Sioux 4 Mavericks 8 Ouch!

JOHN STENNES/GRAND FORKS HERALD

What’s a blog post without a Friedrich Nietzsche Quote - That which does not kill us makes us stronger… Well, maybe not! I am sure right now Rival fans across the country are enjoying the fact that the Fighting Sioux lost tonight to the UNO Mavericks 8-4, however, it’s not the end of the world and there is no reason to get our pitch forks and rakes and march on Ralph Englestad Arena just yet. For the Sioux fans that are ready to call for Coach Hakstol's head the University of North Dakota is not going to fire coach Hakstol and the Sioux are still sitting pretty good with an 17-7-2 record. While this was the worst loss since the Sioux lost 10-1 to the Gophers on March 6th 1992 there will be better days and I think this team is something special.

I have been watching the replay of the game to see if it was as bad as it looked from the stands and unfortunately it was. Tonight was not a good game for the Fighting Sioux; in my opinion the Fighting Sioux got beat at their own game, they were out muscled and out hustled to the puck all night long. One might say that the Fighting Sioux were run out of their own building by a more motivated hockey team.

This was also a case of the Fighting Sioux not playing well for the last four games and it finally caught up with them causing them lay a steamy stinker on the ice tonight and there is no sugar coating it, they played like dog crap. I can think of a 1000 sports clichés to describe tonight’s game but the plain and simple explanation was that the Fighting Sioux came out flat and the Mavericks hammered them, it is what it is. The UNO Mavericks are a good hockey team and they are coached by a future hall of fame coach they had the right game plan tonight.

After the game during the post game radio interview with Tim Hennesy Fighting Sioux head coach Dave Hakstol took the blame for the loss but I think we can lay the blame at the players feet, coach Hakstol wasn’t out on the ice taking undisciplined penalties that cost the Sioux five power play goals on seven power play chances. Coach Hakstol said the same thing in this morning's paper.

We weren’t good and that starts with me,” UND coach Dave Hakstol said. “Bottom line. That’s where it starts. That’s where it ends.

“The difference in the game was that we weren’t ready to play tonight. I didn’t have the guys ready to play. Saw a few signs of it early in the week. We weren’t ready to play. We didn’t prepare well enough and you saw the results.”

It’s one loss and I am not ready to write off the season or call for the university to fire the head coach yet. It’s time for some perspective, the Fighting Sioux have a 17-7-2 record and have played the toughest schedule to date in NCAA hockey, and they didn’t rack up 17 wins playing the weak sisters of the poor or by beating non-conference cupcakes. I have also been reading the comments on the UND Athletics chat from earlier tonight and I must laugh, The Mavericks were the better of the two teams and they jumped on the loose pucks and capitalized on the turnovers and buried the Sioux on the power play going 5/7 tonight.

[Box Score]

USCHO

UND Hockey Blog

Fighting Sioux

Omaha.com

Freezing your butt off in North Dakota - Sioux and Red Cows...

There has got to be a reason that we live up here in this God forsaken land, the weather is quite inhospitable and its not very much fun to be outside in it right now. Any thing that is exposed could probably turn into an ice sickle and getting frost bite is not very much fun, the fact that you can lose your fingers or toes because of it makes it less attractive.

With college hockey now in the second half of the season there are many good stories out there right now.

The Daily Gophers is wondering what is wrong with Minnesota Pansies on Ice...

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The Fighting Sioux six game homestand ends with first-time visitor UNO coming to town with former UND head hockey coach Dean Blais at the wheel.

This weekend's games between the Sioux and the UNO Red Cows Mavericks will be broadcast live on the FSSN, the Midco Sports Network Channel 27 in Grand Forks, ND, Fox College Sports (FCS Central on Friday 617, FCS Atlantic on Saturday 623), WDAZ Channel 8 in Grand Forks, ND (Saturday only) and WDAY Channel 6 in Fargo (Saturday only). Friday's game will be re-broadcast on the NHL Network at 11 a.m. Central on Saturday, Channel 307 in Grand Forks, ND.

The WCHA blog predicts that UND will split with the UNO Red Cows Mavericks this weekend. I disagree with him I think UND wins tonight 4-2 and Ties tomorrow night 3-3.

The MGOBLOG has an interesting post about the Big Ten Hockey Farce and what a schedule might actually look like. I highly doubt you would see a 24 game conference schedule that would mean a lot of games between very few teams. I hate to think what that would do for the RPI/PWR. I could imagine a twenty game conference schedule. I find the comments by the people that commented on the article to be interesting as well.

Over on the Sioux Sports blog Dave Berger has this weekend UND and UNO series review. Dave predicts a three point weekend for the Fighting Sioux...

The CCHA has suspended LSSU head hockey coach Jim Roque for one game.

Ryan Cardinal from Gopher Puck Live was on KFAN on Thursday and you can listen to what he has to say about “Minnesota’s Pansies on Ice”… Cardinal is expecting a sweep against the big slow lumbering team from UAA.

As I mentioned on Twitter this morning, I will be on 1310 KNOX A.M. in Grand Forks, ND during the 4:00 PM hour with R.J. Richards and yeah I do have a face for radio… You can click on this link if you want to listen.

As usual U.S. College Hockey Online makes their weekly predictions and according to Theresa and Tyler they expect the Sioux to sweep this weekend.

Brian Sullivan from the EZAC blog has another entertaining article about how the ECAC is no longer the EZAC. You can put a tuxedo on a goat, but it’s still a goat.