Dancin’ in November

tUMD 5, Mad Cows 2
tUMD 7, Mad Cows 3

and

tUMD 30, Some Team From Michigan I’ve Never Heard Of 27

Well, here we are again, I’m back to my roots, back where I belong. Just in time for a FANTASTIC weekend for two Bulldogs teams (women’s hockey split and the women’s volleyball team, despite an incredible season, was knocked out of the NCAA tournament by stupid Concordia-St. Paul).

Friday we rushed to get to the game because we got caught in traffic trying to get to the hotel. As we were walking through the final stretch of the Northwest Passage to the arena, I remarked that it was really quiet. And then we looked at our tickets and saw it was a 7:30 start. Good planning on our part.

Caleb Herbert, your WCHA rookie of the year if the voters have any brains (sorry, little Gopher boy, but Caleb is the complete package), opened the scoring early on, and then UMD weathered several storms and Mankato whiffed on some grade-A chances and Kenny made some stellar saves and we made it out of the period with the score holding at 1-0 but the shot totals at 8-21. So, good save% for Kenny, but way too much of a shot differential.

JT Brown ended his short goal-scoring hiatus and Caleb Herbert got ANOTHER goal in the second period, which was MUCH better than the first and the Dogs closed the shots gap a bit. Also in the second period, Eriah Hayes took a penalty to put the Dogs on the PP, then 3 seconds later Jack Connolly took a penalty, then 17 seconds after THAT, Mike Dorr took a penalty. I was thinking how a 4×3 PP would give us a lot of space to work some magic, but that it would be pretty funny to see 3×3, and no sooner was I done thinking that than Scott Kishel was in the box and we got to see some crazy 3×3 action. Sandelin used Brown-Oleksuk and Herbert-J. Crandall as his 3×3 pairings, and TO and JT had some very good chances. The last time I saw 3×3 action for tDogs was when UMD played Wisconsin and Garrison (who, BTW, is leading all NHL defencemen in goals with 7) broke his leg.

Mankato scored the only special teams goal of the night in the 3rd period, Jack Connolly put some points on the board for Team Cougar, and then Travis Oleksuk scored. Although I was screaming for Herbert to get a goal so I could toss my hat on the ice, he still managed to get 3 points and will certainly be the WCHA rookie of the week. The Mad Cows got another goal and that was it.

Saturday I went to the football game bundled in several layers of clothing and a blanket, plus hand and foot warmers, with neat fold-out stadium seat things my dad let us borrow so we didn’t have to sit on the freezing cold bleachers. And I was STILL cold by the middle of the 4th quarter, when UMD saw its sizable lead disappear completely, only to take the lead, nearly give it back, get the ball back, go 3 and out, have a short punt, hold the other team to a field goal, and head to overtime. College FB overtime rules are a little odd, but after the other team scored a field goal after some fortuitous penalties, UMD got into the end zone with a TD and I didn’t freeze my toes for nothing!

Saturday night’s game was a little bit different, as zero goals were scored in the first period. And then the team absolutely EXPLODED in the second period. Something called Jean-Paul Lafontaine committed a hooking penalty, and the prolific Justin Crandall scored with the extra attacker on. And then 17 seconds later JT Brown scored. I had to combine both tweets. Then 55 seconds later, Caleb Herbert scored, and then as I was tweeting that Herbert scored, Joe Basaraba scored! IN. FREAKING. SANE. And it wasn’t even a record, as UMD scored 4 goals even more quickly than that en route to a butt-whooping of the Gophers in 1971. Yay! Phil Cook got the hook and then UMD nearly scored again! Mankato did manage to get a goal in the second period, but who even cares? Then they followed that up, Maverick-style, with a major penalty.

Did I mention that UMD played most of the game with 5 defencemen? Fidel Casto left the game early on with a lower-body injury, but from what Pates said, it isn’t serious. Whew. Fidel is muy importante to our re-election campaign.

In the 3rd, Mankato scored quickly on a carry-over power play. Mankato then took a penalty and UMD had an insanely long delayed penalty possession, almost a minute. While they didn’t scored on that possession, it was pretty fun to watch, and then they went out and scored less than 20 seconds into the PP (Jacky again! Go Team Coug!) Jake Hendrickson scored an even-strength goal for a touchdown. Then ANOTHER Maverick decided to take a major penalty by trying to kill Jacky, and then a scrum erupted as the Mavericks got a little tired of sucking, and then Brady Lamb sighted in his lasers and kicked the extra point. Mankato kept trying, for some reason, and scored another goal, and that ended the scoring for the game, even though I wanted a snowman (Bruce Ciskie calls 8 goals “putting up a snowman,” even though everyone knows snowmen are stacked 3 snowballs high, not two).

Oh yeah. As if that wasn’t enough fun…

I am so depressed that there won’t be another home game until mid-January, AND tUMD doesn’t even play this coming weekend, but UMD should close out the 2011 portion of the schedule in style at UW and at Tech. I assume we are all planning on reserving our hotels in Tampa?