Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

[TonyTheTiger20]

GOOD LUCK EVERYBODY, excluding BU (and we're not even playing them!)

I like this guy.

[mnpokecheck]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

A couple positives from an undefeated season is that it pushes other teams and and the sport to grow and excel.

[ARM]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

The sport will be fine, whenever the streak ultimately ends.

Whenever one asks the Minnesota players about this season, they all say the same thing. To paraphrase, it goes along the lines of, "This season has been remarkable. I've never played on a team where everybody got along so well. I just know that I've made 21 friends for life. It's been such a special season, and I'll never forget it."

Eventually, if asked again, they'll get around to talking about hockey. But in their minds, I don't know that what happens in the next (possibly) three games is going to change their perception of the season much. Other than that their hockey goal all year has been to win the NCAAs, and the only way to do that now is to keep the streak alive. Right now they remind me a little of a team last year whose coach told me the team just wanted to keep winning so they could keep playing together.

Every team starts today 0-0. One will have a three-game streak after the game a week from tomorrow, and the other seven will be disappointed. I hope that they all play great hockey and make us remember them -- I don't think I'll ever forget Cornell and BU from last season, even though that wound up being a one-game streak for the Big Red and I have no idea how long a streak BU had broken that day.

[brookyone]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

My quick take: In no way is the Gophers' current win streak "bad" for Women's Hockey. Quite to the contrary, it's created interest. Granted, more interest in the Upper Midwest than elsewhere.

IMHO, the only thing that would be "bad for the sport" is if a single team was dominant year after year, AND everyone else perceived that the deck was hopelessly stacked against them. That's hardly the case with Women's D-1 Hockey. UMD and Wisconsin have pedigrees at least as impressive as Minnesota's. Harvard is two bounces away from two NCAA titles. And the rest of us are getting stronger, not weaker. The sport will be fine, whenever the streak ultimately ends.

This! Well done.

[Watson Rink]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

Thanks, TTT!

Just to reinforce what I said earlier, no reflection whatsoever intended on BU women hockey players or coaches, it's just the (shall we call it chippiness?) of the men's team and the (what to call it?) of some BU fans.

(The stereotype of a Beanpot crowd is that the NU students are working on work-study projects for high-tech companies, the BC and Harvard students are debating word choices in their respective translations of Homer and Thucydides, and the BU students are describing how they blew another $2,000 at Newbury Street clothing stores last weekend).

[brookyone]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

Not sure what your personal fascination is with seeing our streak end, but you seem to post about it five times as much as the next person?

This too! I've been unable to swallow the concern for the sport angle myself. I do not...never did agree it's bad...or not good, or detrimental for the sport. Same goes for WCHA success to date.

Show me something as proof. We've got a fair sample size to prove or disprove any such theory. Has interest dropped or fallen off? Perhaps if the WCHA streak stretched to twenty. It'll never happen. D-I programs have been added. As have fans whether it's as many as we hope for, or not.

In the WCHA you have programs that have added resources. Shiny new arenas. I think Brian Idalski and Mark Johnson undoubtedly required increased resources by their programs. I suppose one could claim WCHA success is responsible for any failure of similar investments elsewhere. I wouldn't. Who knows...maybe Penn St. could be attributed in part to the example of WCHA Big Ten institutions as motivation for making the move. Someday hopefully we see the same from additional Big Ten schools. You'd have a hard time convincing me that positive development would be irrespective of current WCHA member Big Ten school success...or current WCHA teams all inclusive.

[Back2BackU-MnPride2002]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

UCLA basketball,
Lakers NBA bb,
Celtics NBA bb,
NFC NFL fb,
Chi Bulls NBA bb,
GB Packer NFL fb,
Bama cfb,
UMn cfb,


And those are just off the top of my head, DYNASTIES that did not, and have NEVER been seen as negatives by the majority of the sports world. In each and every case, someone, or some small minority tried arguing that whichever dynasty it was, was bad for the sport, but everytime, as far as I am aware, evidence was shown that showed that these dynasties made the sport MORE POPULAR!!!!!


David vs Goliath.



Who would have cared about David beating up one of his wimpy brothers?! Who cares?! Parity in sports? Who cares?


But Goliath going around beating up on everyone, gets people's attention. The Israelites apparently sat around for weeks doing nothing. EVERY DAY Goliath would go out and taunt them.

Kind of like a team or a conf going out and winning each and every year for many years in a row. It can be disheartening for the losers.


But it is STILL big news. It STILL makes the story. Little David may have been nothing and not even be remembered by anyone if not for BIG BAD GOLIATH KICKING EVERYONE'S ARSES, OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.



And guess what, in the end, David beat Goliath. And THAT was a huge story, without David, Goliath's exploits would have long since been forgotten as well.

But the thing is, Minnesota's Women's hockey team is still playing a minor sport, without much attention, so it needs to do MORE than just win most of its games. It needs to win ALL of its games before they achieve true Goliath status. They are nothing more than Goliath wannabes right now. They come up short, we Gopher fans and the players and coaches themselves will be disappointed, but still VERY, VERY, VERY Proud of them!!! No matter what, they've already accomplished more than some teams will ever be able to, ever. And I'm not saying winning the Natl Title isn't as important, no way!!! It's VERY important, every game the players have reiterated that is their one and main goal, to repeat as Champs.

But still, some team beating them now, won't be considered the modern version of David. Instead the Gophers will be seen as having been overrated. Still maybe the best team, just not as overwhelmingly so as people thought them to be.


But that's just my opinion on the matter? I am very confident they'll win today, and 2 more games next weekend. They won't be easy wins, and might even be 1 or 2 games won in OT, which I really hope doesn't happen, not sure my heart will be able to handle that? lol But the only way a Goliath vs David scenario will come about, is if this winning streak gets up into the 60+ win range.


IMO.

[Eeyore]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

This too! I've been unable to swallow the concern for the sport angle myself. I do not...never did agree it's bad...or not good, or detrimental for the sport. Same goes for WCHA success to date.

There comes a point where a debate needs to have some precision in the terms being used. In this case, what the hell is meant by the phrase "better for women's hockey"? My take is that the phrase is useless. "Women's hockey" is a concept that is both intangible and non-sentient. As such, it doesn't have interests and it isn't possible for something to be better or worse for it.

It's far more useful to ask what is better for the people who are connected to women's hockey. One thing this does is to make it apparent that there are a lot of different people who have some sort of attachment to the game and that they don't all have the same interests. One of the problems with phrasing things as being better or worse for "women's hockey" is that it's used as a cloak for whatever it is being in the self-interest of the speaker.

My other problem is that it is just assumed that it would be better if women's hockey were more popular. I remember having this same basic debate with fans of men's college hockey about twenty years ago. As here, it was just assumed that everyone would be happier if it were more popular. My position was that more popularity would lead to more expensive tickets, trouble for average fans to get decent seats at the Frozen Four and all sorts of associated commercialism. Fast forward and a lot of people I debated at the time are complaining about exactly the things that I predicted would happen. Personally, I thought the early 1990s were, other than a succession of disappointing Gopher teams, pretty much the Golden Age for men's NCAA hockey.

Women's hockey is in a very different place now than men's hockey was then and even a curmudgeon like myself will concede that there would be advantages to it being more popular than it is now. But be careful what you wish for because it's a process that you probably won't be able to stop at the point you really would prefer.

[OnMAA]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

A couple positives from an undefeated season is that it pushes other teams and and the sport to grow and excel.

Def agree with that.

[OnMAA]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

Not sure what your personal fascination is with seeing our streak end, but you seem to post about it five times as much as the next person?

Just having some TTT like fun. Nothing more. Happy, or Hapless if you prefer, banter until games get going.

[Blackbeard]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

But in their minds, I don't know that what happens in the next (possibly) three games is going to change their perception of the season much.

I don't think that's very realistic...one may be able to reason that intellectually but that's not how human emotions work. They have the friendships firstly because they are thrown together in a common environment, being on the same team, for several hours every week, week in, week out with a common goal and shared sacrifices.

If they had lost tonight or if they lose next week there will be a huge hole in their collective psyche that will dwarf what any other team would normally feel in the same situation simply because of the fairy tale season that they've had.

It feels great to talk about life long friendships etc. but as soon as the circumstances that threw people together in the first place are removed such as school or the workplace, then most friendships die a natural death because the food that was feeding the friendships (the forced common meeting ground) no longer exists. It's neither good or bad. It just is. A condition of life.

[OnMAA]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

It feels great to talk about life long friendships etc. but as soon as the circumstances that threw people together in the first place are removed such as school or the workplace, then most friendships die a natural death because the food that was feeding the friendships (the forced common meeting ground) no longer exists. It's neither good or bad. It just is. A condition of life.

Not always. I know some great friendships that started in College and lasted a lifetime. Sure people move on with their lives, but there are plenty of examples of great friends staying in touch closely forever, and in some case working together in the same field during their careers.

[CrazyDave]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

Getting back to the whole thread topic, kudos to DC78-82, IceIsNice and MICZamboni for correctly picking the four teams to advance.

[OnMAA]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

Getting back to the whole thread topic, kudos to DC78-82, IceIsNice and MICZamboni for correctly picking the four teams to advance.

Two of these three are probably still partying.

[Blackbeard]

Re: Which teams advance to the Frozen Four in Minneapolis?

Not always. I know some great friendships that started in College and lasted a lifetime. Sure people move on with their lives, but there are plenty of examples of great friends staying in touch closely forever, and in some case working together in the same field during their careers.

I suggest you read my post again.

I said "most friendships die a natural death". I did not say that all of them do.