North Dakota women rise from 0-4 WCHA launch pad

Under ordinary circumstances, starting a hockey season 0-4 and being outscored 32-3 would be pretty devastating. For the University of North Dakota womenÂ’s team, however, that start served as a potential catalyst for better things to come.

As initiations go, the University of North Dakota womenÂ’s hockey team had an impossible task for opening its first season as a member of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. But as overload training goes, that mission impossible couldnÂ’t have been more effective for the hopeful Sioux.

The assignment for the Sioux was to open their first WCHA season against the University of Minnesota – last year’s WCHA and NCAA champions, and the unanimous No. 1 ranked team in the nation. Next came the first Sioux WCHA road trip, to Duluth, where they would face the University of Minnesota-Duluth – the winners of the only three previous NCAA tournaments, in 2001, 2002 and 2003, and a top-5 rated team against this season.

The powerful Gophers administered 8-0 and 7-1 whippings on North Dakota in the opening series. Then UMD posted 8-1 and 9-1 thumpings in Duluth.

“If you look at the schedule, we had the hardest start of any team in the country,” said Shantel Rivard, UND coach. “They are two of the top five in the country, with one of them being No. 1.”

Rivard knew there was frustration and disappointment about losing those first four games, but she also was confident that her playersÂ’ attitude remained good and the high level of play they faced from the Gophers and Bulldogs would be a springboard for them for the rest of the schedule.

Sure enough, Week 3 found the Sioux traveling to St. Cloud, where freshman Melissa Dianoski from Fairbanks, Alaska, scored her first two collegiate goals and led North Dakota to a 5-3 victory – UND’s first WCHA triumph. The next night, St. Cloud State came back to stifle the Sioux for a 1-0 reversal.

“St. Cloud was tough,” said Rivard. “They outshot us 15-5 the first period in the first game, and we were lucky to get out of it 0-0. Then we went up 4-1 after two periods, but we gave them a little too much room in the third period and they came back before we won it 5-3. The second game, we had trouble putting the puck in the net. With less than a minute left, we thought we scored, which would have tied the game 1-1 and sent us into overtime, but the linesman said the whistle had blown before the puck went in.”

Nevertheless, a series split at St. Cloud sends North Dakota home for the next two weekends, with Ohio State and then Bemidji State coming to Grand Forks for two very important series. After that, with three nonconference series sprinkled in, the Sioux will face Wisconsin on November 20-21, and Minnesota State-Mankato the first weekend of December, which would give North Dakota eight straight WCHA home games. The perfect venue if the Sioux are going to make themselves a factor in their first WCHA season.

Rivard took on the North Dakota task of starting a varsity program three years ago. During two seasons of infancy, North Dakota was 10-14 and 16-14-2, with last season concluding with a 13-0 run. But every game was an exhibition, and Rivard knew the WCHA would present special challenges.

“I knew about the WCHA before I came to North Dakota, and it is everything I anticipated,” said Rivard. “It’s run very professionally. I think it was good that we had to wait two years to come in, so we could develop our program first. We’re up to nine scholarships now, So we’re halfway to where everybody else is.

“It’s all about development. For us, right now, it’s getting to know one another, and moving the puck.”

North Dakota has only two seniors, linemates Marissa Hangsleben and Meaghan Nelson, with five forwards, two defensemen, and goaltender Margaret-Ann Hinkley among the juniors from her first recruiting crop. Sophomores include two forwards, two defensemen and goaltender Amber Hasbargen, who has emerged as the No. 1 netminder after a solid high school career at Warroad. Hasbargen survived after weathering the assaults by Minnesota and UMD and played well in both games at St. Cloud State.

That leaves a large freshman class as North DakotaÂ’s hope for the future. Melissa Dianoski is joined by twin sisters Cami and Cara Wooster from Salvador, Saskatchewan, among freshman forwards, while Christey Allen of St. Andrews, Manitoba, and Stefanie Ubl of Blaine High School in Minnesota are freshman defensemen, and No. 3 goaltender Jenna Burdy is the sixth freshman in the Sioux lineup.

“We lost our top three goal scorers from last year, and Liz Funk is our top returning scorer,” said Rivard. “She’ll contribute once she gets going, if she makes the same improvement from sophomore to junior that she did from her freshman to sophomore years. Our freshmen have the potential to help our scoring right away. Cami Wooster has good hands around the net, and Melissa Dianoski can score.”

Cami Wooster scored the only goal in the two games against Minnesota, and scored again at Duluth, then Dianoski led the one-game scoring outburst at St. Cloud with her two goals.

“They were really pretty goals, too,” said Rivard. “On the first one, she had just come on for a line change, grabbed the puck and moved in with a little patience. It was a goal-scorer’s goal. The second one was on a rebound, but it was off a faceoff play.”

Looking back at the Minnesota and UMD weekends, the Sioux were facing some of the elite womenÂ’s players in the country. U.S. Olympians Krissy Wendell and Natalie Darwitz led the Gophers, but they were ahead only 1-0 after one period. Minnesota broke loose after that, but four of the eight goals were on power plays. The next night, Minnesota led 4-0 after a period, but again the Gophers were 4-for-5 on the power play.

At UMD, Canadian Olympic star Caroline Ouellette was named WCHA offensive player of the week with 11 points, getting six assists in the 8-1, when UMD scored four power-play goals, and two goals and three assists in the second game, when UMD scored five more power-play goals.

So, as lopsided as those first four games were for the Sioux, 17 of the 32 goals scored by Minnesota and UMD came on power plays. The best teams, typically, have the best power plays, and Minnesota and UMD are no exceptions to that theory.

While Minnesota and UMD have raised national standards for women’s hockey while also calling attention to the caliber of the WCHA, Wisconsin is ranked right up there in the top five nationally as well. “You’ve got Minnesota, Dartmouth, Harvard, UMD, Wisconsin and maybe St. Lawrence as the best teams in the country,” said Rivard. “We don’t fit in there yet, but we will.”

Of more critical importance is the present. “The games this weekend with Ohio State are really important,” Rivard added. “But every game is big, this year.”

Gophers claim, but don’t touch, MacNaughton Cup

From coach Don Lucia on down, the University of Minnesota hockey players frequently insisted they didn’t care about winning the WCHA regular-season championship. They had their focus set on a bigger prize – the NCAA title, of course.

If there was reason for the Gophers to give themselves the psychological benefit of a rationale for NOT winning the title, it would be because no Golden Gopher team in LuciaÂ’s first six years as coach won the league title, even though theyÂ’d previously won two WCHA playoff titles and two NCAA championships.

When it came to the WCHA regular season, the Gophers last shared the title with North Dakota in 1997, and the last time Minnesota won a WCHA title outright was in 1992 – 14 years ago. Ever since then, the Golden Gophers have had to explain why they DIDN’T win it, and that includes the 1997 finish, which was something of a bittersweet achievement. The Fighting Sioux had already clinched the WCHA title, hoisted the MacNaughton Cup, been granted the playoff top seed, and they obviously took the final weekend off and coasted through a pair of meaningless losses while looking ahead at the playoffs. Credit former Sioux coach Dean Blais for ignoring the “one game at a time” approach in his impatience to stockpile championships throughout his tenure.

This season, until a month ago it seemed that Wisconsin or Denver had a better chance to win the title, so the word around Mariucci was that the Gophers didnÂ’t really care all that much about it. Strangely enough, right about then Wisconsin lost its free-wheeling edge and struggled for much of the stretch run, and the Gophers swept Denver to knock the wheels off the Pioneer bandwagon. Minnesota, all the while, just kept on winning at a sizzling pace – losing just once in calendar 2006 — to run away with the crown.

Focus or not, when the Gophers were officially presented with the MacNaughton Cup at Mariucci Arena last Friday night, after shutting out Minnesota-Duluth for the first of two times. Instead of going properly crazy, the Golden Gophers treated the MacNaughton Cup like it might be infected with bird flu.

Captain Gino Guyer was all smiles as he accepted the Cup from WCHA commissioner Bruce McLeod, but he didnÂ’t really raise the stunning and shapely silver chalice to the rafters, the way Wimbledon tennis champs, or Stanley Cup Playoff winners, do. He carried it, properly and respectfully, out to center ice, where he set it on the center faceoff spot while his teammates stood around on the circle. They stood at attention, tapped their sticks on the ice, and simultaneously raised them high, in a time-honored international salute that former coach Herb Brooks first started with the Gophers three decades earlier.

On one hand, it was a very tastefully restrained salute, and on the other, the Gophers didn’t want to get within stick’s reach of the thing. “We had talked it over, and the players all decided to minimize how much we touched it,” said Guyer. “I was just carrying out what the players decided to do.”

The Stanley Cup, which goes to the National Hockey LeagueÂ’s playoff champion, is undoubtedly the best-known trophy in hockey, if not all sports. Over the years, however, so many new bands have been added to incorporate all the names of all the winning teams, that Lord StanleyÂ’s once-splendid cup has grown taller and taller, and magnificent as it is, it looks a lot like a fire hydrant, or at least a silver garbage can with a big bowl on top.
By comparison, the MacNaughton Cup is a visi
on of splendor. It dates back to the WCHAÂ’s early years, when it originally was created by a Michigan Tech backer and donated to the Huskies, who later donated it to the WCHA, where it became the treasured signature of the regular season championship. It resides with great pride and circumstance in a trophy case at the winning school for the next year.

As the Gophers turn to the WCHA playoffs, and a series against 10th place Alaska-Anchorage this weekend, on the nationÂ’s longest winning streak (11-0-1), with a string of three straight shutouts, while giving up only six goals in their last six games, plus a WCHA record of 20-5-3 for 43 points, to runner-up DenverÂ’s 18-8-2 for 38 points, as well as an overall 25-6-2 mark that has earned the Gophers the No. 1 ranking in every national poll, including the pairwise projection that duplicates the NCAA selection committeeÂ’s seedings.

The series against UMD showed how far the Gophers have come this season. And maybe how far the Bulldogs have fallen. Back on Nov. 4-5, the Gophers were lucky to get a 2-2 tie at Duluth when GuyerÂ’s sprawling backhander produced the equalizer in the closing minutes. The next night, UMD handed the Gophers a 4-3 loss, and UMD looked more like the title contender than Minnesota.

Flash forward to March, and the Gophers are coming in like lions and the Bulldogs are the lambs. Minnesota is on an 18-1-1 run since being swept at home by Wisconsin on Dec. 2-3, while UMD seems powerless to stop a 1-13 skid, in which the Bulldogs have averaged barely over a half-goal a game, while giving up close to five a game.

“At the beginning of the year, I was definitely impressed at how UMD was playing,” said Guyer. “I really expected them to come out hard against us this weekend.”

Caught in what looks like a hopeless tailspin, UMD barely put up a fight against the one team that almost invariably gets their blood pumping. Minnesota won 7-0 the first game, getting two goals each from freshman Ryan Stoa and sophomore Evan Kaufmann, and one each from Mike Vannelli, Ben Gordon and Danny Irmen. Minnesota blew it open with four second-period goals, prompting UMD coach Scott Sandelin to say: “That second period really killed us.”

In reality, the first period was less than a masterpiece for UMD, which got off only one shot on goal in the 1-0 first period. That was only barely better than Alaska-Anchorage managed a week earlier in the second period against the Gophers, when the Seawolves got no shots – as in zero – which, for cynics, is believed to at least tie the all-time college hockey record for fewest shots in a period.

Goaltender Kellen Briggs got the first-game shutout for Minnesota, but he could have snoozed through most of it. Freshman Jeff Frazee, who’s been in and out of Lucia’s doghouse with “team rule violations” as much as he’s been in and out of the nets, got a 2-0 shutout in the second game. While UMD worked much harder in that one, the Bulldogs never mounted anything resembling a threatening offense, and the Gophers cruised to victory on Ryan Potulny’s first-period goal, and a late empty-netter, also by Potulny, who ended the regular season as the nation’s top goal-scorer with 31.

The only highlight for UMD was that little-used sophomore Nate Ziegelmann drew the short straw from Sandelin and tended goal in the second game, making 31 saves while allowing just one goal. Ziegelmann, who also played in a game at North Dakota during the earlier stages of UMDÂ’s no-offensive-support mode, is from Grand Forks, where he got to know Potulny up-close and personal.

“We were teammates since junior high,” said Potulny, who has emerged as a Hobey Baker Award favorite. “We also played at Lincoln in the USHL together.”

It was suggested to Potulny that in all those years playing with Ziegelmann also meant practicing against him, so Potulny must have shot 3,000 pucks past him. Potulny sidestepped that one the same way he’d elude a checker, by saying: “Maybe, but he’s stopped me 3,000 times, too.”

That’s probably the best ratio any goaltender has against Potulny, who is the offesnsive barometer for the Gophers. While the team defense snapped suddenly into focus after being swept by Wisconsin, Potulny’s scoring – 31 goals, 23 assists for 54 points – always signal success. Minnesota is 16-3-1 when Potulny scores a goal, and 24-3-1 when he gets either a goal or an assist.

Meanwhile, back at the MacNaughton Cup, sitting there at center ice. The best photo was of a half-dozen media photographers, who had ignored the once-fashionable idea they were taught in photo-journalism of not being obtrusive to get right up close in that circle with the Gophers – poised for the inevitable photos of the arena-circling hefting of the Cup. Instead, the players finished their stick salute and trooped off. Guyer stayed, but only to make sure some equipment guy would pick up the Cup. Then he, too, skated off the ice, leaving the photographers and television cameramen standing at center ice, alone with the MacNaughton Cup.

“Don’t get me wrong, we’re proud to have won it,” said Guyer. “But nobody else touched the Cup but me. We’re waiting for bigger things.”
Bigger things? If the Gophers win the NCAA title they will get a very nice, very tasteful plaque. Nothing like a big silver chalice, and certainly nothing like the MacNaughton Cup.

“I told the players to have fun with it, enjoy it,” said Lucia, with a shrug.

“We were only two games over .500 in December, and then we got going. Then we got into what looked like the top three, and then we were in the hunt. I just didn’t want us to get consumed by that. We looked at a stretch of North Dakota, CC and Wisconsin right in a row in January, and I was thinking we might be doing well to go 3-3 in that stretch, but we went 5-1. That put us in good shape. But our guys were hungry to win the league at the end.”

Lucia hasn’t taken his, or his team’s focus off the NCAA prize, but he knows the importance of maintaining the momentum. “We want to win the first round, so we can play in that venue,” he said, referring to next week’s WCHA Final Five at Xcel Center.

WCHA rivals are already aware of the red-hot Gophers of course. Their added challenge is that after winning a WCHA regular-season championship they said they didn’t really care about, and virtually ignoring the magnificent MacNaughton Cup, now they enter the WCHA league playoffs – the NEXT objective the Gophers don’t care about winning. The Broadmoor Cup is another nice piece of silver the Gophers can salute, but respectfully ignore.

If there is any concern that the Gophers have “peaked too soon,” that’s a handy cliché if a team doesn’t go all the way. If they do, obviously they peaked early and maintained it. However, a month from now, if the Golden Gophers fall short in their bid for the national championship in Milwaukee, maybe they can arrange a post-season ceremony back home, where they can carry the MacNaughton Cup around Mariucci Arena. Just for themselves, their fans, and those photographers.

Conner goal helps Tech’s eye-opening sweep at UMD

Sometimes when a league race is over prematurely, it can make the second half somewhat boring. But not so in the WCHA. Wisconsin may have definitively prevented a race for the title by sweeping two games at Colorado College, and isolating itself from the pack far enough to render the only drama a battle for second place, but keep your eye on the lower half of the race – where the REAL race is unfolding.

Denver, Minnesota, Colorado College and North Dakota are clustered within four points in the fight for second through fifth, but they are eight points back in the BadgersÂ’ rear view mirror. Meanwhile, Minnesota-Duluth, Minnesota State-Mankato, St. Cloud State, Michigan Tech and Alaska-Anchorage are all in a tussle in the lower half, with last weekÂ’s results leaving the Bulldogs, Mavericks, and both sets of Huskies all within two points of each other.

Michigan Tech’s Huskies became one of the league’s surprises, although it’s taken a while to escape last place. Acting as though never-too-late could become their motto, the Huskies racked up a 4-2, 3-1 sweep at the most surprising point of what had looked like a gloomy season – and possibly the most critical time for UMD to absorb two losses.

Chris Conner, one of five seniors in TechÂ’s lineup, acknowledged that the frustration of spending most of four years in the rebuilding mode might all prove worthwhile if that light at the end of the tunnel proves to be a glimmer of hope.

“We seem to come close, but we’ve got to learn how to finish teams off,” said Conner, after his highlight-film goal provided the game-winning finishing touch in Michigan Tech’s 4-2 series opener at Minnesota-Duluth. “If we had it figured out, we’d do it all the time.”

In a way, it seemed analogous that the 5-foot-7 Conner had absorbed so many disappointments and witnessed so many letdowns that he couldn’t bear to watch even as his own third-period goal find the netting – but more on that later.

Tech was mired in last place, with only three victories and a tie in their first 14 WCHA games. The tie had come along with an opening loss to UMD, another fact that could end up being pivotal, and their first two victories came with harsh follow-ups. A 3-2 overtime triumph at home against St. Cloud State led to the second game, in which St. Cloud roared back to win 7-0. TechÂ’s second victory shocked the whole WCHA, because they arose from a 1-8 slate to hand high-flying Wisconsin its only setback of the season, 4-2 in Madison. Again, however, the Huskies were blitzed 7-0 by the Badgers in the second game.

Their third triumph came the next weekend, in the second game at home against Minnesota State-Mankato, when Tech responded to a 5-4 loss with a 3-2 victory just before Christmas. After two weeks off, Tech lost 3-2 in overtime to Michigan State and 5-3 to Michigan at the Great Lakes tournament. Close, but still losses.

Two more weeks off brought the Huskies to Duluth, where Minnesota-Duluth was intending to climb above .500 and take a run at fifth place. Not exactly the scenario for TechÂ’s uprising. But it happened when Tech got stellar goaltending both nights from freshman Michael-Lee Teslak, particularly in the 3-1 second game.

The first game saw Conner come through with his team-high 13th goal of the season, and the 65th of his career, making him third highest among career scorers still playing NCAA Division I. It was a classic goal for several reasons. Tech had jumped ahead of UMD on a goal by sophomore Jimmy Kerr and another by senior Nick Anderson for a 2-0 first period. Nick Kemp cut it to 2-1 with UMDÂ’s first goal, late in the second period, and the Bulldogs seemed finally to have come alive.

But at 11:14 of the third, center Taggart Desmet spotted Conner speeding ahead in the neutral zone and fed him the puck. Conner veered into the UMD zone, but had two defenders ahead. Skating hard up to the top of the left circle, Conner stopped abruptly, and weathered a bodycheck as he pivoted to the outside, protecting the puck. At the same instant, he spotted Desmet, trailing on the outside, so he left him a virtual handoff.

As Desmet, another of the senior Huskies, raced by and scooped up the puck, a transition caused the defense that was tying up the shifty Conner to suddenly became tied up BY Conner, allowing Desmet to carry deep, past the goal on the left. Desmet then slid a perfect pass back toward the circle. As if by radar, Conner extricated himself from the checker, spun around him, and one-timed a perfect shot past goaltender Isaac Reichmuth.

A video replay might have picked up just the final pass and shot, which would have been impressive enough. But the entire play deserved replay. Asked if he spotted an opening, Conner shrugged. Where did the puck go in? Conner shrugged again.

“Actually,” he said, “I kinda closed my eyes and just shot. But Taggart said it went in on the short side.”

So on this one, Desmet was the seeing-eye tracer while Conner fired the heat-seeking missile. Conner admitted that he tends to get shots lined up, then closes his eyes and blasts away. Obviously it works more than what sounds feasible.

“We know all it takes is a couple of goals to get us going,” added Conner, who is from Westland, Mich. “Maybe one of the things we’ve finally learned is that we’ve got to get it in deep and get in on them, and it’s extra important to do it in the third period.”
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The victory wasnÂ’t in hand at 3-1, but freshman Justin St. Louis scored into an empty net with 41 seconds to play, which rendered meaningless a goal by UMDÂ’s Matt Greer with 32 seconds remaining.
“I feel we outworked ‘em, and beat ‘em to loose pucks,” said Conner, but he knew the second game was still remaining.

In the rematch, TechÂ’s Ryan Angelow, another of the six freshmen, offset a goal by UMDÂ’s Matt McKnight for a 1-1 standoff. That remained until the third period, when Brandon Schwartz and St. Louis scored goals 22 seconds apart. Schwartz and St. Louis, a senior and a freshman, put the lead in good hands. With giant 6-foot-7 John Scott the only senior on defense, and freshman Teslak in goal, the Huskies held on for the 3-1 victory.

Teslak, who made 26 stops in the first game, when the aroused Huskies outshot UMD 36-28, had to be at his best in the second game when UMD outshot the Huskies 31-25. Teslak not only stopped 30 shots, he and his defense stymied UMD to an 0-for-7 night on the power play.

With the race at the top virtually ended by WisconsinÂ’s sweep at second-place Colorado College last weekend, the Badgers stand 13-1-2, with no other team having more than nine victories, and no fewer than five losses, so the race in the lower half of the standings is far more exciting with 10 games left.

Because of the sweep, and the sweep Minnesota State-Mankato inflicted on Alaska-Anchorage, Michigan Tech has climbed out of last place at 5-10-1 to Anchorage’s 4-13-1, and those two teams meet in Houghton this weekend for their only engagements of the season. But in the larger picture, Tech now has the same number of victories as St. Cloud (5-8-1), Mankato (5-8-3), and UMD (5-8-3) – meaning the Huskies are only two points out of sixth place.

Conner was still deflecting praise for his Friday game-winner, deferring to linemate Taggart Desmet. “Taggart took it deep and drew the defense, so I only had to shoot,” Conner said. But what does he know? His eyes were shut.

Regardless of how both ends of the standings wind up, nobody finishing in the upper half will be facing anybody from the lower half – except with their eyes wide open.

Gophers, Denver show early contending potential

SAINT PAUL, MN. — The cast of characters has pretty well changed over, but the two college hockey teams that have won the last three national championships both have put the WCHA on notice that they intend to stay in top contention for the 2004-05 WCHA season.
Minnesota, the team that won the NCAA title in 2002 and 2003 after not having won a championship in 23 years, probably suffered the most losses to both graduation and early-pro-signing departures, but the Gophers registered a 5-2 victory over Denver University, the team that won the 2004 NCAA title.

The Pioneers, of course, didnÂ’t exactly get off to a rousing start last season, when they struggled with injuries, inconsistencies and a problem holding leads and finishing off foes, but got it all together in time for a stirring march through the NCAA regional and Frozen Four. Like all teams, the Pioneers also suffered some graduation losses, most notably goaltender Adam Berkhoel, All-American and WCHA defenseman of the year Ryan Caldwell, and WCHA student-athlete of the year Connor James, a speedster who returned from injury just in time to ignite the offense in the NCAA tournament.

The Gophers, though, lost similarly with the graduation of three-time captain Grant Potulny, offensive sparkplug Troy Riddle and colorful team leader Matt Koalska, among others, then watched over last summer as star defenseman and Hobey Baker finalist Keith Ballard signed a pro offer, then big defenseman Jake Taylor did the same, and, just before fall quarter started, scoring phenom Thomas Vanek also left the program to turn pro.

All of that was somewhat ironic, because the NHL was headed into a non-start to its season, so when Denver came to the Twin Cities to face Minnesota at Xcel Energy Center, it was to be the only autumn appearance of big-time hockey in the Minnesota WildÂ’s home barn. Over 17,000 eager Twin Cities fans turned out, even though the Minnesota Twins were playing, and losing, their final American League playoff game to the New York Yankees over in Minneapolis.

“This was a good start for our young guys,” said Minnesota coach Don Lucia. “We both will be completely different teams three months from now.”

The big questions were: Who would pick up the slack and fill the roles of those big-name departures for both sides? To the considerably relief of both coaches, various applicants emerged.

“We’ll be OK,” said Denver coach George Gwozdecky. “I didn’t know that we’d need to depend on our goaltending quite so much this early, but Glenn Fisher showed he could do the job.”

Fisher was outstanding at the start against Minnesota, when the Pioneers were outshot 12-1 through the opening minutes, and he held on against a steady barrage that resulted in 30 saves. Fisher is the sophomore goaltender from Edmonton who was 3-1-1 as back-up last year to Berkhoel, who left seriously large skates to fill.

Denver, however, followed up the loss to Minnesota by absorbing a 6-2 thumping at powerful Boston College. Still, the Pioneers stand as Exhibit A that itÂ’s better to fit things together at the end of the season more than the beginning. Last spring, the Pioneers almost waited until it was too late. Denver lost 4-3 and 6-1 to be unceremoniously swept by Colorado College right in Denver in the WCHA playoffs.

As it turns out, missing the WCHA Final Five paid unusual benefits to the Pioneers, who sat home to finish recovering from injuries, but they also were not able to face the possibility of possibly losing a game or two – which could have dropped them out of NCAA consideration – or, if they were to keep winning, of having to face Minnesota, North Dakota and Minnesota-Duluth in three straight nights.

As a late invitee to the NCAA tournament as regional host at Colorado Springs, Berkhoel got hot and Denver beat Miami 3-2, then stunned No. 1 rated WCHA champ North Dakota 1-0 to win the regional and gain the Frozen Four. Once there, Denver beat UMD 5-3, and astounded all hockey followers when Berkhoel blanked Maine 1-0 for the title. After giving up 10 goals in the sweep at CCÂ’s hands, Berkhoel gave up only five goals through the PioneersÂ’ four NCAA tournament games.

Gabe Gauthier, who scored the winning – and only — goal in the NCAA title game, figures to be among DenverÂ’s scoring leaders this year, and he could get some help in the form of Jon Foster, one of six seniors on this yearÂ’s team. Foster scored both Denver goals against Minnesota, with his first coming off GauthierÂ’s feed midway through the second period to trim MinnesotaÂ’s lead to 2-1, and his other on a power play midway through the third period, to lift the Pioneers to a 3-2 deficit.

The Gophers, on the other hand, are usually a swift-starting team, so their victory was also impressive. The loss of Grant Potulny may be impossible to relieve, but up stepped Ryan Potulny – Grant’s sophomore brother, who missed most of last season with injury – to score a hat trick and rekindle the form that made him the U.S. Hockey League’s junior scoring champ two years ago.

Potulny scored a power-play deflection on a shot by Alex Goligoski, a freshman defenseman from Grand Rapids who chose college over the USHL, and appears ready to immediately help. Tyler Hirsch, another returnee who could come up big as a junior, gave Minnesota a 2-1 lead on a rebound, with a pair of frehmen – center Mike Howe and defenseman Derek Peltier – getting assists.

Ryan Potulny scored again to make it 3-1 with an unassisted shorthanded goal just 44 seconds after FosterÂ’s first goal, but it was still very much a contest when the Pioneers rallied to outshoot Minnesota 19-13 in the third period and FosterÂ’s goal closed it to 3-2.

But this time it was Kellen Briggs, MinnesotaÂ’s sophomore goaltender who was 25-11-3, with a 2.62 goals-against mark and .894 save percentage as a freshman, who stepped into the spotlight, keeping the Pioneers in check the rest of the way with 18 of his 32 saves in the final 20 minutes.

With 4:34 left, winger Brent Borgen, another of the seven freshmen used in the game by coach Don Lucia, rammed in a goal from the crease, and Potulny completed his hat trick with an empty net goal that made the final 5-2 score considerably wider-spread than the actual margin of play had been.

“We’ve lost so many players, this will be a fun team to watch,” said Lucia, who acknowledged that this season will call due those long-standing claims that the Gophers have stockpiled spare players better than the regulars on some teams . “Now it the juniors’ and seniors’ turn.”

Returning veterans like Gino Guyer, Barry Tallackson, Andy Sertich, Tyler Hirsch, Danny Irmen, and defensemen Chris Harrington and Judd Stevens, along with Briggs, will be thrust into prominent roles, and, in fact, when the Gophers went to Alaska for a second-week tournament, they beat Massachusetts-Amherst 1-0 on yet another Ryan Potulny goal and Briggs made 17 saves for the shutout.

But some rookies also will make their presence felt. “Ben Gordon has great hands and he’s going to be great on the bigger Olympic rinks,” said Lucia, referring to a freshman winger from International Falls who spent a year with Lincoln in the USHL. “And Gologoski has great poise on defense, and he’s going to be a great player. He has such great hands, he reminds us a lot of Paul Martin.”

Martin is the defenseman who, before BallardÂ’s early departure a year ago, had helped the Gophers win their two NCAA titles and then left early to star with the New Jersey Devils as a rookie last year, and as a standout for Team USA in the recent World Cup Tournament. When defending WCHA champ North Dakota lost high-scoring linemates Zach Parise and Brandon Bochenski as early signees over the summer, the Gophers arenÂ’t the only ones afflicted.

However, losing blue-chip defensemen is a problem. Hobey Baker winner Jordan Leopold left the Gophers to sign with Calgary in 2002, Martin did the same in 2003, and Ballard in 2004 made it a hat trick of early departures on defense from the Gophers. On the other hand, having three such defensemen on the same team makes the Gopher championships in 2002 and 2003 no surprise.

Fighting Sioux could repeat 1997 history at Milwaukee

Ah, history. They say those who donÂ’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and presumably that goes for hockey coaches as well as Presidents. North Dakota coach Dave Hakstol might both learn from, and repeat, some history as he takes the Fighting Sioux to Milwaukee for the NCAA Frozen Four.

The Fighting Sioux (29-15-1) play Boston College (25-12-3) at 2 p.m. Thursday in the first semifinal at the Bradley Center, with Wisconsin (28-10-3) facing Maine (28-11-2) in the 7 p.m. second semi. The winners meet for the national title at 6 p.m. Saturday.

Last week, the media and the Frozen Four coaches were linked by conference call. One Boston-accented television broadcaster who repeatedly criticized North Dakota for “dumb penalties” in its 4-1 NCAA championship game loss to Denver last year, said he noticed that the Sioux used power-play goals to win the West Regional, so he wondered if Hakstol would “talk about” his change in coaching philosophy, turning those dumb penalties into power plays.

Hakstol paused slightlyÂ… Hakstol always pauses slightly, before delivering astute and articulate answers, even to dumb non-questions about dumb penalties.

“I have had no change in philosophy, either in how we play, or in the attitude we always try to play with,” said Hakstol. “We want to play very aggressively, with speed, and use our natural skill. But we always want to be physical, and everything generates off that.”

Great response. Direct, to the point, and exactly the way the Fighting Sioux play. Many coaches would have seized the opportunity to lobby about not taking penalties in hopes of getting favorable treatment from officials, but not Hakstol. It is engraved on the psyche of every Fighting Sioux player that to live up to the program’s heritage, they come at you with no secrets – no mystery. Here they are, with their Native American logo proudly on their chests, and if you can’t see it too well now, pay attention, because it will be up close and personal in a second, an instant before they crunch you into the boards.

What you see is what you get, and if the Sioux play at a pace that is too rough for you, and too fast for you, wellÂ…too bad.

Youthful, and inconsistent early, nobody would call this year’s Fighting Sioux team physically intimidating, and certainly not chippy. But they play textbook in-your-face Sioux hockey, and they do it well. It could be said that Boston College and Maine are sort-of surprises at the Frozen Four, while Wisconsin is the favorite. But North Dakota is the hottest team in the country right now, because it is the hottest of the Frozen Foursome – the only college teams still playing.

Not noted during the press conference was that HakstolÂ’s first team reached the Frozen Four a year ago by taking the hard road through the WCHA playoffs. After beating UMD 8-2, 6-1 in the first round to earn a slot in the “play-in” game, the Sioux beat Wisconsin 3-2, then lost to Denver 2-1 in overtime in the semifinal. In the third-place game, North Dakota came from a 2-1 deficit to beat Minnesota 4-2. The weekend’s work lifted North Dakota to an NCAA berth, ranked 10th.

All that meant the Fighting Sioux were banished to the East Regional in Worcester, Mass. No problem. They simply whipped Boston University 4-0 and then took out No. 2 Boston College 6-3. The Sioux took their share of penalties, and then some, at the regional, but held both BU and BC to identical 0-for-9 shutouts on their power plays. Maybe penalties aren’t so “dumb” if you kill them off in the process of overrunning highly regarded opponents.

The Sioux beat Minnesota 4-2 in the NCAA semifinals before losing 4-1 to Denver in the championship game.

At this year’s Frozen Four, of course, there is a considerable new look to the Fighting Sioux. When the television cameras show close-ups on the ice,look closely and see how youthful they look. ThatÂ’s not an illusion, that so many of them look like teenagers. With a half-dozen forwards and four of six defensemen being freshmen, these Fighting Sioux are young. For examples, Jonathan Toews, a brilliant center, wonÂ’t turn 18 until the end of the month, and defenseman Brian Lee is still 18.

They may be too young to have a sense of historical perspective, because they were youngsters in fourth grade the last time the NCAA Frozen Four was in Milwaukee, in 1997. But repeating history wouldnÂ’t be a bad thing for North Dakota, because North Dakota beat Colorado College 6-2 and Boston University 6-4 to claim the national title in the 1997 tournament at Bradley Center.

That was in the second year of the Dean Blais coaching regime, and his assistants were Mark Osiecki and Scott Sandelin. Blais spent one year rebuilding, then the Sioux won the WCHA championship. It appeared that bigger and better things would be in the future for that Sioux group, but they were impatient, and everything came together as they won the WCHA Final Five, a stepping stone to the Frozen Four title. The team was led by a young sophomore dynamo named Jason Blake, but at Milwaukee, players like goaltender Aaron Schweitzer and checking-line skater Matt Henderson stepped to the team-oriented forefront to lead the way.

Sound familiar? Hakstol is in his second season, and he did his rebuilding job on the Sioux last year and part of this one. Osiecki will be at the Frozen Four too, but as assistant coach at Wisconsin, while Sandelin is now head coach at Minnesota-Duluth. Hakstol’s assistants are defensive specialist Brad Berry, and the redoubtable Cary Eades, who went off to coaching accolades at Warroad High School before returning to his alma mater as Hakstol’s assistant. No one has checked his driver’s license, but “in-your-face” might be Eades’ middle name.

Other similarities are that the Sioux are led offensively by a freshman dynamo named T.J. Oshie, who would as soon run over an opponent as score a goal, which means he ran over quite a few, because he scored 24 goals centering the first line, including a nation’s best nine game-winners. The attack that came of age winning the WCHA Final Five playoffs includes 10 freshmen and only a couple seniors – indicating the Fighting Sioux might be a year or two away from being a dominant team.
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Nobody would say this yearÂ’s Fighting Sioux had a dominant season. They started WCHA play 1-3, struggled to stay above .500 much of the year, tying Colorado College for fourth in league play, finishing 16-12 in the WCHA. However, the biggest lesson from 1997 to this year is that championship teams take advantage of opportunities when they arise, and it doesn’t work to wait for the so-called dominant team to rise to the surface, because it might not happen.

But thatÂ’s old news. The Fighting Sioux are 29-15-1 overall, and after never winning more than three games in a row all season, they now have won six straight games, having finished off Minnesota State-Mankato with two straight victories after an opening playoff surprise, then beating Wisconsin and St. Cloud State to win the Final Five, before taking out Michigan and upstart Holy Cross to win the West Regional, at home in Grand Forks.

Junior Drew Stafford missed the Final Five with an injury, but came back to notch his 24th goal of the season in the regional. That ties him with freshman Oshie in team goals, while Toews has 21, making the Sioux the only Frozen Four team with three 20-plus goals. While many scorers can boast about padding their statistics with power-play goals, StaffordÂ’s 24 include a nationÂ’s best 7 shorthanded goals.

The balanced scoring has come together, and the Sioux power play is clicking at 29.4 percent in their last 15 games. At the regional, in beating Michigan 5-1, Oshie, Stafford, Ryan Duncan, Toews and sophomore Travis Zajac each scored a goal, and in beating Holy Cross 5-2, again five different scorers connected, with Toews, Duncan, junior defenseman Matt Smaby, Zajac and freshman Matt Watkins scoring. Toews had three assists with his two goals in the two games, and was named outstanding player at the regional.

“Toews is an extremely big part of our team,” said Hakstol. “He was a pretty young man coming tour campus last fall, but he’s adjusted very well, on and off the ice. He didn’t put up the numbers he expected of himself early, and now we’re seeing the results. He’s really starting tocome on and is a dynamic force offensively.

“The play of our defensive corps is a mirror image of our whole team. With four freshmen back there, we did some great things, but also had some inconsistent play. Certainly Brad Berry has done a great job staying positive with them, and they’re not afraid to play; if they make mistakes, they’re not afraid to go right back out there. In the WCHA you’re dealing with some outstanding forwards, so it’s a pretty big learning curve for young defensemen – especially in the first half of their freshman year.”

One of the intriguing things about this particular Frozen Four is that all four teams have exceptional goaltending. Jordan Parise, who has emerged as an outstanding leader as well as perhaps the most competitive goalie in the nation, mans the nets for the Sioux, and will oppose Cory Schneider, who recorded eight shutouts for Boston College. Brian Elliott is the star goaltender for Wisconsin, and Ben Bishop has had a strong season for Maine.

Boston College coach Jerry York suggested his team has some other parallels with North Dakota. “We have four freshman defensemen too, and as the year went on, we had a better team than I had envisioned,” York said. “We had a little slide, but then we rallied to win against Vermont, and caught fire. We’re a little dangerous to play, right now.”

BC’s offense is a bit of a surprise, too, because Kevin Collins, who was a strong player and a “9-11 goal scorer for three years,” said York, suddenly found a belated scoring touch and has 31 goals, earning one of three Hobey Baker finalist slots, along with Elliott, and Denver defenseman Matt Carle.

The Sioux donÂ’t have anybody up for such lofty awards. But they have a dedicated focus on the big team plaque thatÂ’s given out Saturday night.

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• About the Author

  John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
  
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• Exhaust Notes:

  PADDLING
  More and more cars are offering steering-wheel paddles to allow drivers manual control over automatic or CVT transmissions. A good idea might be to standardize them. Most allow upshifting by pulling on the right-side paddle and downshifting with the left. But a recent road-test of the new Porsche Panamera, the paddles for the slick PDK direct-sequential gearbox were counter-intuitive -- both the right or left thumb paddles could upshift or downshift, but pushing on either one would upshift, and pulling back on either paddle downshifted. I enjoy using paddles, but I spent the full week trying not to downshift when I wanted to upshift. A little simple standardization would alleviate the problem.
  
  

  SPEAKING OF PADDLES
  The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution has the best paddle system, and Infiniti has made the best mainstream copy of that system for the new Q50, and other sporty models. And why not? It's simply the best. In both, the paddles are long, slender magnesium strips, affixed to the steering column rather than the steering wheel. Pull on the right paddle and upshift, pull on the left and downshift. The beauty is that while needing to upshift in a tight curve might cause a driver to lose the steering wheel paddle for an instant, but having the paddles long, and fixed, means no matter how hard the steering wheel is cranked, reaching anywhere on the right puts the upshift paddle on your fingertips.
  
  

  TIRES MAKE CONTACT
  Even in snow-country, a few stubborn old-school drivers want to stick with rear-wheel drive, but the vast majority realize the clear superiority of front-wheel drive. Going to all-wheel drive, naturally, is the all-out best. But the majority of drivers facing icy roadways complain about traction for going, stopping and steering with all configurations. They overlook the simple but total influence of having the right tires can make. There are several companies that make good all-season or snow tires, but there are precious few that are exceptional. The Bridgestone Blizzak continues to be the best=known and most popular, but in places like Duluth, MN., where scaling 10-12 blocks of 20-30 degree hills is a daily challenge, my favorite is the Nokian WR. Made without compromising tread compound, the Nokians maintain their flexibility no matter how cold it gets, so they stick, even on icy streets, and can turn a skittish car into a winter-beater.