>Lovely Day
>
I can’t do it justice tonight. But please know that I am so happy that I did not bleach and subsequently ruin my hair for nothing. And I cried when we won. And I cried about 10 other times.
Max Tardy, I am sorry I doubted you. I am so, so, so excited that you scored your first career goal in the biggest game in program history.
This is unbelievable. And it’s TRUE. It’s REAL. And IT FINALLY HAPPENED.
>Just Do It
>
Win it for us.
Win it for your coach, Bill Watson. Give him the ring he should have had 27 years ago. And don’t take 4 OTs to do it. And good lord, Kenny, stay in the net, because Bulldogs fans cannot handle another fluky DECC hop garbage BS goal and I want to PUKE when I see that Bowling Green banner hanging at the X because THAT SHOULD BE OURS.
Win it for your old captain, Andrew Carroll. The consummate hard worker, who willed himself and his teammates to be better. Win it for him, as vindication for that Miami game.
Win it for Dick Stewart. Win it for his windsock and his dedication to the youth hockey players of Duluth. Win it because you bought your gear from him. Win it because he lost his vision at a Bulldogs game.
Win it for Isaac, for Junior, for Schwabe, Timmay, Hards, Geisler, Unks, for those guys who brought us so close in Boston.
Win it for the students, the ones who make up cheers and signs and drink to the wins and the losses and get the crowd going. Win it for the former runners of the goal lap. Win it for your classmates and your neighbors.
Win it for the DECC. The arena you closed down in style just over four months ago. The arena where Bulldog legends have played. Win it and do something they didn’t. Win it and make your mark on both buildings.
Win it for the city of Duluth, the people who voted to give you this beautiful new arena. Win it for AMSoil and hang a banner next October.
Win it for Hoagy. Because there’s no one more dedicated, more caring, and more invested in you guys than he is. Win it for all he’s given the program for so many years.
Win it for your fans. For those of us who sat through the agony of defeat, through seasons where wins were scarce, through seasons where talent was wasted, through seasons where the highest scorer would finish 8th on the team in points. Win it for those of us who have lost hope and then found it again and again. Win it for those of us who spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to see you play. Win it for those of us who have driven hundreds or thousands of miles to see you play. Win it for people following you all around the world. Win it for the folks who have made total fools of themselves in public, in print, in pictures, and on television. Win it for the fans who are starving for a championship, who have been waiting half a century to see this happen. Win it in the state you play in, the home state for many of you, the adopted home state for others. Win it in front of a crowd that will overwhelmingly support you.
Win it for us. Win it for each other. Win it for yourself. Go get ’em, Dogs.
>There and Back Again: A Bulldog’s Tale
>
>No Joke
>
There’s nothing funny about winning.
Over the years I have had some horrible losses to write about. I mean, including this year. I try to spin the losses with humour, which is the entire foundation of this site, but with losses that makes sense. One needs a good laugh to dull the pain.
With winning, one doesn’t need to be entertained, as one’s already going OUT OF THEIR FREAKIN’ MIND WITH JOY AND EXCITEMENT!
Which, by the way, I am, and I know you are all as well.
We arrived at the GPL tailgate just after 12 to a much smaller crowd than was at the Final Five, but that’s expected. Still, it was great that the die-hards were there, no one does a tailgate like the GPL crew.
I missed the red carpet arrival because I was HOPING to get some food before heading over. I met up with my buddy and former UW blogger Badger Backer and made his friend and him come with me, then felt like a total tool when we missed it. Blah.
Honestly, I kind of wanted to die when tUMD gave up a goal 49 seconds in. It was just… so horrifying and sad and I thought it was the beginning of the end. JT Brown thought otherwise and found the back of the net so decisively that the puck bounced back out again. Something called TJ Tynan scored to get the Leprechauns another pot of gold, and I was ready to puke, and Kyle Schmidt was all “I have a bionic hand!” and we were at deuces. MCON scored another PPG and then the first period was over. You know, for some teams that’s an entire game worth of scoring.
Not so for the Bulldogs, who were DOMINANT in the second period. Jack Connolly and his beard got a lovely power play goal (they were 3 for 6 on the PP, which is a Union-like stat, except we did it against a good team, not Army) and weathered some QUESTIONABLE penalties and QUESTIONABLE NON-CALLS ON INTERFERENCE and headed into the 3rd period with a two-goal lead.
The Leprechauns got a short handed goal by borrowing a player from their women’s team named “Calle Ridderwall.” tUMD was in the offensive zone battling for the puck along the endboards and totally jacked it up. WIN BATTLES WHEN YOU HAVE MORE PLAYERS. WHOA. The Leps took the puck all the way to the other and and into the Bulldog net, and then fear took over and I was unable feel any sort of confidence or hope we were going to hold the lead.
tUMD weathered a penalty for “Leprechaun dropping his stick” as well as 1:08 of extra attacking scariness and as the clock wound down the final seconds I was on my feet, knees shaking, and I nearly blacked out from the sheer panic and excitement and disbelief.
THE UMD BULLDOGS ARE GOING TO PLAY FOR A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.
>Sing Out
>
When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark
Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone
You’ll never walk alone
>Racist Mascots, Part Deux
>
>Sasquatch
>
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
>On the Road
>
The yellow brick road. The road not taken. The long and winding road. The road to redemption. Whatever we’re on here, it’s a helluva ride.
There were times when many of us wanted to give up. There were times when we felt like the season was slipping through our fingers. There were times when it felt like our players had given up. Too many times we’d read the same tired old quotations in the papers after a loss. “We weren’t ready to play.” “We didn’t have the effort.” “We didn’t play as well as we thought we could.” It was disheartening.
Instead, this weekend tUMD showed exactly what kind of team they really are. Gritty, defensively sound, with explosive offense. tUMD chased Yale’s goaltender from the game after he gave up five goals, a season high. The power play was lethal, and they got a shorthanded goal and killed off a two-man disadvantage, which was actually more like a 2 1/2 man disadvantage as one player did not have a stick.
We’ve had our ups and downs, our roadblocks and setbacks. Forwards, defencemen, goalies, fans, everyone. We lost a player to the pros at mid-season. We had a horrible first game in our new rink. We limped into the playoffs, some might say. We lost to a lesser team in the Final Five.
And we closed down our rink in style. We won a marathon 3OT game. We had a player put up five goals on the southern branch of our school. We never got swept, never lost back to back games. We have a Hobey Baker finalist. AND WE ARE GOING TO THE FROZEN FOUR.
And by we, I mean the players of course.
Certainly there was a lot of pressure on tUMD on Saturday. Yale was ranked as the top team in the PWR, which comes with its own pressures, but most folks felt that ranking was undeserved, which means losing to them would be a bit shameful. I’m sure that was more in the minds of fans than anything else. (I think it’s funny that fans think they know the mindset of players; one fan of a nameless team [literally] stated that tUMD deliberately lost to Bemidji in order to get placed in the East regional, which is ludicrous.)
tUMD had to weather quite the storm in the first period; the first ten minutes were uneventful but then they had to fight off the two-man disadvantage, followed by another penalty, and Kenny Reiter and the penalty kill stood tall. Then MCON and Fonz had a 2 on 1 on the PK and Mikey scored, then plowed over a Yale player and taunted him. And that set the tone for the game.
Bergy scored even strength on a soft goal that Rondeau just… I don’t know, missed? He tried to catch it and looked like… well, what I would look like if I played goalie. Yale started to get chippy, and Jack Connolly scored a sick goal from a wicked angle on a power play after a Yale played ran Kenny.
Yale’s Brian O’Neill scored on a power play and gave them a little life. Then he decided to run Jake Hendrickson and head-butt him. I thought Yale students were supposed to be smart, but I cannot think of a dumber thing to do. It wasn’t O’Neill’s first dangerous hit on a tUMD player; he also took an elbowing penalty earlier in the second. The referees decided to kick him out of the game. This was certainly a fortuitous call for tUMD and a backbreaker for Yale, but perhaps Mr. O’Neill will think twice about headshots now, knowing that his desire to injure other players contributed to the end of his team’s season.
My Guy Mike Seidel scored on the power play 20 seconds in, and then when another Yale player made a dumb mistake and put them down two players, Justin Fontaine cashed in on a lovely tic-tac-toe play.
Yale scored two in the third period, which was enough to cause severe panic for Biddco and me. My heart was pounding and my legs were shaking. I couldn’t stay still and had to pace around a little bit, then sit down, then stand, then sit. I couldn’t even eat the green bean casserole with bacon that MEg had made.
Then tUMD’s brilliant defence kicked in, and while I was still scared out of my mind, they remained calm and collected and in control. It wasn’t until there were about 30 seconds left in the game that I really, truly believed we would win the game.
And then an overwhelming sense of relief flooded over me. I was completely exhausted when we got home after we finished watching the Ugly Helmets – CC game, and still somewhat unable to believe that tUMD is going to be in the Frozen Four. Two more wins and we can finally get that title. 27 years after we should have gotten the first one.
For once, it’s not just about the journey, but the destination. GO BULLDOGS!!!!!
>Speechless
>tUMD 5, Fauxdogs 3
WE’RE GOING TO THE FROZEN FOUR.
More tomorrow.
>Afternoon Delight
>
I keep thinking I need to remember to use this post title during a day game and I keep forgetting. Well, I waited for the opportune moment on this one.
I didn’t watch a single second of this game. I was at work. It practically killed me to be at work, BTW, but I suffered through. I work hard for the monies.
And when I say suffered, I mean SUFFERED. Holy mother. I was completely distracted, my heart was pounding, and I thought I was going to puke. Good god was that stressful. I sent a frantic email to one of my friends sort of jabbering on about how freaked out I was about the game. Then I wrote “Gee, I guess I’m not helping, am I?” She wrote back “NO YOU’RE NOT!” Ha.
So I made it through the game by Twitter and by texts. Thanks DA for the texts. Even though you caused serious heart attacks by writing ambiguous things like “They are going on the power play,” and I was like “THEY WHO?????”
Union had a 31% power play and only had nine games where they failed to score on the PP. Well, now ten. tUMD’s penalty killers, from Kenny Reiter on out, kept the Racist Mascots 0/9 on the power play, while tUMD’s own power play went 2/8. I would say it’s unfortunate that we could only score on the power play, but let’s see here, I crunched some numbers, and here’s how the game broke down: 49% 6×6, 27% Union PP, 18% UMD PP, 3% 5×5, 2% 6×6 with Union’s net empty and 1% tUMD 6×4. Insane. Totally weird game.
I had a brief respite from my sheer panic while watching the Yale-AF game and the extremely enjoyable CC-BC game, but now I’m back to panicking. While Yale isn’t head and shoulders above every other team in college hockey, they’re not pushovers either, and it’s going to be tough.
Just three more wins boys. One more and you’re in St. Paul. Three more and you will complete me.
Runnin' With the Dogs 