Deep Thoughts by Biddco, Vol 2

The long national nightmare continues: Biddy has graced us with another guest post! So great, allows me to be lazy, although I’ll have a post later.

North Star College Cup (Western Beanpot, the Greedy Gopher Grab, the Hotdish)

Hello everyone, this is Biddco writing another guest spot for Runnin’ with the Dogs. Do give me a follow on Twitter (@Biddco) as I tweet about college hockey, tUMD, retweet endless Simpsons jokes and whatever comes to my mind. I attended the North Star College Cup this weekend and bought tickets through tUMD. These are my thoughts.

The Games:

It helped that the games that tUMD played in were the most entertaining games of the whole weekend. The other games were just okay (like the Friday night SCSU-UMTC tilt was boring because you knew it was over in the 2nd period). It was fun having the different fan bases in the building and each team had their own specific area where their tickets were put. Attendance was about 13,000 for Friday and 14,500 for Saturday. I don’t think there were ever that many people in the building, but it was still good numbers. Hopefully next year they will play the game with 20-minute overtimes and not a shootout. I don’t think that will happen, but it should.

Atmosphere:

Crowds for both afternoon games had probably a few thousand people watching, which was not surprising given the sizes of the fanbases and the times of the games. I thought the atmosphere on Friday was fun, but had its dead moments where you could hear a pin drop during the tv timeouts. It would be nice to see more sponsor-related things to occupy our attention, or have the band or music play. I would guess they will get more sponsors as the years go on. As the games went on, the staff at the X did a better job of getting music to fill the quiet in the crowd. As a tUMD fan cheering for the Bulldogs with Gopher fans around, it made the atmosphere better. For some fans I’m sure it was not good because they were not cheering with opposing fans in their midst.

UMD Hockey:

It was a great weekend for UMD as they kept coming back after being down. UMD overcame some bad goaltending and defense on Friday to overcome Minnesota State. On Saturday they used a strategy of screening Wilcox and used quick shots from outside the slot to beat him during the game. The Saturday night game was one of the most fun UMD games I can remember (definitely the most fun I’ve had at a game this season). Having a win and a tie in two more overtime games are a couple of great results. Perhaps this team is starting to figure it out and can make the NCAA tournament. They are currently tied for 14th in the Pairwise as we speak! While the team is playing well in January, the penalty kill is of major concern. It struggled because Bulldogs gave up 5 power play goals on the weekend. Our penalty kill is strong statistically but I wonder how much of that is due to the strong start. I would guess over the last month or two it has been very pedestrian or below average.

Overall it was a very fun time and a successful first year of the tournament. I am excited to see this thing build after each year to something more. Nothing will come close the Final Five, but it won’t be long before this yearly custom becomes an annual tradition.

PS: Who knew tUMD players were almost as good at diving as Kyle Rau and Robbie Earl?