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DJExile posted:Yeah LSSU going on a run out of nowhere would honestly be pretty fun. They haven't made the tournament in nearly 30 years and they quietly had a phenomenal year. They won the WCHA tourney it looks like, but the WCHA isn't what it used to be. It'll be interesting to see how they do against one of the bigger programs. I'm just waiting for the Gopher Men's team to do what they normally do and be mediocre once it really counts. LaFontaine is 21-6-0 with a 1.74 gaa and .936 save% and I still can't believe they'll do better than beating Nebraska-Omaha. It may have something to do with only having seen any of their play on the weekends they were swept by Notre Dame and Wisconsin. Except the Gopher Women's team, they're usually pretty good.
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Mar 23, 2021 21:13
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DJExile posted:The current iteration of the WCHA has basically been Minnesota State just heads and tails above everyone else. BG, Fightin' Nerds and maybe Bemidji are usually the battle for 2nd place. I'd guess that will end up as UND vs Duluth, but only because that'll be a step beyond on the personal grudge'o'meter. UND should get out of their region just fine though. The St Cloud v BU game should be pretty decent too. A lot of teams haven't played enough to really know if they're good enough or not, and not having much non-conference play really lessens the comparisons. First regional games are not usually amazing. The 2/3 seed games are better at least, but it'll heat up in the reginal finals. Minnesota v Mankato would be a good one, and a BU v BC game would be fun. It just doesn't have the same feeling this year.
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Mar 24, 2021 01:42
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DJExile posted:Can't help but wonder if that'll be the only game that gets nixed like that Everyone else should have already hit their medical checks I’d expect? I saw a quote from their head coach saying it was multiple positives and then most of the rest of the team was close contacts to the positives. I’d expect all the other teams arrived at their hubs already and have had their testing done? Games start today so I’d guess we’ll hear soon.
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Mar 26, 2021 15:56
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Yep, Gophers losing to Mankato, sounds about right. :/
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Mar 29, 2021 03:23
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:That indeed sucks. Just like Minnesota State sucks. I can get behind this sentiment. But may I add that St Cloud State also sucks. (And UMD for good measure). I do like when MN schools win the NCAA at least, but I wish the big one could pull it off more often.
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Apr 9, 2021 02:50
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I really appreciate all the dunking people are doing on St Cloud right now. It warms my cold heart. That made it 3 Minnesota teams that UMass had to beat to win it I think? Also, everyone is correct about St Cloud being full of rocks. If they knew how to party and learn, they'd have gone to a real University*. *I mean, I guess that includes Duluth, but only unintentionally.
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Apr 11, 2021 04:44
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habeasdorkus posted:A Catholic school in Springfield won the national high school championship two weeks after UMass won the Frozen Four. It's been a moment for Western MA hockey. :-p Lols. They beat the cake eaters that had been hanging 7-8 on everyone else. So they too beat a team from Minnesota for it. Good job Massachusetts.
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Apr 28, 2021 15:51
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Bloopsy posted:This is pretty interesting. A+. The more D1 teams the better. I’m sure it’ll take a few years to get running and get the program steady. As much as I’m a fan of there being 6(7 now?) D1 programs in Minnesota, it’ll be nice to have more from other places too. I’ll even hope the Gophers (and many other big programs) schedule some games with them to help bring some good attention.
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Apr 30, 2021 04:28
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Troy Queef posted:You can do a DII/DI split for hockey (Lake State, Mankato, Cloud, UMD all do this) because there is no Div II championship for hockey. DIII/DI splits are frowned upon, and Union/RIT, who both moved up to join the grandfathered four (SLU-NY, Clarkson, RPI, and CC) can’t give out scholarships. This didn't even cross my mind when I saw that St Thomas (Minnesota) was moving to D-I hockey next season. Turns out the MAIC kind of kicked them out for being too good at sports and they moved everything to D-I. If I remember anything, D-II is a weird middle of rules about scholarships and it contributes to why it doesn't come up as often.
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May 5, 2021 15:49
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I hope the players get what they're needing from this? There was an investigation done last year into it, and UMN found out they did a poo poo job for the one season in the 80s with this. So I wouldn't expect they argue about those players' experiences with a sexual predator and I'd hope they can just settle it for the players' sake. That was the season Mike Guentzel was still a student and the year before Doug Woog got the head coaching job. So a long time ago, and a long time for those guys to carry this around.
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May 13, 2021 16:10
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DJExile posted:yeah The sad part of that is there are high schools in Minnesota with lower enrollment with better arenas (and programs) than some of these colleges. This is even if you exclude Shattuck-St Mary's and not only in the Twin Cities. People sometimes get confused about that, but it really is Canada south up there. It's one of those sports where if it's popular, it's really popular. If it's not, it's just a money sink because they forget to budget for maintaining/replacing expensive cooling systems. It's always disappointing to see it when one closes, but UA-H has been on the ledge for a decade about shutting it, most notably because the University of Alabama gets to control the sports budget. They can actually afford it, but it's not on the main campus and don't want to diversify their sports options because BAMA Football. At least there are still new D-I schools moving up, St. Thomas and Arizona State, but it doesn't fill the void on the east coast.
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May 27, 2021 00:09
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I love this game but it's an absolute money sink for any program that isn't North Dakota, Minnesota, and maybe Boston College. Their statement said it's not COVID related but there's absolutely no way the pandemic (I think they played their whole season with an empty arena) didn't hasten things along. Every school's looking hard at their balance sheets right now and the costs of an on-campus arena are just enormous. Especially when I think RMU's enrollment is... christ, maybe 4,500? I know it's a really small school.
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The WCHA hit that decline as soon as Wisconsin and Minnesota announced they were leaving. And then so did all the other big hockey programs. It was a big part of my college hockey experience, but the only team that’s left of note is Mankato (and that’s not saying much). 2013 was basically the end for the conference, which is a bummer and really just okay now. I have a lot of fun memories of hating UND and UM-D. And that will never go away. So it’s about time. Stick a fork in it. I do imagine that it’ll stick around for the women’s programs though. Unless they’re all jumping ship now too, but considering they’re adding STU I don’t think they’re going anywhere.
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Jun 16, 2021 20:33
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Yes, but Alabama Huntsville will not be affording travel to Alaska twice a year though. They’d probably have to schedule it back to back weekends and just not go home that week. All these programs are too fringe and don’t really fit together. They’re also small programs that aren’t going to get into a big conference either. There’s really not a good solution for it in D-1 hockey. Aside from getting schools that are closer to add more D-1 programs. This would be the best solution, but not one that’s going to happen. Schedule issues are definitely a thing for these teams, and adding a trip to South Dakota for what’s going to be probably too much of a cake walk isn’t going to entice anyone. So you’re right that they need a new conference of their own, and they need to start building and making phone calls. I’d love to see a new one start up and maybe get some west coast teams to add programs. The timing is good for it with Vegas and now Seattle having teams.
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Jun 16, 2021 20:53
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Bloopsy posted:While I agree that a conference of all those schools may not be practical, Huntsville (or at least a spokesperson) said they were willing to shell out $25k to teams that would travel there so the money is there, at least in the short term. The stipulation with them from leadership was that in order to keep going they had to find a conference for this year. From what I understand travel costs are not necessarily an issue for them. It's getting other schools to go down there that was holding them back. Gotcha. It was travel the other way around. Still a big fan of Huntsville having a program, but being in a conference with Alaska programs would only be a stop gap and not solve their issue of being in a part of the country without hockey programs. But good luck convincing schools in that part of the country to have hockey teams (or anything that isn’t men’s football, baseball, basketball, etc).
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Jun 16, 2021 21:39
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DJExile posted:https://twitter.com/JessRMyers/status/1419341307403767812 That's terrible news. Lake Minnetonka is surrounded in dark and winding roads and that just ruins what was probably a fun day on the lake.
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Jul 25, 2021 19:45
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DJExile posted:preseason poll is out, surprised to see Bemidji that high. It makes me laugh that St Thomas gets too good and needs to go to D1 and they're expected to be the basement team in their new conference. I'm expecting Michigan to be really hard to beat in the Big10, but you never know with Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Gopher roster always feels sparse until the season starts, but it will be interesting to see how Chaz Lucius does on the college level.
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Sep 20, 2021 17:00
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habeasdorkus posted:Only one of those things is actually good. How does that even work? Notre Dame is in the midwest already. I must admit that it is very funny that they got destroyed, but I can't be happy about it being St Cloud.
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Oct 4, 2021 06:17
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