UND versus Holy Cross - Yeah that one...

UND’s Forward lines

15 Michael Parks –10 Corban Knight (A) – 7 Danny Kristo (A)

9 Drake Caggiula– 27 Carter Rowney (A) –13 Connor Gaarder

25 Mitch MacMilliam – 16 Mark MacMillan – 21 Brendan O’Donnell

8 Dan Senkbeil – 28 Steph Pattyn –17 Colten St. Clair

UND Defense Parings 

2 Andrew MacWilliam (C) – 5 Nick Mattson

18 Dillon Simpson–20 Joe Gleason

4 Derek Forbort – 24 Jordan Schmaltz

UND Goalies 

33 Clarke Saunders

31 Zane Gothberg

Not in lineup:  29 Bryn Chyzyk , 11 Derek Rodwell (Injury), 19 Rocco Grimaldi (WJC) 8, Coltyn Sanderson – 26, Andrew Panzarella – 22.

Referees: Tom Sterns, Matt Ulwelling. Linesmen: Andy Carton, Nathan Freeman.

Holy Cross Crusaders Lines

Crusaders Forward Lines

15 Castan Sommer – 27 Shayne Stockton – 14 Adam Schmidt

29 Brandon Nunn – 10 Kyle Fletcher – 26 Rob Linsmayer (A)

17 Mike McNamara – 11 Jake Youso – 33 Erik Vos (C)

20 Tommy Dwyer – 21 Brent Lubanski – 19 Matt Vidal 

Crusaders Defensive Parings

18 Evan Zych – 3 Nagy Nilan

7 Nathaniel Domagala – 6  Karl Beckman

23 Ryan MacGrath – 2 Jake Bolton 

Crusader Goalies

35 Matt Ginn

1 Derek Kump

30 Thomas Tysowsky

 

Interesting tweets - NCAA vs. Major Juniors

@coachscornercbc Don, integral players for U.S. today play in NCAA. Check your facts.
— Terry Koshan (@koshtorontosun) January 3, 2013

It's World Junior Championship time again and the college vs. Major Junior debate is again hitting the twitter world. Today all five USA goals were scored by NCAA Division I Hockey players.

@coachscornercbc It's the NCAA U.S. players - college - that are dominating. And Gibson.
— College Hockey News (@chnews) January 3, 2013

@gavinmcleod33 might as well get this over with: 5 goals by NCAAers in a pantsing. Good times.
— fetch (@fetch9) January 3, 2013

Dear Canada, if American players are so good because they play in Canada, tell your junior teams to stop bribing them to leave college
— Jeremy (@knowsknothing) January 3, 2013

UND Hockey traveling to Florida next year?

The FCC field looked good on paper, but only Cornell is over .500. Next year, COR and MNE will be joined by N Dakota and UNH.
— ELynah (@ELynah) December 30, 2012

What a field for a college hockey tourney if this ends up being true, the news breaking around here is UND Hockey might end up being in the Florida College Hockey Classic next season. Edit: Now, I am hearing both that UND is in this tourney and also that UND pulled out of this tourney. As soon as I get more  information I will post more. This would be a fun tourney to go to.

Check out these teams for next years 2013 Florida College Hockey Classic; Cornell, Maine, UND and New Hampshire.

Edit: WJC and NCAA Hockey television schedule

You have options, when it comes to watchable hockey. As I have mentioned in a couple of posts in the past, there has been a huge void left by the NHL Lockout and hockey fans have been looking for other options to fill that void left by the NHL Lockout. As the lockout motors towards day 100, College hockey has taken center stage for hockey fans in the USA.

This fall, I have been keeping a national television schedule of NCAA Hockey games. With the U20 World Junior Championship going on in Ufa, Russia starting on the 26^th of December, 2012 there will be more hockey viewing options for the holiday season. Here is the updated hockey schedule.

All times are central standard time. *DTV = DirecTV. *Dish = Dish TV.

s/t to one of the readers for bringing up a correction, it was an over sight on my part. The Great Lakes Invitational is the 29-30th of December, 2012.

Originally, the 2012 Great Lakes Invitational was scheduled to take place at Comerica Park in Detroit, MI on December 27-28. The NHL Lockout and the subsequent cancellation of the 2013 NHL Winter Classic meant the GLI would not be played at Comerica Park, therefore the GLI was moved back into Joe Louis Arena where the tourney played on a yearly basis. So the even was also rescheduled.

Thur.	Dec. 27		WJC USA vs. German	NHL Net	8:00 a.m.	215/157
Fri.	Dec. 28		WJC Slovakia vs. Canada	NHL Net	3:30 a.m.	215/157
Fri.	Dec. 28		WJC USA vs. Russia	NHL Net	8:00 a.m.	215/157
Sat.	Dec. 29		WJC Russia vs. Germany	NHL Net	8:00 a.m.	215/157
Sat.	Dec. 29		Air Force at Minnesota	FS North+	7:05 p.m.	657/444
Sat.	Dec. 29		Boston University at Denver	ROOT Sports	8:00 p.m.	683 / 414
Sun.	Dec.30		WJC USA vs. Canada	NHL Net	3:30 a.m.	215/157
Sun.	Dec. 30		WJC Germany vs. Slovakia	NHL Net	8:00 a.m.	215/157
Sat.	Dec. 30		Michigan State vs. WMichigan	FS Detroit	2:30 p.m.	663 / 430
Sat.	Dec. 30		Michigan vs. Michigan Tech	FS Detroit	6:30 p.m.	663 / 430
Sun.	Dec. 30		Boston College at Minnesota	FS North+	7:05 p.m.	657/444
Sun.	Dec. 30		GLI Third-Place Game	FS Detroit	2:30 p.m.	663 / 430
Sun.	Dec. 30		GLI Championship Game	FS Detroit	6:30 p.m.	663 / 430
Mon.	Dec. 31		WJC USA vs. Slovakia	NHL Net	4:00 a.m.	215/157
Mon.	Dec. 31		WJC Canada vs. Russia	NHL Net	8:00 a.m.	215/157

Originally Posted at the Hockey Writers Combine

Related articles

• WJC and NCAA Hockey television schedule (thehockeywriters.com)

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.

Related articles

• More NCHC Hate (ndgoon.blogspot.com)
• WCHA Power Rankings: 12/16/12 (insidehockey.com)
• Former Gophers Andy Brink's thought's on college hockey and the WCHA (thehockeywriters.com)

Putting the final touches on this past weekend.

I never said UND wasn't good. I said they were wrong. That still stands.
— Brandon Veale (@redveale) December 16, 2012

During the summer of 2011 the college hockey world blew up with announcement of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, this was a response to the formation of the Big Ten Hockey Conference.  These new leagues will begin play in the 2013-14 season.

There are a lot of fans that are unhappy with what has transpired.

This is the last season, before the CCHA disbands and teams leave for the Big Ten Hockey Conference and the NCHC. I expect, as the season winds down that there will be more articles like “Last Minute of hate in this period/The Red Line” which was written by Brandon Veale Sports Editor of the Mining Gazette.

In retrospect, I wonder if Veale regrets writing that article or not. I think all he did was fire up the UND hockey team even more. In the post-game of last night’s game head coach Dave Hakstol said that the team was aware of the article and some of the chatter on twitter as well.

I understand why the fans of the Anchorage, Michigan Tech, Bemidji State, Northern Michigan, Lake State, Bowling Green State University, Mankato State and Fairbanks are mad. I think they have every right to be mad.

I attended BSU for two years before I transferred to UND; I even have a BSU Beaver tattooed to my right calf. So I feel a lot of empathy towards that school.

I wasn’t a big fan of splitting up existing leagues, I would have rather seen PSU join the CCHA and everything would have been alright.

Or would it?  Some of these money issues probably existed before the realignment issue came to bear.

I also think that some of this anger is misdirected. Someone was chirping me on twitter for the realignment, the first thing I said was don’t blame the fans of the various teams that are moving on, blame the school’s athletic directors.

Some teams in the WCHA saw an opportunity to start an old league and break away from the WCHA and it’s leadership.

What I do think is funny; is that DU and UND are the ones that are getting the majority of the blame in this matter; they’re seen by many fans as the two schools that blew up college hockey. PSU and the B1G schools get no blame what-so- ever. I don’t see Veale writing articles slamming Michigan or Michigan State, maybe he will later.

More power to PSU for starting a Division I college hockey team. Maybe just maybe, this will get the ball rolling so other schools will throw their hats in the ring and start college hockey teams. I am all for letting the CIS schools join the NCAA Division I ranks.

If you really think about it, the B1G and the NCHC schools are no different, they’re doing the same thing, but only one conference is getting the majority of the flak. While the other is getting a free pass. We can argue to were blue in the face but this is all about trying to make a buck, it's the American way.

College hockey is not immune to the issues that have driven realignment in division I basketball and football. I just hope the nWCHA doesn't end up being college hockey's Big East.

I think it’s going to be an interesting to see what transpires moving forward. I am not convinced that all of the realignment is totally finished. A lot can happen in 5-10 years.

@redveale How that your team was beaten 6-1 and 4-1 do you regret writing that drive by hit piece?
— Eric J. Burton (@goon48) December 16, 2012

More NCHC Hate

Michigan Tech logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What an awesome idea, insult a whole fan base travels well before they show up and spend money in your hometown.

I actually expected to read more poorly written  editorials like this during the final year of the WCHA as we know it today, but we haven’t so far. Why write this now?

First off, if you’re going to attack someone you should have saved your ire for the Wisconsin Badgers athletics department. Wasn’t Barry Alvarez one of the big cheer leaders of the B1G? Without the Big Ten Hockey Conference none of this would probably ever happened.

Brandon Veale; DMG Sports Editor --- You can probably bet on this being the last time UND slums around here, thanks to they and the rest of the band of mutineers that formed the National Collegiate Hockey Conference. You may remember the NCHC as the league formed to avoid undesirable (and more importantly, untelevised) trips to places like Houghton, Mankato and Anchorage and replace them with occasionally televised places like Oxford, Ohio and Kalamazoo.

They're very excited about this, as the NCHC is already sending out regular releases on each future member's progress, even though league play doesn't begin until next season. It's a job Winston from the book would be proud of.

I'm sure everyone the television industry is beating the door down to go to Grand Forks in January to show the Fighting _____ play Western Michigan, though I wouldn't mind seeing how they're going with uninstalling all the _____ logos paid for, and demanded by, Ralph Engelstad's hard-earned casino money.

First, I don’t have anything against Michigan Tech and appreciate their school and their hockey program so this isn't directed at their team. I have met many great Michigan Tech fans and have enjoyed interacting with their fans during the Final Fives.

Last year, during the Final Five I had a 0:300 am breakfast at Mickey’s Diner in Saint Paul with a Gopher fan, two Tech fans and two other UND hockey fans that I know and the general theme was we’re were going miss days like this when our favorite teams all go different directions in 2013-14.

That being said, this sports column was hardly needed.

Like I have said a few times, the fans are hardly to blame when it comes to College Hockey re-alignment; we had no choice in this matter. These types of conference decisions are made by people in athletic departments that are supposed to be a lot smarter than the rest of us. I don't remember them asking any of us for our feed back when they made these decisions either.

I have always told people if you’re unhappy with the formation of the NCHC send the people that made this happen an email or letter. That’s where your anger should be focused.

Lastly, I also don’t think that it’s necessary to take shots at a dead benefactor. What’s the point? I don’t know any college hockey program that would have turned down a 100,000,000.00 donation/gift to build a hockey arena. Ralph Englestad Arena has been a God send to UND, and helps recruit some the best hockey players in college hockeys. I am just shocked there wasn't a Nazi reference in there. I mean seriously, Ralph Englestad has been dead since November 26, 2002 but yet the hateful comments never cease, ten years later.

Related articles

• Former Gophers Andy Brink's thought's on college hockey and the WCHA (thehockeywriters.com)
• WCHA Issues One-Game Suspension to Wisconsin's Little (ndgoon.blogspot.com)

C.C. and UND game highlights.

This would be the hometown news for Colorado Springs. It's nice to see a few highlights from Saturday's game. This is a shame, there is no reason that the high profile college hockey games can't be on television. A B2 broadcast is not acceptable.