A Day in the Life
I heard the news today, oh boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad
Well, I just had to laugh
I saw the photograph
So, two years of JT Brown is all we get, as he signed a pro contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Considering Stevie Y was in the hizzay this year and Tom Kurvers is a former Bulldog, this is not a shock. (I was betting on him going to Philly, though.)
So two years is all we get out of JT. We all knew this was coming, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. Thank you for two years of incredibly exciting hockey, JT. Go kill it in the show.
JT’s linemate, Travis Oleksuk, also signed a pro contract yesterday with the San Jose Sharks. Let’s hope that his teammates do not decide to injure him out of jealousy like they did to MCON. Caleb Herbert, the third man on the line, is a draft pick of the Washington Capitals. That’s pretty fancy for our humble little team, don’t ya think?
Best of luck to both gentlemen, and ahem, NHL, try not to have a lockout, mkay?
Hard Times Come Again No More
Very few college hockey players win their final game in uniform. The nature of the college hockey playoff format makes it difficult to do. It’s part of what makes the sport so heartbreaking.
Last year, Mike Montgomery, Mike Connolly, Justin Faulk, Justin Fontaine, Chad Huttel, Trent Palm and Kyle Schmidt did it. There was nothing I wanted more than for Brady Lamb, Jack Connolly, Scott Kishel, Cody Danberg (?), Travis Oleksuk, David Grun and Kenny Reiter to do the same.
Winning seasons, Final Five appearances, and NCAA appearances used to be a once in awhile occurrence for the Bulldogs. The future looks bright for this team, and that makes this loss easier to bear than ones in the past.
This helps, too:
Yellow Journalism
Well, folks. Today’s the day. tUMD goes up against Maine, with or without their only scorer.
I assume that tomorrow morning, we will be at war with Spain.
The Game That Wasn’t
If the Bulldogs fall in double overtime, and I’m not there to see it, does it really happen?
Yes, yes. I am a terrible person and only made it to one Final Five game. (Thursday afternoon.) I don’t like it any more than you do. There is only one more Final Five left, and tUMD had better make it, and you had better believe that I will be taking those days off. And probably sobbing uncontrollably once the championship game is over.
When the conferences realign, it will, for the most part, be business as usual. tUMD will still have nearly the same opponents it does now. I will still attend as many games as I can, try to road trip (technically all games except the UMTC games are road trips for me) when I can, and occasionally see conference games on television.
Nothing will ever, ever replace the Final Five, however. It is a huge loss for me as a fan. And anyone who has attended a Final Five or two will say the same thing. I have been attending the Final Five since Northern Michigan was still playing in it. It is like attending a family reunion. Of course, my “real” family does attend, but so do dozens of people I truly enjoy, some who I see all the time and some who I only see a few times a year, always at the Final Five. It seems overly maudlin to be so focused on the end of the Final Five when we still have one more to go, but who knows? It could be tUMD’s last. It could be any of the teams’ last. And the ones who didn’t make it this year may not make it next year. This year’s hilariously epic Gopher-UND confrontation could be the last. UNO could go for their whole short stint in the WCHA without making the tournament (which would be sad for their fanbase. However, if they match up against tUMD in the first round, they’ll just have to stay home.) Next year, if the players in the WCHA have any sense of historical perspective, every first round game is going to be a knock-down, drag-out Battle Royale.
There were so many seasons of RWD where tDogs were on the golf course at this point in the season. (And this year would be an excellent year for golfing!) It is ridiculously cool that three out of the last four seasons (2011-12 inclusive), tUMD has still been playing. They are the only men’s D-1 ice hockey team in Minnesota who can say that. tUMD will travel to Woohstahhhh, Mass. to play Maine (where Jack Connolly will make Spencer Abbott look like a peewee, if Abbott can come back from injury), and then the winner of BC and AF. Two wins to get to Tampa. And then two wins in Tampa. #TampaTwo, if you’re nasty. And on Twitter.
There is absolutely no reason why tUMD can’t beat Maine and BC or Air Force. There is no reason why tUMD can’t beat ANY team in this tournament. They just need to 1. score goals and 2. play defence. The only question is, how do they top Kyle Schmidt’s snow angels?
Award Season
Ok, we don’t need to talk about last weekend. St. Cloud is just a black hole of suck and unfortunately, tUMD gets pulled in time and time again. This weekend they’re back home for the playoffs with some mohawks. I’ll try to get a rundown of all the mohawk pics I can find.
But the WCHA awards happened! And good things happened for Bulldog players! Let’s go to the tape:
The official awards
Player of the Year: Jack Connolly
Defensive Player of the Year: Justin Schultz, UW
Rookie of the Year: Joey LaLeggia, DU
Outstanding Student-Athlete of the Year: Brad Eidsness, UND
Coach of the Year: Mel Pearson, MTU
Scoring Champion: Jack Connolly
WCHA Goaltending Champion: Kent Patterson, UMTC
First Team
F: Jack Connolly
F: JT Brown
F: Nick Bjugstad, UMTC
D: Justin Schultz, UW
D: Joey LaLeggia, DU
G: Kent Patterson, UMTC
Second Team
F: Jaden Schwartz, CC
F: Drew Shore, DU
F: Jason Zucker, DU
D: Gabe Guentzel, CC
D: Nate Schmidt, UMTC
G: Kenny Reiter
Third Team
F: Travis Oleksuk
F: Brock Nelson, UND
F: Mark Zengerle, UW
D: Nick Jensen, SCSU
D: Ben Blood, UND
G: Josh Thorimbert, CC
Freshman Team:
F: Kyle Rau, UMTC
F: Jean-Paul Lafontaine, MSUM
F: Jayson Megna, UNO
D: Joey LaLeggia, DU
D: Andrew Prochno, SCSU
G: Juho Olkinuora, DU
Academic Team:
Jack Connolly* (Communication)
Aaron Crandall* (Marketing)
Keegan Flaherty* (Finance)
David Grun* (Finance)
Jake Hendrickson (Mechanical Engineering)
Luke McManus (Business)
Kenny Reiter* (Finance)
*indicates repeat offender
The unofficial awards
Thanks to Chad from A Tradition of Excellence for his work on organizing and tallying the ballots. Please click over there to see the participants. He notes there are 3 defencemen on the first team because Blood and LaLeggia tied. If my vote differed, I have put it in parentheses.
Player of the Year: Jack Connolly
Defensive Player of the Year: Justin Schultz, UW
Rookie of the Year: Joey LaLeggia, UW
Coach of the Year: Mel Pearson, MTU (Scott Sandelin)
First Team
F: Jack Connolly
F: JT Brown
F: Brock Nelson, UND (Mark Zengerle)
D: Justin Schultz, UW
D: Joey LaLeggia, DU (I had him 2nd team)
D: Ben Blood, UND
G: Kent Patterson, UMTC
Second Team
F: Jason Zucker, DU
F: Drew Shore, DU (Travis Oleksuk)
F: Nick Bjugstad, UMTC (Jaden Schwartz)
D: Nate Schmidt, UMTC (Nick Jensen)
G: Josh Thorimbert, CC (Kenny Reiter)
Third Team
F: Jaden Schwartz, CC (Nick Bjugstad)
F: Mark Zengerle, UW (Drew Shore)
F: Travis Oleksuk (Brock Nelson)
D: Nick Jensen, SCSU (Nate Schmidt)
D: Brady Lamb
G: Kenny Reiter (Josh Thorimbert)
All-WCHA Rookie Team
F: Kyle Rau, UMTC
F: Caleb Herbert
F: Jean-Paul LaFontaine, MSUM (Blake Pietila, MTU)
D: Joey LaLeggia, DU
D: Andrew Prochno, SCSU
G: Juho Olkinuora, DU (Ryan Faragher, SCSU)
Lots of honors for our dear Bulldogs! I’m especially proud of the academic honorees!
Seven of Nine
tUMD 4, Puddytats 3 (OT)
tUMD 5, Puddytats 2
Hello everyone! Are we all hunkered down for yet another SNOWMAGEDDON!!!!!!!21212414231“1`??? Actually, it is snowing outside right now (well, it was when I started this, it isn’t anymore) and I am probably going to be very annoyed on my drive home (maybe not), but for now all is well. I forgot to bring something to read for my break between classes (yes, I am back in school, no, this isn’t in pursuit of the same degree I was before, I already graduated, that’s enough about my non-hockey life) and so, ugh, I’m stuck blogging.
Okay, it’s really not that bad. And I really should have posted sooner about this weekend, as I should have posted about last weekend and the weekend before, since I got all “wake me when it’s over” and took a break from blogging when I wasn’t even really blogging in the first place lately. But hey, I’ve been doing this for eight years and if I couldn’t step away and pick it back up when I chose to, then I’d probably have shut it down for good. AND THAT WOULD BE A TRAGEDY.
So we learned on Friday that jumping out to 3 goal leads is not a good idea. That seems whackadoodle, of course, but we already knew that jumping out to 4 goal leads was also not a good idea. Ask anyone if they’d rather have a nice cushion or a tight game and they’d be “CUSHION!!!” all the way, but I guess not tUMD. Friday wasn’t a bad game, though. JT Brown returned, and if anyone wondered if he would be at 100%, let’s hope that with his 9 SOG and OTGWG, that he wasn’t at 100% and the best is yet to come. Oh, and Scott Hartnell of the Flyers just happened to tweet about JT. (Which is more good publicity for college hockey than Paul Kelly managed to do in his entire tenure with College Hockey, Inc, I might add.) The power play woke up. BOTH units, I should add, woke up. Max Tardy had two points, which I can only hope leads to better days ahead for him and continued success for the team.
Saturday we learned that four years is not enough time with this senior class. (Excepting Danberg and Reiter, who we got for five years.) (Oh, and two years is not enough time with JT Brown, but what can we do about it?) Almost every senior had a point on Saturday night (and the others were VERY close to scoring), and Mike Seidel must have read the criticism on the boards about him because he went out and scored the first two goals of the game and made a few bids for a third. The Dogs played one of their best games in a long time, and I was glad to be there to witness it.
Before we talk about our seniors, remember that there could have been two more members of this senior class. Brady Hjelle left the team to return to junior hockey and is now backing up Cal Heeter at Ohio State. Mike Connolly signed a professional contract after the Frozen Four and was recently traded from the San Jose Sharks system to the Colorado Avalanche system. Two players who left for two totally different reasons and have had two totally different careers since leaving the Dogs, but nonetheless two players who started at tUMD with the rest of the senior class (excepting Danberg and Reiter, again, but do I have to keep saying that?)
And now we talk about the seniors.
Jack Connolly
His freshmen year, Jack came in as the predicted WCHA Rookie of the Year, with Carol Brady hair, and instantly became my favorite. So, first of all, thanks Jack for not taking out a restraining order against me, despite this, and this, or this, or this. Hmm… put all together, yeah I’m a little crazy. Or just INSPIRED to CREATIVITY by one of the best players in Bulldog history. Multitudes of WCHA weekly and yearly honors, 3-time All-American*, 2012 Hobey Baker Award Winner*, and 9 points away from reaching 200 points in his college career. This year, Jack came in with the weight of the hockey world on his shoulders, as everyone (other than me) wondered how he would fare without his prolific linemates, Mike Connolly and Justin Fontaine Connolly. As no surprise, he rose to the occasion. I hope tUMD chooses to retire #12. Jack is a one-in-a-googolplex player, and I can’t believe his time at tUMD is coming to a close.
*citation needed
Cody Danberg
tUMD fans have, as a result of his injuries, gotten a chance to get to know Cody a little bit better than most players as Bruce has had him on the air a few times. So it’s really hard not to like a guy who is willing to put up with Bruce’s corny jokes for hours at a time with few breaks in sight. Oh, and a guy who gives us a player’s perspective on the officiating and the flow of the game and all that, too. I am sad to see him in a suit, night after night, even though he looks quite nice in it, because I know he could be out on the ice 1. murdering people and 2. scoring the craziest, dirtiest goals you’ll ever see. Cody has 8 career goals at tUMD and I don’t think a single one of them is pretty, but he also had two goals in one game as a freshman, where he scored the OTGWG against Mankato to complete an unlikely comeback against Mankato. Technically Cody could come back again and play next year, but I haven’t heard any rumours that he plans to. He would be more than welcome… or he could begin his career in sports broadcasting!
David Grun
I like Grun because he wears #27. I don’t think I need any more reason than that, but there are a lot more reasons to like him. First of all, he’s like a wrecking ball. He can knock anyone into the upper bowl if he chooses to. He seems totally fearless and he is always the guy there to stick up for his teammates. He’s very Drew Akins-esque. He is also more than capable of scoring and he is a huge part of what has made tUMD such a good team. There’s no sitting back against a line with David Grun on it, whether he’s on the top line or the fourth line, and his versatility has given tUMD the depth it needs for success.
Scott Kishel
While tUMD fans were wringing their hands wondering what would happen to our blue line this season, Scott Kishel was working his badonkadonk off, ready to step back in to the lineup and shoulder whatever burden was sent his way. Last year he played seven games. This year, he’s only missed three, and he’s in key situations for the team. I think he’s even gotten faster as the year has progressed. Or if not that, his positioning has improved. Scott’s success this year is a testament to his hard work and patience. The team’s got a lot of defencemen this year, and a different guy might have looked at the depth at the position, looked at himself as a senior vs. the others as underclassmen, and defeated himself before he even tried. I salute you, Scott, for what you have done for the team, and for yourself, this year. Parents, if you’ve got a youth hockey player (or any sport!) in a tough situation this year, tell ‘em Kishel’s story.
Brady Lamb
Brady has been a favorite of mine since he was a freshman and he was the first player I ever met. (I have a well-documented fear of meeting players. And I also have proven, time and time again, that this fear is justified since I turn into a complete moron and say crazy stuff in their presences.) I actually met another player at the same time as him but that person and I didn’t have a very good interaction. I did have a great chat with Brady and that was that, now he’s one of My Guys. He has a slap shot that would probably kill most people and is certainly painful for anyone who dares to step in front of it. His accuracy with that wicked slappah seems to be improving, too. He’s brutally punishing in his checks, too. Last year he assisted on every goal in the national championship game. We owe him a lot for that alone, and for sticking with the team even though he may have had some other opportunities come up along the way.
Travis Oleksuk
Absolutely 100% scary good. If you’re a fan of college hockey and don’t know who Travis Oleksuk is, you should probably just forfeit your life, because you’re a fraud. That seems a little harsh, but Oleksuk is so talented, and so clutch, that I’m not really overreacting. Travis’s dad Bill had a great career at tUMD, and if that wasn’t enough, we got his son, too. His freshman year, he hardly played at all… then he got into the lineup and the team went on a roll. He is our best face-off guy, he has speed, hands, strength, everything. Except Barry Melrose can’t pronounce his name. (“OH-leh-suk” is what the Mullet said.) tUMD will, in all likelihood, have three guys hit the 50 point mark again, and Oleksuk is one of them.
Kenny Reiter
So, if you were to jump in your WABAC Machine and tell 2007 RWD that tUMD would win a national championship, never in a million years would she guess that Kenny Reiter would be in goal to win it. I doubt 2007 Kenny Reiter would have guessed it, either. But with a little puck luck, some fortuitous circumstances, and nerves of lonsdaleite, he got there. And he’s going to get us there again this year, it pretty clear. Regular Season Kenny is great, but Playoffs Kenny is out of this world. Kenny won Fan Favorite this year, prompted my friend Erik to make up a catchy cheer, and he is a candidate for Bulldog sainthood. We can already attribute several miracles to him, non?
Thanks seniors. You are the best of the best, and I am so very very proud to cheer you on.
Some Inconvenient Truths
Ah, so here I am, forced to break radio silence because tUMD’s student section has gone viral.
I planned to make a blog post last night but I ended up going to an astrophysics lecture yesterday evening and got home late. In the mean time, I’ve been called or accused of all manner of things, and so the ocean of the Internet is aboil with RWD-hate. This is just how I like it.
If you don’t know, when tUMD played North Dakota the weekend before last, some students (but apparently not all) participated in some chants that were considered offensive. And of course they were offensive. “We stole your land” and “smallpox blankets” have a real, historical basis that is ten thousand times more embarrassing and atrocious than the chants themselves.
But these chants didn’t happen in a vacuum. They didn’t spontaneously occur. They weren’t created to taunt a player on UND who is of Dakota descent. These chants occurred because the University of North Dakota uses the name and image of a native people. The University of North Dakota created an environment where this can happen. My simple message yesterday read: no nickname, no chants.
And then I was immediately compared to a rapist.
Many people accused me of using the same logic a rapist uses to blame their victim by pointing out she was dressing or acting in a way that stated she wanted or deserved to be raped. That’s not the situation at all. That involves two parties: the one being harmed, and the one doing the harming. This situation involves three parties: the one doing the harm (tUMD students who participated in the chants), the one harmed (lots of people, native or not), and… UND. So blaming the nickname as the impetus for the chant isn’t blaming the victim. And tUMD students are still responsible for their own actions. But why would they even do that?
A couple years ago, when tUMD played Tech, I made a sign that said “Every time a cowbell rings, God kills a Husky.” Then I took a paintbrush and splattered red paint on the sign. Do I really want dogs to die? No, I love dogs, they’re cute. The sign actually got taken away because this annoying Michigan Tech fan whined to the arena staff, not because he was offended but because he wanted to make trouble. But it was just a sign making light of their fans and their incessant noisemakers and the imagined death of their mascot. This is just one of the things student sections do. They use the mascot as a symbol for the opponents. People. Reduced to symbols.
That’s precisely the reason why these chants were done the other weekend. Not out of some deep-seated racism against the Dakota that has been passed down since their ancestors’ farm was burned in the Dakota War (which occurred 150 years ago this August, just to remind you, and if you haven’t read much about this sad chapter in Minnesota history, you really need to), but because they were trying to think of chants that were based on UND’s mascot (yes, UND fans, you have a mascot, pick up a dictionary once in awhile) and nickname. Their human mascot and nickname. Dehumanized.
Imagine I make that same sign I made for Michigan Tech, but I make it for UND. It just skyrocketed in its level of offensiveness. That’s the problem with the human mascot. When one says “Gophers suck,” one isn’t at risk for gophers overhearing. But I think it would be unpleasant for a Dakota fan of UND to hear “Sioux Suck” over and over again. Especially considering the myriad ways the US government, the cavalry, the settlers and their descendants have expressed that sentiment throughout history.
UND’s mascot and nickname are dehumanizing and desensitizing. tUMD students demonstrated that a week and a half ago. How can someone stand behind a nickname that leads to chants like the ones the students did? Or shirts like this? Or this one, done by UND students? Or the attitudes spelled out here? Or the people who “honor” the nickname by swearing, vomiting in their seats, fighting, making lewd gestures, etc while wearing the Sioux jersey? (Every fan base has people who do this. But not every fan base is appropriating the image and name of Native Americans and claiming to honor them while behaving in this fashion.)
The nickname and mascot are an embarrassment. The chants are an embarrassment. The history behind the chants is an embarrassment. It’s time for the nickname to go. Getting rid of the nickname won’t change the mind of any student, fan, athlete or administrator who might have been motivated to chant or support the nickname or make one of those t-shirts by actual, active racism, but it will at least stop the people who simply aren’t thinking, who aren’t looking beyond the nickname and mascot to the humans they are based on. (Because it shouldn’t be necessary, humans [Seminole, Dakota, Illini, Irish, Dutch, etc] should not be mascots!)
So there we go. That’s what I mean by “No Nickname, No Chants.” As if it really was that hard to figure out.
