Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

From today's presser:

Q: ...how many of your guys do you think were surprised by what your were able to do against BC on Friday?

Tony Granato: ...um...I'm hoping none... but I think you're probably right in saying that... I think our mindset has to be that the challenges that are in
front of us are good challenges because we're a good team ...and that means when your beat BC on Friday you gotta expect to beat them on Saturday.

I would say... ...our players are probably happy we got a split.

I don't think as a coaching staff, or as a program like the University of Wisconsin, we should be happy with saying
we got a split.


Good answer, Coach.

[LordofBrewtown]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

"Dress Up Like An Empty Seat Day" was a great success, AND Cameron Hughes scored a between-the-legs goal. Awesome!

Yeah, in for the weekend from out of state and was at Sunday's game. I know Sunday's may be tough attendance wise; but, I think that's smallest that I have ever seen a student section - even during winter breaks. That was disappointing.

I was encouraged by the fight back to get it to 6-5; but, then they just ran out of gas. It sure seemed like we had shortened our lines for this game. I hardly saw Davison & Bunz out there, and don't recall seeing much of Ustashi & Freytag either. Thought that may have caught up to us in the last 6 minutes, where we really looked tired.

[WiscDC]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

Yeah, in for the weekend from out of state and was at Sunday's game. I know Sunday's may be tough attendance wise; but, I think that's smallest that I have ever seen a student section - even during winter breaks. That was disappointing.

I'd say it was a typical holiday crowd, but I've definitely seen bigger student sections during those early/mid January games (at least a week before the spring semester starts). I've been in smaller student sections on Thanksgiving weekends, and I've seen it smaller during the first half of winter break.

Obviously, that's not a standard we want to compare non-break games to, even Sunday afternoons. (Similarly, it wasn't far off from some games last year, particularly Halloween against ASU...which is also not the standard we want.) Anyway, it all ties into what I've said about men's hockey games being appointment events rather than some extra thing. It'll get better through this year (Sunday will look like a fluke), and hopefully beyond.

[Wisko McBadgerton]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

Before the memory of Sunday's game fades I wanted to mention I earlier made an observation about refs calling every touch the first two, then swallowing the whistle in the third. Was the same on Sunday. Would have been nice to get that clear hook on Hughes in front of the net on the breakaway late...

Not that Bucky deserved the game anyway, just an example of what can happen when they call it differently period to period.

[Timothy A]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

Before the memory of Sunday's game fades I wanted to mention I earlier made an observation about refs calling every touch the first two, then swallowing the whistle in the third. .

Hate that. Call it 1 way or another. I am all for getting rid of obstruction, but some of the calls were lunacy.

I think we need to see Berry or Blomquist start a game. Hard to believe Jurusik has turned the corner after Sunday.

[Bratbill]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

I'd say it was a typical holiday crowd, but I've definitely seen bigger student sections during those early/mid January games (at least a week before the spring semester starts). I've been in smaller student sections on Thanksgiving weekends, and I've seen it smaller during the first half of winter break.

Obviously, that's not a standard we want to compare non-break games to, even Sunday afternoons. (Similarly, it wasn't far off from some games last year, particularly Halloween against ASU...which is also not the standard we want.) Anyway, it all ties into what I've said about men's hockey games being appointment events rather than some extra thing. It'll get better through this year (Sunday will look like a fluke), and hopefully beyond.

took The Mrs to the Badgers Hockey Luncheon today.
Very Nice Event With Both Coach Granatos as well as Players Trent Frederick and Corbin Mcguire. Heck even Jerry Kelly was there.
Both Tony and Don spoke to what they are trying to build!!
Tony went table to table schmoozing folks, one lady commented on how great the Kohl Center Atmosphere was on Friday.
Tony's Response "Wait Til We Get 15,000 in there"
They went over the U-18 game this weekend...now the Wife wants to Go!!!

[LordofBrewtown]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

Before the memory of Sunday's game fades I wanted to mention I earlier made an observation about refs calling every touch the first two, then swallowing the whistle in the third. Was the same on Sunday. Would have been nice to get that clear hook on Hughes in front of the net on the breakaway late...

Not that Bucky deserved the game anyway, just an example of what can happen when they call it differently period to period.

Great point. I agree they need to call it the same no matter how much time is left.

[gwhinwi]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

Any time someone references inconsistent refereeing, I refer back to this Don Adam video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10-p3C-FbGw

[WiscTJK]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

Any time someone references inconsistent refereeing, I refer back to this Don Adam video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10-p3C-FbGw

I've never seen that video before. Nice. He is / was terrible and never had control of the game.

[KaMiGo]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

This could be an interesting experiment

As @TonyGranato promised, some new lines for @BadgerMHockey this week. To 3:
Wagner-Kunin-Johnson
Zimmer-Frederic-Labosky
Ford-Hughes-Besse

— Todd Milewski (@ToddMilewski) October 20, 2016

[Crainer]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

Gameday!! (ish). What is the crowd going to be tonight?

[gwhinwi]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

I've never seen that video before. Nice. He is / was terrible and never had control of the game.

Someone sent me the original video of that years ago because we were at that game. It really did give you a great bit of insight into his "talents."

[Timothy A]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

This could be an interesting experiment

As @TonyGranato promised, some new lines for @BadgerMHockey this week. To 3:
Wagner-Kunin-Johnson
Zimmer-Frederic-Labosky
Ford-Hughes-Besse

— Todd Milewski (@ToddMilewski) October 20, 2016

Too bad Malone is out.

Attendance will be bad. If BC can't draw, the U18 team sure won't.

[KaMiGo]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

Attendance will be bad. If BC can't draw, the U18 team sure won't.

I don't know that it is fair to say that BC didn't draw. Sure, having a "marquee" opponent like BC didn't sell out the Kohl, but that was never going to happen.
The Friday game was about what you would have seen for any opening Friday of recent years (yeah, I know, not that big of an accomplishment).
Yeah, Sunday's attendance sucked. But that is what you get for an afternoon home game when the Packers play at the same time.

I'll admit it, I'm not optimistic about numbers for tonight. Probably in the 7500-8500 range if I had to guess. Doesn't the NTDP have a pretty good following of family that travels to most games? That might help a little bit...

**as a quick side note, how crazy is it that we complain about attendance figures that would sell out 95% of college rinks???**

[WisconsinWildcard]

Re: Wisconsin Hockey, Vol II: Rebuild, Refresh, and Renew!

**as a quick side note, how crazy is it that we complain about attendance figures that would sell out 95% of college rinks???**

Not crazy at all. If you were ever part of the student section that was routinely filling the 300s, you would be as disappointed as we are about the stark difference in environment.


Edit: Get off my lawn