and let's us know what he said.
