Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Will UND fans cheer Holy Cross?
This past weekend, I was listening to the UND Hockey on the radio and between periods, the voice of UND Hockey, Tim Hennessy was interviewing hockey guru Jess Myers of ESPN 1500 and Jess made mention of the Holy Cross series that's coming up in January at the Ralph and joked whether UND fans would still cheer Holy Cross when they’re introduced.
So do you think that UND fans will cheer Holy Cross? Like J.B. suggested in the comments, the fans may cheer before the first game but Holy Cross will become enemy number one, once the first puck is dropped.
During the 2006 NCAA Regionals, Holy Cross was the “giant killer”... some have likened the Crusaders to Basketball’s version of the Cinderella -- a surprise team that was supposed to have no chance of winning but somehow Cinderella finds it in their fiber to knock off that unbeatable highly ranked sending fans into a pandemonium.
This is not 2006 anymore.
The Crusaders definitely made NCAA Division I College Hockey history for their ginormous victory over the Gophers, since that day Holy Cross, has been beloved by a lot of UND hockey fans; simply because they knocked off one of UND's most hated rivals the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Also, to this day, you still see Holy Cross shirts and jerseys in the Ralph on any given weekend. I must say that I never bought one of those shirts, but I did watch Holy Cross football when I lived in Massachusetts during the early 1990's.
This season, I don’t think UND will overlook Holy Cross and I expect UND to play hard against them. UND has an all-time record of 2-0-0 against the Crusaders, beating them during the 2004 and 2006 NCAA tourney.