I wish I could refute this but I told Biddco before UMD played us that we'd be toast against them. And we were, in spades. We played even worse that I thought we might, even.
We've played so poorly that I am wondering if Coach Blais actually might call it quits after the WCHA tourney. That's pure conjecture on my part, but we look to me like maybe he's the one that's quit or actually
is quitting. Just an odd feeling I've had for awhile. I can't come up with any other explanation for the train wreck that our season has become ever since we got on the plane to play Quinnipiac over the holidays.
Rarely do you see a team saying all the right things like our players have and then play like they never said any of those things like we have.
Worse, Coach Blais, in the press, has laughed off things that he needs to be accountable for. All the too-many-men-on-the-ice penalties we've taken this season (13) is just one thing in that regard. For example, UNO did not practice even one time after after our game with you guys in Omaha on December 15th up to and and including the actual playing of our Quinnipiac series in Hamden, CT on December 29th & 30th. Why? Well, we
were going to practice in Hamden a couple times before playing them but UNO's flight was delayed (remember the huge east coast snowstorm that week?) and we didn't show up until late the night of the 28th and the game the next day was at noon! We had to play the #2 team (then) in both the rankings and in Pairwise without the benefit of having practiced even once--for two whole weeks. Another one that Coach Blais laughed off with kind of a laissez faire attitude, "Well, what can you do?"
What he could have done was make sure this didn't happen somehow so we didn't end up getting swept in one of the most important series we played all season, that's what. That weekend was the beginning of the end of our season, too. Nothing has been the same since.
Of course, now we'll win the WCHA tourney.