>On A Ledge
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Really, need I say more?
>Great Hockey Minds
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First up: Scholar Athletes!
Here’s the official definition. A Scholar-Athlete must first of all had at least one year at their current institution (meaning no transfers or freshmen) and must have maintained a 3.5 GPA either overall or for the previous 2 semesters or 3 quarters.
tUMD’s Scholar-Athletes are:
Aaron Crandall (Business)
Keegan Flaherty (Business)
Kenny Reiter (Finance)
Kyle Schmidt (Statistics and Actuarial Science)
Kyle and Kenny are repeat offenders, while Keegan and Aaron are first-timers. Kyle should probably be named the WCHA Student-Athlete of the year, if the voters have any sort of credibility at all. We won’t find out until March. Congratulations to all four gentlemen!
Here’s how the other member schools stack up:
UAA – 3
Bemidji – 11
CC – 3
Denver – 5
MTU – 5
UMTC – 3
MSUM – 5
UNO – 3
UND – 5
SCSU – 6
UW -0
>File Under: I, For Irony
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Saturday night, Feb. 5,
2011, will be remembered as Jack Connolly night. The junior from Calgary tied a
UMD Bulldog men’s hockey record by scoring five goals in one contest. That is
not a misprint. Jack Connolly scored five goals in a Division I hockey game on
Saturday night.
>Gophers Screwed Out of WCHA Championship
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tUMD 6, UMTC 4
In what has become a disturbing trend in college hockey recently, the Minnesota Gophers were once again denied their rightful wins by the shameful officiating of Don Adam, Timm Walsh, Jarod Moen and Jeff Schultz.
Friday night, the Bulldogs scored when goaltender Kent Patterson made a save on Justin Fontaine, but forward Nico Sacchetti kicked the puck into the net. Head Coach Don Lucia was disgusted with the call.
“That was a terrible call. The puck was kicked into the net. It should have been reviewed and overturned. A puck cannot be kicked into the net,” Lucia told reporters after Friday’s game. When reminded that the rule does not apply to defensive players, Lucia merely continued, “It was kicked in, it should have been waved off. Or called goaltender interference. A player was interfering with the goaltender’s ability to make a save. It doesn’t matter who. We should have had a power play.”
The game ended in a tie, instead of the win the Gophers clearly earned.
On Saturday, the Gophers went down 3-0 before battling back to put the game within one. First-round draft pick and high school superstar Patrick White appeared to score the game winning goal, when the beleaguered Sacchetti was called for goaltender interference and the Bulldogs were awarded a power play. Assistant Coach John Hill commented after the game.
“This call changed the tone of the game. If we had been awarded this goal they earned fair and square, they would have gone on to score again, and then we would have had a power play goal, followed by a shorthanded goal, and then two more even strength goals. The refs are the only thing standing in the way of us scoring those goals. The goaltender needs to make the save, regardless of what other players might be interfering. It’s part of hockey. The Bulldogs got that power play, and that’s what caused us to be shut out by Anchorage last weekend. In fact, I think the officiating in this game prevented us from sweeping North Dakota a few weeks ago. If not for this weekend series, we would be on top of the league standings. I will be writing up a formal complaint to the league.”
The Bulldogs won 6-4, with Mike Connolly scoring five goals. Young assistant coach Grant Potulny commented on Connolly’s performance.
“I don’t know that any of those goals can count. The Bulldogs were using illegal players. I mean, Connolly isn’t even an American. The way I see it, the real score last night was 4-0.”
Even Athletic Director Joel Maturi was incensed. “We pay good money for these wins, and we’re getting ripped off.”
>Jersey Chasing
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Just wanted to say, I now own this:
Carry on.
>So What?
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I wonder why people act like this. Every single fan has made a conscious choice to cheer for their team. It’s a choice that those of us who struggle through hard times with our teams have to make over and over again. Guess what? We know we haven’t won a national championship ever, or in a long time, or we’re losing the all-time series against your team, or we don’t have as many NHL alumni, or as nice an arena, or as many fans, or as much TV exposure, or whatever. It’s not a secret. And yet we still choose to cheer for our teams. If you don’t get it, well, just get out of the way.
I grew up in the Twin Cities and I could be a Gopher fan if I wanted to. I could be a Merrimack fan if I wanted to, although it’s not that convenient. My point is anyone can be a fan of any team they want to. There is no quota of Gopher fans that has already been exceeded; we fans are not “Gopher rejects” forced to flounder about latching on to any team that is willing to take us.
I talked to MEg about this very subject, as her team is, well, sucking. She said that “Everyone has the right to cheer for their team, even if that team is Michigan Tech.” Her major pet peeve is the “scoreboard” chant. “What? I didn’t know my team was losing! There are only two and a half more periods to go! There is no way we can overcome this! I’ll leave now!” she said. I could practically hear her rolling her eyes over the phone.
So, indeed. We. Get. It. tUMD fans know they haven’t won a national championship ever. Tech fans know they have a 22-game winless streak. Other fans know other, unnamed things. It’s one thing to say a team sucks or make fun of their record or thump one’s chest over one’s team’s past achievements. It’s another to question another person’s fanaticism or imply there are only certain teams worth supporting.
Of course, we retain the moral superiority of knowing we are true fans who support our teams through thick and thin, not crybabies who wring their hands over *gasp* not having a national championship in the last five years!!! OMG!!! Other teams than us have won!!! Suicide!!!!
So, there’s that.
>STALOCK! STALOCK!
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I am freaking shaking right now. Our Stalock, who art in goal, got his first NHL win tonight!!!!! He came in against the Coyotes when the Sharks were down 3-0. Former Badger Joe Pavelski scored toward the end of the 2nd, and then had another in the 3rd, Kyle Wellwood scored to tie it up, and then Patrick Marleau had a shorthanded goal to tie the game and the Joe Thornton sealed the deal with an empty net goal. Stalock was a perfect 9 for 9 on saves.
AND I FREAKING FLIPPED THE FREAK OUT. I screamed pretty much nonstop through the game once Al came in. There’s nothing on YouTube yet but I’ll try to get some stuff up tomorrow if anything appears.
I am SO EXCITED. I don’t know how I’m going to sleep. At the end I was jumping around and screaming. If you follow me on Twitter, you know. If you don’t follow me on Twitter, well, dooo it.
>All Work and No Play
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First off, he has a new blog entry up. He talks a little about what the team did in practice in the off-week. I don’t plan on posting here every time there is a new Jacky Blog entry so you should be checking that out on your own.
I think the team should just get an official blog that Christian or some intern could run/write, and then the player could have their posts there. Then they could have a neater design and have individual blog posts instead of having every post on the same page. tUMD’s website doesn’t give a whole lot of freedom.
So Jack linked to an interview he did for “This Week in the USHL.” The host of this show sounds totally hilarious. Between exceptionally long monologues by the host, Jack talks about the new arena, being a Duluth native, the state of the program and his development in the USHL.
I also got a tip from Angel on Facebook that he had done another interview on the Northland News Center’s site. Jack gives the team a B+/A- so far, discusses the AMSoil opener and the Gophers series (where he said we ran into a hot goaltender and felt the Dogs played better, which I disagree with, they may have played better but they played nowhere near their potential) and the team’s focus down the stretch (winning the McNaughton cup).
Thank goodness that the bye week is over and the Wild will be back Tuesday and tDogs on Friday!!!
>Mama Said Knock You Out
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I can’t believe that’s My Nisky! I barely recognize him! He’s all grown up now. He punches strangely, though.
>Tom Miller is My Hero (And Other Stories)
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First, UND fans. I know, I know. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s almost too easy. Also they are like cannibals over there, eating their own. Today, though, the Grand Forks Herald’s Tom Miller wrote a hilarious column about how Sioux fans are ready to jump off a cliff (after traveling to another state to locate said cliff) because they have lost a few games.
I just have one issue with the article. Miller writes:
The online message board Siouxsports.com even saw its legendary and laughable “Fire head coach Dave Hakstol” thread re-emerge. It’s five pages of babble and counting.
Tom, come on. Be serious. It’s five thousand pages of babble and counting.
Next up, My Jacky. Okay, I’m not actually going to make fun of him. I am just going to point out that he is blogging over at tUMD’s website.
So far he’s got three posts, and while they are a good start, there’s nothing on there other than the movies they watched on the bus that we could not read in a beat writer’s blog or newspaper article. (Well, you could, I could not because of the boycott, which is going well, thank you.) I don’t know about other fans’ opinions, but I can’t imagine they differ much from mine, and I would like to see more behind-the-scenes information. The best parts about Drew Akins’s blog last year were his little jokes about his teammates or his little insights into his quotidian life as a hockey player. So, more of that! However, if I see that he starts writing about hotties and interviewing opposing fans in a humorous manner, I’m coming after him!
It seems like there should be a third topic here but there is not. I’m trying to avoid stressing about the upcoming Gopher series. Someone asked me if there would be a Gauntlet and I don’t think so. Brent sort of ruined it for everyone else. I will probably do a story on Gopher fans and Bulldog fans skating together arm and arm in harmony at AA or something.
Runnin' With the Dogs 