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That was Drake Caggiula.
Congrats to UND.
Didn't watch them much this season but what I did see was impressive. Definitely the best two teams playing for the title.
Seems that I missed a little fun in here last night.
The way I see it, while not ideal, the Sioux winning another title will chap the **** out of Gopher fan *** and is therefore a good thing.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Especially when they're chapping my enemy's ***.
Well done Sioux. And Sioux fan, don't hold back on Gopher fan. You know they wouldn't.
This is not the time for good sportsmanship or being magnanimous.
And finally, while I know that UND has us by a couple...
6 is still > than 5.
UND was physical and fast last night. It seemed there were a number of occasions that UND forwards hustled back on defense to neutralize QU rushes that initially looked like they would result in odd-man rushes at the UND net. UND forwards, especially the CBS line, were also able to get behind the QU defense on a number of occasions and create odd-man rushes. And UND seemed to get to a lot of open pucks more quickly than their QU counterparts. There admittedly might be some UND bias in this analysis, but I thought UND looked like the faster team.
Given this analysis, I'm wondering if the east/west teams are finally starting to adapt to others' play, (although at this point, still on a game-by-game basis). Again, going back to generalizations.
While UND is stereotyped as a physical team, and not without some reason, over the last 20 years they have also prided themselves on having speed on the roster. The mantra of the 1997 national championship team was "speed kills", it is printed on the championship rings. And while we always have some big physical guys on the ice we've also consistently had some speedsters on the ice as well (Drake Caggiula, Rocco Grimaldi, Evan Trupp, Ryan Duncan, Rastislav Spirko, Tyler Palmiscno, Jeff Panzer, etc.), and even some of the guys who were not necessarily flagged as speed guys had pretty good wheels.
True enough. And we've certainly played some top eastern schools who had more speed, even with the speed guys on our roster. The best of the BC teams over the last few years come to mind. But I think the very top end teams have a reasonable blend of speed and physical regardless of whether they are east or west. As a trend though, you are correct that western teams tend to be characterized (or stereotyped) as being more physical (with some of the high end CC teams of a few years ago coming to mind as an exception), while top eastern schools are characterized as being more speed-focused (again, with some exceptions).
).I think there is truth in that. There always seems to be a concern, among fans at least, going into the FF and even the whole NCAA tournament, that HE officials call a closer game and that the western teams will have to adapt. Berry was very candid during and after the championship game that his guys had to stay out of the box to keep Q's power play off the ice and roll 4 lines. Also, BC has become the model of success in the modern college game, and programs tend to emulate his philosophy (recruit first round draft choices
I'm OK with this. Some degree of violence will always be part of the game, and that is good, but with safety concerns and an overall emphasis on speed, passing and skill, heavy physical play is becoming a bit of a liability. The majority of western schools, like MN, UND, DU, UW, SCSU, UNO, UMD, etc. recruit well and will continue to do well in a less physical game.
As you say, generalizations. I'm sure guys like Gurth, who see more hockey being played at a developmental level, will have a more informed opinion about how the game is changing.
