2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

I honestly don't think there's another team in the land (even BC! ) that could have withstood the Gopher's assault in today's game. If they find the same level of consistent effort as they displayed in Saturday's rematch this will be a very difficult team for anyone (even BC! ) to beat.

I don't even think the Wild would have put up much of a fight; I can't remember seeing a shot count like that in what was supposed to be a mildly close contest.

 

[Iceburg]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

Missed Nadine Muzerall both nights

Probably in Detroit

 

[ne7minder]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

I don't even think the Wild would have put up much of a fight; I can't remember seeing a shot count like that in what was supposed to be a mildly close contest.

We have been going to Women's D-1 games since the late '90's and in those early days there were some pretty awful teams. I never saw a team dominated in the way ND was yesterday. Sure,I saw worse beatings but they were teams that did not have the talent ND is supposed to have. Neither night was as close as the scores.

 

[KTDC]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

We have been going to Women's D-1 games since the late '90's and in those early days there were some pretty awful teams. I never saw a team dominated in the way ND was yesterday. Sure,I saw worse beatings but they were teams that did not have the talent ND is supposed to have. Neither night was as close as the scores.

Welcome to the board, ne7minder

 

[pgb-ohio]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

I don't really care what the rest of the world thinks is a win and a loss. If everyone else wants to be wrong, that's their decision but I'm not going to join them.

You certainly are a purist, and that's commendable on many levels. Appreciate your thought provoking posts.

I am only talking about what I consider to be a win or a loss. To me, a shootout does not have any relevance to deciding which team played a better hockey game. It's a completely different, non-hockey contest that happens to involve skates and a puck. As such, I give it zero weight in forming my personal opinion of wins and losses.

Question: Should penalty shots be dropped from the rule book altogether? If the uncontested rush + one shot procedure is simply non-hockey, shouldn't it be totally taken out of the game?

A part of it is that I find Americans' abhorrence of ties both inexplicable and idiotic. Sometimes you play a game and both teams are so evenly matched that it would be unjust to declare either of them to be the winner.

Agreed.

And yet the rulebook contains any number of provisions that are less than ideal, and potentially conflict with important principles. When to accept compromise and when to stand on principle is an open question, and often difficult to answer.

Coming up with a stupid contrivance to "settle" things just because a lot of people can't deal with that is an exercise in which I will not participate.

The trouble is you are participating. If a rule is so problematic that it makes a significant portion of the season illegitimate, it's hard to see how you can attend a full schedule of games and feel satisfied with the experience. Of course I want you to stay. But don't you have to be at least a little pragmatic to justify staying?

Posting is another form of participation, and it's vital to realize that none of us post in a vacuum. Context and timing count. The same words can have significantly different meaning depending on context. An aggressive challenge to the shootout rule in a rules debate is one thing. But force it into the conversation immediately after a shootout loss and it's no longer a philosophical debate. It's an attempt to spoil the moment.

 

[pgb-ohio]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

BTW, both OSU Hockey teams were off this weekend, giving me some extra posting time. But I wasn't completely ignoring the on-ice results, and certainly noticed you guys had a VERY impressive weekend against UND. Sincere congratulations.

 

[ARM]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

In contrast, had Penn State won the mini-game, there would have been a huge celebration, and deservedly so... Why is this so hard to understand?

Football provides a poor analogy, because the winner of the contrived contest is declared the official winner overall. The difference in NCAA hockey is that the official result is a tie, as the team's season and head-to-head records will demonstrate. While the conference result mirrors the NCAA result in football, its not true in women's WCHA hockey. So building a case with an example from another sport has a gap in the logic.

 

[brookyone]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

http://www.twincities.com/gophers/ci_26801549/gophers-womens-hockey-hannah-brandt-helps-u-complete

Darn Pioneer Press... Darn near back page of print version sports section...following a full page article and huge color photo of some cheddar head hunting video game competition winner. I'm steamed!

 

[TonyTheTiger20]

Question: Should penalty shots be dropped from the rule book altogether? If the uncontested rush + one shot procedure is simply non-hockey, shouldn't it be totally taken out of the game?

No, the point of a penalty shot is that the player was coming in on an uncontested shot and was illegally impeded. The penalty shot puts the player back into the situation they had earned before the illegal play.

 

[brookyone]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

No, the point of a penalty shot is that the player was coming in on an uncontested shot and was illegally impeded. The penalty shot puts the player back into the situation they had earned before the illegal play.

I agree. Was there a comparison between the penalty shot and the shootout being made? If so...not remotely comparable in my view.

 

[ARM]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

More "Gophers" than "Fun with Numbers", so:

Schipper has looked really strong and the goals will come.

She fills so many roles besides scoring, so goals are really just a bonus. Kind of like Kelly Terry -- don't judge her by points alone.

Kelly Pannek looks like she's trying to set some sort of record for the most times almost scoring her first goal and I'm pretty sure they'll start to go in before too long.

In the meantime, she is now starting to demonstrate Brandt-like touch at making beautiful 5, 10, 20-foot passes where the puck gets to the right place at the right time, when initially, there didn't seem to be any pass available.

 

[Eeyore]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

More "Gophers" than "Fun with Numbers", so:
She fills so many roles besides scoring, so goals are really just a bonus. Kind of like Kelly Terry -- don't judge her by points alone.

In the meantime, she is now starting to demonstrate Brandt-like touch at making beautiful 5, 10, 20-foot passes where the puck gets to the right place at the right time, when initially, there didn't seem to be any pass available.

Agreed on both counts; I was addressing only the question of whether we would develop depth in scoring. (And, to be honest, I think there is a another Gopher not getting regular shifts who could be a scorer on one of these lines if she got a chance: Kate Flug.) Schipper is a key part of a penalty kill that his been breath-taking in its dominance to this point in the season. It's not just that it keeps teams from scoring on the power play; it consistently prevents teams from ever getting organized on the power play.

 

[brookyone]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

I'm actually okay with an assumption Minnesota has no real threats beyond their top two lines.

 

[pgb-ohio]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

Football provides a poor analogy, because the winner of the contrived contest is declared the official winner overall. The difference in NCAA hockey is that the official result is a tie, as the team's season and head-to-head records will demonstrate. While the conference result mirrors the NCAA result in football, its not true in women's WCHA hockey. So building a case with an example from another sport has a gap in the logic.

As always, I appreciate the reply. But as with our last exchange, all it really shows is that we're talking past each other.

It appears that your guiding principle is that if a game result helps your NCAA chances, you're allowed to celebrate. Otherwise, not. I reject that initial assumption. So naturally we disagree on all that follows -- including the football analogy.

My focus has been on the relationship between favorites and underdogs; respectful posting; and when the desire to celebrate is at least understandable. Yes, I've been using standings points as evidence that there's something "rational" to celebrate. But in the end, it's more about emotion than the quantitative side. Success against the top teams brings satisfaction, regardless of any payoff in the standings or pairwise calculations. As such, how the NCAA treats shootouts (or football overtimes) at tournament selection time is barely part of the conversation -- as I frame the issue. Again, I get that your starting point is entirely different.

I've enjoyed the chance to talk this subject through.

 

[brookyone]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

Strib on the NoDak series:

http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/280427922.html

Moving on...the Beavers come to town and I guess Steck, Dani C and Hannah B are out of town on Saturday? This would be the series to be wary of the dreaded letdown I would think when adding those absences to the equation of following two big series on the road, one at home on consecutive weekends. Opportunities for a few others to play more a good thing overall though I believe.

How 'bout one from the Idalski playbook...put McMillen up front? My "bonehead" suggestion for this week... Whattaya think poke? Really...I'm interested.

 

[pgb-ohio]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

No, the point of a penalty shot is that the player was coming in on an uncontested shot and was illegally impeded. The penalty shot puts the player back into the situation they had earned before the illegal play.

Very well stated and I agree.

Still, penalty shots are decidedly different from "real hockey" where a goalie has a minimum of three teammates on the ice to help defend. It's a compromise I'm fully in favor of, but it is a compromise nonetheless. The original question was rhetorical. The point was that such compromises should be evaluated on the merits, not rejected out of hand as "non-hockey." Pragmatist vs. Purist points of view.

 

[thewalker]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

well that was fun. nothing beats belting out MINNESOTA after a Gopher goal, let alone 5

 

[KTDC]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

My focus has been on the relationship between favorites and underdogs; respectful posting; and when the desire to celebrate is at least understandable. Yes, I've been using standings points as evidence that there's something "rational" to celebrate. But in the end, it's more about emotion than the quantitative side. Success against the top teams brings satisfaction, regardless of any payoff in the standings or pairwise calculations. As such, how the NCAA treats shootouts (or football overtimes) at tournament selection time is barely part of the conversation -- as I frame the issue. Again, I get that your starting point is entirely different.

pgb-bless you for being so relentless in your pursuit of this matter. I don't think we disagree on when the desire to celebrate is understandable or justified.

Of course, an underdog having success against a team like the Gophers has every right to celebrate. A team like Ohio State winning a shootout against Minnesota absolutely should celebrate like crazy. I hesitate to speak for the other Gopher fans who post, but I think most all would agree.

But in your original post you wanted us to be more disappointed by the shootout loss than we were already by the tie, and that is where we couldn't join you.

I think the shootout, particularly with the current structure in Women's hockey that ARM points out, has to matter more to an underdog than to a team that is on a run like Minnesota has been on. So go ahead and celebrate, and enjoy the pain that we feel for not having won the game, just maybe grant us leeway that our pain is not greater for not having won the shootout

 

[ARM]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

So go ahead and celebrate, and enjoy the pain that we feel for not having won the game, just maybe grant us leeway that our pain is not greater for not having won the shootout

Well stated.

 

[Eeyore]

Re: 2014-2015 Minnesota Women's Hockey: The Maroon & Gold Strike Back!

Note that there are many circumstances in which celebrating a tie is not only perfectly acceptable, but borderline mandatory. Over the last few years, the number of teams that shouldn't feel good about tying Minnesota in women's hockey is a short one. On the day in question, Ohio State played a tremendous game and, frankly, should have been happy about their performance even if they hadn't come up with that late goal to tie.

And, frankly, letting someone else tell you when you should and shouldn't celebrate isn't a smart way to go. There are a small number of edge cases where this fails but the general rule be to celebrate when you want to and tell anyone who objects to go to hell. That just doesn't really have anything to do with whether the cause was a win or a tie.