Sharktastic!
Oh, hey there, guys. Just wanted to remind you, in all this talk of Justin Fontaine, that I’M IN THE NHL TOO! AND I EVEN GOT MY FAVORITE NUMBER. Did Fontaine get his favorite number? Psssh. They just gave him any old dirty number. Probably didn’t even wash the jersey.
Now excuse me, I have to put some WD-40 on the bench door hinges so I can get it open quickly.
Thanks to Gif Master CJ Zero, King of Screencaps!
Wild About You
So, as you all already knew I was unable to make it to the Wild’s AMSoil Arena Extravaganza and Foofaraw. It was a good thing I didn’t skip my class since we had a surprise quiz. Eep.
I put out a call on Twitter for a stringer, complete with a lucrative $0 spec fee and the promise of zero eyeballs seeing the post, and with THAT kind of enticing offer, I had two takers: Gretchen (@eskomokisses) and Dan (@danjacobsen), both elite comrades in the RWD Army.
Enjoy a peek at our dear Arthur Fonzarelli, all grown up and wearing Iron Range Red and… I don’t know, Bitterness Toward Norm Green? And Finnish Skin Tone White?
Photos from Dan:
Some whiteboard action! Also, Dan is unaware of this, but I am pretty sure Gretchen is in this shot.
Dan said that he took some pix of the Wild practice the PP, but since a person is actually shooting it seems like this must be something else.
Here is the power play we all know and love.
Photos from Gretchen:
Fonz and Hoagy together again! Awwww. Gretchen told me that Sandy came out and talked to Fonz, too, and Heatley also had a long chat with Sandelin. Most likely discussing Heatley’s last game at the DECC, which we will not discuss. Bruce already traumatized Judd Medak with the memory.
Here’s Fonz with Parise, who Gretchen said is “always smiling.” He isn’t here. Probably because, after his ill-advised comment regarding the 2003-2004 season, he looked up at the rafters and remembered Fonz led his team to a national championship and Zach led his team to… an epic choke job. Or, as Gretchen pointed out, maybe he saw Junior’s Hobey banner.
And hey, look who showed up! Some Bulldogs! Not sure who these guys are, as my eyeballs aren’t calibrated for back-of-head or side-of-face recognition. Really, I swear. I mean, sure, I’d recognized the earlobes of MacGregor Sharp, but that’s a different story.
Geez, after that in-depth recap, don’t you feel like you were there? Thank you very much, Dan and Gretchen, for capturing the ambiance of the day for me and for all of RWD Nation!
The State of Women’s Hockey
There are 5 Division I men’s college hockey programs and 5 Division I women’s college hockey programs in the state of Minnesota. There are 7 Division I men’s college hockey programs and 0 Division I women’s college hockey programs in the state of Michigan.
There are 10 Division III men’s college hockey programs and 11 Division III women’s college hockey programs in the state of Minnesota. There are 2 Division III men’s college hockey programs and 2 Division III women’s college hockey programs in the state of Michigan.
So that’s a problem. For Michigan, I mean. And it gets worse.
What does USA Hockey say about Michigan? (Stats are from 2011-12, please alert me if you can send me more recent documentation)
USA Hockey shows 54, 951 registered players in Minnesota, and 12,697 of them were female. It also shows 52,944 registered players in Michigan, and 4,260 of them were female. Minnesota has three times the number of female hockey players, and blows Michigan away in gender parity among players.
Little girls in Michigan won’t even have a hometown women’s hockey player to root for in Sochi a few months from now, unless Ryan Miller tucks his junk and disguises his Adam’s apple with a Dany Heatley turtleneck.
I’m not sure how many self-respecting Red Wings fans can really call Detroit “Hockeytown” when what they really mean is “Men’s Hockeytown.” And they really can’t even call it that, because I said so. And I’m not sure there are any self-respecting Red Wings fans, and if there are, there shouldn’t be.
What’s the problem, Michigan?
Ok, yes, your whole state needs a bailout. I don’t deny that. But surely there are as many poor boys/men as there are poor girls/women, no?
And the University of Michigan, allegedly the flagship college hockey program in the state, surely has money. I mean, Michigan alumni are basically brainwashed into opening their wallets and pouring their contents into the coffers of the athletic department after hearing a few notes of “Hail to the Victors” or a shout of “Go Blue!” Surely a school that packs 100,000 people into their football field on Saturdays in the fall isn’t hurting for money. And if they are… well, that’s typical Michigan financial wisdom for you, isn’t it?
Nine national championships sounds pretty nice, but I would contend that in a post-Title IX world (ostensibly), a college hockey program can’t be considered elite unless they have a women’s hockey program as well. Would it really be that hard to start a women’s program at Michigan or Michigan State? I mean, even Pedo State started one when they started their little College Hockey Armageddon-inducing program. They could easily have started up a rugby team and called it even. The arena’s already there. Yeah, you’ve got to get equipment, but these days it seems most universities have exclusive gear agreements which I assume, ahem, “help” with the cost of equipment. And every sport needs equipment. And coaches. And travel accommodations. And things. Besides, I hear the Big 10 network is spitting out more money than a broken slot machine. Although my source on that was a USCHO thread, so I’ll have to check on that to verify it.
But hey, some people are trying! Look here! If you wear the pink jersey you got at hockey camp, you get in free to all Adrian College women’s games!
Pink jersey. PINK JERSEY. Pink jersey : RWD :: red matador cape : bull.
PINK JERSEY!!@!(@)#*)_@$(I@??!?!?>#<P($U#()UR(WJEOISDEF?>
This isn’t my problem to fix. I live in Minnesota, I’ll support women’s hockey here, in the real state of hockey, and I’ll point and laugh and criticize. The state of Michigan, Michigan amateur hockey organizations, and Michigan colleges can decide if they want to join the millennium and start making real improvements to women’s hockey, or if they want to become (more of) a joke in the hockey community.
Enter the Bulldog
Justin Fontaine has come back to Duluth, and he’s brought his new teammates with him: The Minnesota Wild. The Wild made their final roster moves today and Justin has made the final roster! Never mind the naysayers (ahem, Nathan Eide) who claim it won’t last. Justin has been working hard in Houston to develop the gritty side of his game, and he’s a much more complete player than he was at tUMD, when all he had to do was score, score, score.
The Wild will have an open practice at AMSoil from 10-11:30. In a cruel, ironic twist, I probably can’t go to the practice because of my class schedule. I might be able to make it down for about half an hour, but I’m not really interested in paying to park for 30 minutes of hockey practice. I will most likely also miss Norm and the Stanley Cup on Friday before tUMD’s game against UConn. Marvelous. I finally live in Duluth and can’t take advantage of two awesome hockey-related events in Duluth. I blame Wisconsin.
My relationship with the Wild is kind of on-again, off-again. Since I grew up during the period between the North Stars’ departure and the Wild’s inception, and I lived out of state during the 2003 playoff run (although I did celebrate the wins over the Avs in a dorm room on the U of I campus by devouring an entire pizza and drinking a plastic cup of wine with a cousin of Darby Hendrickson’s), I haven’t had much of an emotional stake in the Wild. I love Mikko, of course, and I enjoy when the Wild succeed, but a Wild loss won’t rip my heart out. I don’t feel the same way about the Wild as I do about the Bulldogs, or the Vikings, or the Twins. I’m not sure if I ever can, simply because I don’t have those childhood memories twined into my fandom.
I do want to become invested in the Wild, of course. I do need another sports team to raise my blood pressure, take my money, and contribute to my procrastination. If Fontaine can stick with the Wild and become a permanent part of the team, it might be the push I need. Or the Wild need. Somehow, if I become a true Wild fanatic, someone will ostensibly benefit. I am really excited to cheer for Fontaine again. In college hockey, our time with a player is limited to four years if we’re lucky (and we were with Fontaine. Very lucky.) To have a guy come back as a pro is a huge bonus. It’s obvious why teams try to get a couple local guys on the team: the fanbase has already invested in them. It’s why the Wild are throwing that aging, washed-up Goofer defencemen a bone.
We’ll see what the season brings, and what Fonzy can do to prove he belongs. And if I have to take out a kneecap here and there to keep him on the roster, well… we’ll just pretend I didn’t write that.
Welcome home, Justin! I’m sure you’re glad to be back!
The Beat Goes On
Thanks to a reader tip in the comment section of the last post, I now know that tUMD’s new beat writer, Rick Weegman, has his blog In The Crease up and running. Right now it’s mostly links and blurbs about stuff around the Bulldogs and the NCHC, but you should click over anyway in case you’ve missed something. Thanks CMBulldog for the tip!
The student section has an official webpage, UMD Penalty Box, to go along with its new Twitter. Student season tickets went on sale this morning. I haven’t had any news on how the sale went, but I had better not be disappointed by my fellow students!
Sidebar links are updated with the new blogs added and some obsolete blogs removed. Don’t forget to hover your cursor over the links for surprises!
Could the season please start already so we could have something to talk about? Alternatively, we could be the Gophers, who have folks quitting/sucking at school/drunk driving scooters. So I guess there’s that.
Small Town Saturday Night
I have to say, one of the nicest things about being in Duluth is people don’t look at me like I’m a complete freak for loving hockey.
You might find this surprising, since it’s not like I lived in, say, Nairobi before I moved here. I still lived in The State of Hockey, so you’d think it would be normal. But while it’s normal to like hockey in the Twin Cities, it’s not always normal to love hockey.
For example, I have a similar job in Duluth to the job I had when I lived in the Cities. It isn’t exactly a job that attracts jocks or sports fans, and I work with like 99% women, so you wouldn’t expect a lot of sympathetic characters. And, indeed, there wasn’t a single person who could discuss hockey with me, or who even did more than a cursory humoring of me when I yammered on about various Bulldog related topics. However, since I started my new job in Duluth, I have already discovered two people in my near vicinity who are long-time Bulldog season ticket holders. And wanting days off for Bulldogs games? Totally normal and acceptable and accommodated as best as can be. I sat and talked Bulldog and Duluth East hockey with one of my co-workers for a good hour tonight. We were extremely productive.
I’m sure once the season begins I’ll really see the differences between living in a community with hockey allegiances all over the place (or none at all!) and living in a community where there’s one game in town. I hope to get a chance to get to some high school games (which I really should have done before to support my alma mater, the Shjon Podein-coached SLP Orioles) and really become a part of the hockey community I’ve been on the fringes of since I started the blog. I’m excited for the season and we haven’t even gotten around to discussing the team on here! Which I will, once I figure out something to say.
Students Unite!
Well, the first week of school is over; now it’s time to focus on more important things! Like BULLDOG HOCKEY! The sole reason for this blog and my sole reason for living.
First of all, while I’m sure it’s better than it used to be, the frequency of Gopher-related attire sightings is alarmingly high. Like, once or twice a day high. That is extremely upsetting. Today in one of my classes a guy was wearing a 2002 Gopher national championship shirt. Fortunately I was wearing my 2011 tUMD national championship shirt. There needs to be some kind of trade-in program. Trade in your Gopher gear, get a pile of manure. Trade in your Gopher gear, or else I beat you with a sack of doorknobs. Or other similar upgrades.
I did see one person wearing a Michigan Tech shirt. He should probably have sought counseling.
The student section now has an OFFICIAL Twitter account: @UMDPB! You should follow it. And me: @runwiththedogs. If you like obscenities. The athletic department has really done a great job embracing social media. Better late than never, I guess? The website got a fancy upgrade, too. And tDNT has a new beat writer, Rick Weegman (@rweegman); I’ll find out if he’s blogging. Once Matt has his new blog up and running (he decided to run it on Drupal, because he’s an idiot or something), I’ll update you on that.
And the most important thing: STUDENT SEASON TICKETS! They go on sale next week! Via the interwebs! And the interwebs won’t crash this time, because it’s being handled through Ticketbastard. As Matt says, “If they can hold Justin Bieber, they can hold us.” I don’t want to be held by anyone who has held the Biebs, personally.
Tickets go on sale at 8:00 am on Tuesday, 17 September! Get yourself to a computer! If you must, get to campus early so you can get reliable internet! You might actually get a spot in the maroon lot if you’re there before 8! Although that is not guaranteed!
Ticket sales are based on your class status, based on credit hours. So, freshmen, thank your lucky stars for those AP credits that made you an automatic sophomore! Tickets cost $120 and you get a free t-shirt. So now, if the only t-shirt you own is a Gopher t-shirt, you can turn that into toilet paper because you’ve got a Bulldog shirt now!
The tickets are now general admission, so there’s no upper or lower bowl tickets. Instead, the first 650 students in the building get wristbands for the lower bowl. This gives underclassmen a chance to get the best seats, instead of being relegated to the upper bowl because seniors or juniors bought the lower bowl tickets and didn’t bother to show. The most dedicated student fans will get the best seats.
Please go to the games, students. There’s no possible way you could ever regret it. You may meet your future spouse there, or your best friends for the next 4 years of your life, or longer. You may be part of another national championship. And you will have a fantastic time, win or lose, as long as you’re willing to be loud and obnoxious and creative and silly. Make signs, make t-shirts (hopefully not for a player who then quits the team), dress up in crazy clothes, do your research on your opponents and harass them, make fun of people’s mothers, make friends with the cops who patrol the student section, avoid vomiting in the bleachers, and go absolutely bananas for Bulldog hockey! And don’t forget, there are TWO hockey teams on campus. You can make signs and t-shirts and crazy costumes for the women’s games, too. tUMD students get in free to women’s hockey games, simply show your U-Card at the ticket window and you’re set!
And wave to me in section 216. Yeah, I may be a student, but I’m still sitting with the old people. And by the way, “stand up old people” is a jinx of a chant if you do it too early.
Follow-Up
Hello, long time no talk, comrades!
I am really only writing this post because I am procrastinating. I am moving to Duluth in 2 days and don’t really want to pack anything. So here I am, writing the non-lampoon version of this exciting development in the RWD-verse.
I am so, so, so excited to live in Duluth and to attend tUMD. I am also excited to be able to go to a Bulldogs hockey game and go home after the game, rather than back to a hotel room or a friend’s couch (now I can start to return the favor for people who have house me over the years) or my car for a 2 1/2 hour drive. I’m excited to be able to attend more women’s hockey games, football games, and high school hockey games. I’m excited I’ll be in town every weekend, so I can meet out of town Bulldog or opposing fans who are coming into town.
Last season I went to fewer tUMD hockey games than I have in years. It sucked. The blog sucked, too. I mean, more than usual. I hope I can find some new and fresh way to write this year. I mean, I’m not going to be writing dozens of recruiting articles and all that jazz, like I’m Andy Freaking Johnson or something. I’m an engineering student and he’s majoring in synchronized swimming or something. It’s a new year, we’ve got new recruits, a new beat writer, and a new conference. I’m sure I can find some inspiration somewhere. (That sounds very confident, doesn’t it?)
I don’t get to confuse people anymore, which is sad. I’ve been asked dozens of times, “You aren’t from Duluth and you didn’t go to tUMD, how are you a Bulldog fan?” It doesn’t make sense, right? How could someone be a fan of such a sad little team without some form of environmental or institutional indoctrination? Well, in 2 years (or so) I’ll be a tUMD alumna and no one will ever ask that question again. Indoctrination will be assumed.
Anyway, now that I’m your neighbor/classmate/superior in every way, please say hello! I’ll be the only student on campus with an AARP card (since Danberg graduated), gray hair, and a walker.
UMD Adds Blue Chip Recruit to 2013 Class
Duluth, MN
When UMD Head Coach Scott Sandelin commented weeks ago that he was done recruiting for the year, he wasn’t expecting to land one of the most sought-after recruits in hockey. Tuesday, Coach Sandelin, Coach Miller, and the athletic department announced they would be adding a blue-chip recruit, stolen right out of the back yard of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Blogger Runnin’ with the Dogs will be on campus come September.
“RWD is a most welcome late addition to the team. She is at the top of the NHL Central Scouting’s blogger rankings, she’s honed her craft over nearly a decade, and we have had our eye on recruiting her as she made her way from the club level at the University of Illinois and the D-3 level at Augsburg College. RWD is a blogger any coach in D-1 hockey would be pleased to have on their starting roster, and we’re glad we could come to an agreement with her,” Coach Sandelin said in a statement released Tuesday morning.
New UMD Athletic Director Josh Berlo echoed Sandelin’s enthusiasm. “Knowing we have such a talented blogger on the roster this fall is part of what will make UMD hockey a world-class program. No other team in the NCHC, nor in college hockey at all, has a blogger on this level. We are proud to welcome RWD to the team.”
Coach Miller was also pleased to have RWD aboard. “RWD is an asset to this University and to our athletic department, and I am so glad we were able to lock up her commitment.” Coach Miller also noted that RWD is neither Swedish nor Canadian, but is a homegrown Minnesota talent.
Radio voice of the Bulldogs, Bruce Ciskie, merely groaned in annoyance and rolled his eyes, then returned to writing his 1000-page tirade on officiating.
RWD was not immediately available for comment, but she is expected to release a statement of her own in the near future.
Other schools RWD was considering include NCHC in-state rival St. Cloud State University; UMD’s little sister school, the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; and the University of Maine.
Ode To A Retired Guy
Today is the official end of an era.
For 35 years, 2 months and 3 days (according to his blog), Kevin Pates has been on the Duluth News Tribune staff, and he is retiring today, and moving to Arizona. Presumably to train for his return to the Grandma’s Marathon course as a runner.
I appreciate and admire Pates’s approach to sportswriting, an approach that grows rarer with every retirement of a longtime newswriter and every launch of a new fan blog. His stories are concise, tight, factual, and give the reader a clear sense of what happened in the game. He doesn’t pander to the rabid fans nor antagonize anyone; he writes stories for any audience to read. Even when he was dragged into the sphere of social media, he did it his own, professional, non-swearing (ahem!) way. His style is obviously the antithesis of everything RWD stands for, but there would be no purpose for RWD if I was simply aping what Pates does, hundreds of times better than I could do. It is important to read a sports story without bias. Or with cleverly hidden, carefully disguised bias.
And that’s what I enjoyed the most about reading Pates’s columns and blogs, joining his game night chat rooms on occasion, and following his tweets. He occasionally let the curtain slip. In the most diplomatic, irreproachable fashion, he’d sometimes let us in on what he really thought about a referee’s call or a coach’s comment or a player’s actions. While the rest of us would rage about some call that resulted in an overturned goal or an unwarranted penalty, Pates would make some comment about how “It would certainly seem as if the puck was in the net.” (Paraphrasing here.) After an infamous drive with Bruce Ciskie in the UP, he remarked how it was surprising that a campaign sign could so closely resemble a deer. Behind his professional demeanor in his columns and blogs, there’s a sly, dry wit.
After tUMD won the national championship in 2011, I asked Pates how he reacted when Kyle Schmidt scored the game-winning goal. While the rest of us were sobbing, doing snow angels, or shouting “YEAH BABY!!!!!,” Pates told me he smiled and filed his story. He’s the quintessential newspaperman, and we have been lucky to have such a fantastic beat writer.
Best wishes for a long and fulfilling retirement!
–RWD
Runnin' With the Dogs 