A War of Attrition
tUMD 4, Tipping Cows 5 (OT)/tUMD 6, Tipping Cows 2
tUMD 1, Racist Mascots 2 (OT)/tUMD 1, Racist Mascots 0
To get this out of the way early, I wasn’t able to follow the women’s games this weekend, other than via text updates from my friend and via Twitter. Here is the game commentary I got:
B: Only my wife would glare at a Duluth fan for wearing Gopher colors lmfao
Me: Hahahahahahahahaah
B: “Why are you glaring at that lady in the wheelchair?” “She’s wearing Gopher colors.” “Um, that’s a Duluth sweatshirt.”
Me: We’re losing 2-0 to the cows. How are we doing in GF?
B: 0-0 beginning of two, but mostly… [wife] didn’t get me a beer so I had to go back to the lobby, get cash, and buy my own.
Me: That’s mean!
B: #lifeishard
pause
B: Oh good god-you just scored and it was the [poopiest] hockey goal I have ever seen.
Me: Hahahahahahha
B: Our goalie tried to beat your forward to the puck and it didn’t happen, so she was lying on the ice halfway to the blue line and you scored on the empty net lmfao
Me: Sounds like when Stalock was here.
(the next day)
Me: Split!
B: I’m at a funeral.
So, there’s my coverage of the weekend, women’s hockey-wise. So glad I can count on my vast network of arena reporters to pick me up when I’m not able to cover the games.
Friday night I went to the men’s home opener. The new video is pretty legit but I do miss tDogs coming out to “Can’t Hold Us.” The student section was full, and they did… ok. They started out loud, but the first period and a half was an absolute black hole of terribleness that defied the laws of thermodynamics and destroyed the energy in the arena. Other than Dominato’s shorthanded goal during Osterberg’s major, there was nothing to get excited about. Once it was 4-1, all hope was lost… but then subsequently located after Carson Soucy and Alex #IAFALTO scored within two minutes of each other to put the Dogs within one. The Dogs dominated the end of the period (despite a “goaltender interference” penalty after scoring… was Dom interfering with Williams’s pouting?) and I wished it could have lasted a bit longer. The third period had us all on pins and needles and then Karson Kuhlman tied the game up with some fancy moves, making it THE FIRST TIME IN BULLDOG HISTORY two people named C(K)arson scored in the same game. tDogs lost after taking a QUESTIONABLE penalty in OT and then failing to play any semblance of defence on the PK.
Saturday I had planned to go to Mankato with Biddy, but I woke up not feeling it. Mostly I woke up feeling rather panicked about getting my homework done, getting enough hours in at work, and getting enough sleep while I was out of town, and I called an audible and decided to stay in Duluth for the night. I watched the game on TV and the Dogs came out flat and let in the first goal and sucked on the power play and all that, and then just blew Mankato’s doors off in the third period. tUMD had three SHG this past weekend, two from Dominato alone, and left the cows looking like… well, cows. I mean, have you ever seen a cow? They look really dumb. There you go.
Sunday I went down to tX to see Pearl Jam with Biddy, which was fun. I saw one of my longest-running friends, Brian, and also this other Brian. The show was the second greatest experience I’ve had in that building. Almost as good as tDogs winning the National Championship. And you all know how amazing that was, so you can imagine how I felt.
Speaking of Imagine,
Turnaround
tUMD 3, Rodents 4/tUMD 3, Racist Mascots 0
tUMD 0, Rodents 3/tUMD 4, Rodents 3 (SO)
Remember when I panicked about goaltending? It was last week. Perhaps I overreacted. A little.
I didn’t see Friday afternoon’s men’s game, but I did feel like barfing when I saw via Twitter the score was 3-0. Most people seemed to feel satisfied with the 4-3 “moral victory” almost-comeback, but I’m not thrilled. I don’t want the Rodents to win any game, ever. Even against other enemies such as UND or St, Cloooud, I just hope for an 0-0 tie where everyone tears their ACLs and/or gets suspended for general goonery. So, I’m going to be disappointed and that’s that.
Sunday I watched and enjoyed the game. I guess the Potato Farmers/Racist Mascots are bad now or something. Undisciplined at least. They seemed to enjoy negating their own PPs. I enjoyed it as well. It was nice of My9 to stream the game for us; one of the benefits of living in a small town, I suppose. Dominato dominated both games, McNeely earned a shut-out, and the weekend was salvaged.
I went to both women’s games this weekend. Friday I was late, as usual, but unlike the previous Friday, we actually had shots on goal. Yay!!! Unfortunately, no goals actually happened and those pesky rats walked away with a shutout. Saturday, I was late again, but only by a few minutes. Shortly after my arrival, tUMD took the lead after a goal by Emma Stauber. In the second period, Jenna McParland made it 2-0 on a delayed PP (which, let’s discuss, I don’t like the rule that if you score on a delayed PP, you do not get an offensive zone face-off), and tDogs almost made it to the end of the second with the shutout, but the vermin scored. tDogs got a PP early in the 3rd and Michelle Lowenhielm cashed in, but the Goofs made it 3-2 halfway through the period, and then a knucklepuck got by Black to tie the game. tDogs withstood a *cough*convenient*cough* Goofer PP to end the 3rd and start overtime, and made it to the shootout, which UMD won in 4 rounds, with goals from Meghan Huertas and Katerina Mrazova.
I would like to point out I spelled Lowenhielm and Mrazova from memory. Applauding myself over here.
This weekend the women are on the road to the vast wasteland to the west (wester than Buttmidji), and the men have a home/away series with the Purple Cows.
Now I would like to point out that I would rather write a boring and tardy blog post than study, but I can’t think of anything else to say, so I guess it’s back to the grind. See you all at the games this weekend!
Lucky Charms
Comrades, both of our squads are about to undergo a vermin infestation of epic proportions. The Pied Piper of Ridder Arena is bringing his rodents to swarm our beloved AMSoil Arena, and I’ve received word that South Bend is infested with more of these terrible creatures! While their fans are all busy humping some sad old water bottle Michigan’s football team discarded, tUMD shall launch a sneak attack and rid the land of these pests.
For the men, this will be a difficult series, as everyone gets up for the Bulldogs. Teams tend to bring their A-game against tDogs, as for teams like the Gophers, a win against us is their national championship. While it can be tempting to get distracted by the amped up players on the other bench, tUMD just needs to focus on playing their own game, their own way, and dictating the tempo.
I am sure Professional Journalist Extraordinaire Tom Chorske will be DELIGHTED to see the Bulldogs and his favorite player, Austin Farley, again. I’m sure he’s already glowing about the kind things I’m saying to him on Twitter. I simply cannot wait for his measured, unbiased, mature, thoughtful, and intelligent commentary on this sporting competition. Wait… this game won’t be televised by FSN? I thought those stripey little buggers were ratings gold! I guess Chorske will have to sputter and bluster to himself.
Since the Star Tribune, other than Reusse, slobbers over the Gophers, they had to write a puff piece about what a sad panda little baby Rau is after failing, yet again, to win a real national championship, and how he “decided” to come back instead of leaving for the bright lights of the ECHL. It appears he went to Ireland this summer to, I don’t know, bury a pot of gold or a push broom re-bristling or something. I assume most of the Irish people were feeling a bit like Mr. Burns on ether upon the sight of the little fellow.
Footage here.
Or, I don’t know, maybe they were afraid of him, considering his roster pic this year:
As for the women, I hope that we’ve made some adjustments after this past weekend, because as tough as Wisconsin is, the Goofs will be tougher. Stealing a game from the Gophers would be simply glorious, but I expect, at a bare bones absolute rock bottom minimum, tUMD will be competitive the entire weekend. I look forward to seeing you all at the game, and seeing a few first Bulldog goals for our Swedes, perhaps?
Let’s do what Carl Spackler could not, ladies and gents!
EVERYBODY PANIC
tUMD 1, Red Menace 4/tUMD 2, Red Menace 6
tUMD 4, Canadian Goon Squad 2
I mean it. Panic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Really, I can’t be the only one overreacting to a small sample size of results which are unfavorable.
Let’s start with the women. This was not a competitive weekend. Granted, there were 2 ENGs scored in Friday’s game, one of which was a face-off fluke, so that score doesn’t tell the whole story, but it took way, way, way too long to get the offense going (1 shot in the first period! What!?), and that’s not just because Wisconsin is fairly stifling defensively. Saturday’s game was… I don’t know how to say this without being rude, but it was not a good goaltending performance. We scored first, and then in the final two minutes of the period, Wisconsin scored two perfectly savable goals. After an excellent performance on Friday, Black let in 5 goals in two periods on Saturday and got the hook for Grapp, who only surrendered one. That inconsistency scares me. The other main problem I see is communication: there were too many bad line changes and Wisconsin scored a SHG on Friday after a few of our players ran into each other. The series made me want to bang my head against the wall. And it also confirmed that tUMD is no longer among the elite in college hockey. Sure, we are still better than most teams, but if we’re not competitive against Wisconsin, we’re not elite.
You may be wondering why I’m panicking about a win from the men. A win is great, right? Ok, I get that they’ve barely practiced, and I also get that tUMD put up 57 SOG in the game so there wasn’t a lack of effort or opportunities created. tUMD also took advantage of both their own major PP (thanks to a knee-on-knee hit on Osterberg, status unknown, probably called a diver by Chorske) and Lakehead’s (thanks to Dominato plowing into their goalie), finally taking the lead in the 3rd period. I suppose I should be glad we didn’t get shut out by our Canadian Goon Squad, ala UNO, but this had better be the best week of practice ever to get ready for the vermin infestation to the South. The “Twolves” had one goal on one shot to start the game, and then every puck that went NEAR McNeely scared me. One the Finn came in, I calmed down a bit, but we were trailing for far, far too long in this game.
Now I am going to go panic about an exam I have in 12 minutes. We’ll discuss the vermin at a later time.
It’s Here!
Comrades, this is me right now:
It’s opening night for tUMD women’s hockey, the men have an exhibition on Monday, and!!!!
My tickets for the men’s games are finally here!!! Way to get them in just before OT, tUMD!
You’ll notice something interesting about the above image. This post marks the official launch of the @runninwiththedogs Instagram account. I suggest you follow. I promise no duckface or excessive selfies. Probably not many selfies at all. I’ll post game pics, other hockey related pics, and fun things to do/see or places to go in Duluth/the Northland.
Let’s go Doggies! Puck drops in just over an hour on the home season! I’ll see you all at AMSoil.
Date Night
Comrades, did you know that for tUMD’s home opener against Wisconsin this weekend, tickets are $1 in advance at the ticket office, or $3 on gameday??? That is an incredible bang for your buck. I mean, that’ll be like $0.50 per goal after we shellac whoever starts in net for the Red Menace now that they don’t have Alex Rigsby!
And just like I’ve done for you all in the past, I will buy you a ticket! Yep, even though I’m a student and have no monies, I still want to take you folks to see some stellar WCHA hockey! It will be fun!
As always, even if you are uncomfortable taking my money, you should still attend the game, but come on…
Technical Difficulties
tUMD 3, UCONN Zippity
VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! REDEMPTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m excited. I’d have been more excited if the game tracker had not crapped out right before Tea Villila’s goal made it 2-0. Then maybe I could have pieced together the game for you folks a little bit better. I couldn’t even tweet the game for all you superfans out there. Depressing.
So, the first goal was scored on the PP by Zoe Hickel (my pick for first goal of the year, and maybe we can just pretend Friday’s game didn’t happen and make me correct?), the second goal was on the PP as well, and the final goal was an empty netter by one of our new Swedes, Michelle Lowenhielm. And again I think we hit two pipes, maybe more after the feed died. So that’s five or more pipes on the weekend, yikes. Time to recalibrate those eyeballs, Doggies!
So, a terrible recap of a nice Bulldog win. I’m in mid-season form!
Let Me Blow Your Mind
tUMD 4, UCONN 4
Hello, I am posting twice in one day, I can’t even remember the last time this occurred. I could use the powers of the Interwebs to find out, but it’s unimportant.
This is not going to be the best gamer ever, because I wasn’t able to watch or listen to the game. The video feed cost lots of moneys, and there was no radio feed. I eventually figured out there was a live stats thingy. It was already 3-0 UConn at that point. Barf barf barf. At the time, I thought Sarah MacDonnell had scored a natural hat trick, but I guess the scoring got corrected and she only had an assist on the second goal. Only, indeed. Kayla Black got the hook for Karissa Grapp after the third goal. Because I was late to finding the stat tracker, I thought Grapp had started the game, oops. I don’t really understand what the heck happened, because Black was back for the second period, but thank you, Karissa, for jumping in and stopping the hemorrhaging.
As it turns out, other people were allowed to score two goals in this game. Lara Stalder got tUMD on the board first with a power play goal (ruining my pick of Zoe Hickel for first Bulldog goal) and then she and Ashleigh Brykaliuk traded off scoring, with Brykaliuk’s second goal coming shorthanded. Tragically, UConn scored just 44 seconds later while still on the PP, and then nothing else happened.
UMD got off 58 shots on goal through 65 minutes, compared to the Huskies’s 20, and I would love to see the shot attempts count because I saw quite a few blocked shots and AT LEAST 3 pipes pass by my screen.
The stats tracker thing was kind of hilarious. I took a screen shot for you all.
That referee popped up whenever there was a penalty, and when the penalty ended, a big whistle popped up. Very exciting!
Let’s try to salvage this weekend with a nice win, ok? I mean, coming back from a 3-goal deficit to tie the game was nice, but winning in a dominating fashion is even better. Tomorrow’s game is at 2:00, you can watch the stat tracker or follow my tweets, if you’re into swear words.
I Know Bulldog Hockey Season Has Started When…
…the leaves start changing in Duluth.
…Biddco and I start making plans for what we need to buy at the balloon sale.
…hockey posters are all over campus and students are wearing their new Penalty Box shirts. (Why isn’t there a shirt for old, paying people? It could say “I’ll stand up when I feel like it, whippersnappers!”)
…my Twitter timeline starts exploding with polls, all of which I ignore.
…the Twins have reached the 90-loss threshhold.
…nonsensical arguments with cherry-picked facts about whose team/player is better than some other team/player, or why women’s hockey sucks, or apparently why Northern Ireland is the ideal spot for the Beanpot, intensify.
…I see one of my favorite fellow Bulldog fans and RWD comrade, Tony.
…Bruce Ciskie is all over the local media.
…my friends and I start strategizing our road tripping plans in great detail.
…UND, UMTC, and SCSU fans’s predictions for their teams become exponentially more outrageous.
…hockey games are being played. Like tonight, when your 5 time national champion Bulldog women’s hockey team takes on the UConn Huskies!
Video Killed The Radio Star
No, this isn’t a story about Judd Medak murdering Bruce. Although now I would have to think of a better post title for that since I’ve just used the obvious one. Maybe Ding Dong The Bruce Is Dead. I am prepared for all contingencies.
Today the NCHC announced it’s launching a digital network, NCHC.tv. This gives the NCHC the dubious honor of being “the first single-sport NCAA conference to offer a fully integrated digital network.” Hooray?
I think it’s pretty cool, PROVIDED we don’t have any Floating Tiger Head nonsense or massive streaming issues.
Here are the features:
- Live feeds of “nearly all” home games, meaning the possibility of blackouts for certain games, or simply unavailable feeds, which I suppose could be possible for certain out of conference road games.
- Access to archived and condensed games. This means I can make hilarious screencaps of things! Maybe.
- Free on-demand content, such as game highlights, press conferences, and other features.
- Lots of different subscription packages which I don’t feel like detailing because you are all literate individuals and can clickety-clack over to one of the links I provided. I think the links say almost exactly the same thing but one is from tUMD’s site and one is from tNCHC’s site.
Since I live in Duluth and attend all home games, I’m not sure this package will be beneficial to me, but for the comrades in the RWD Empire spread throughout the land, this will be a game-changer! Literally!
Runnin' With the Dogs 