Re: UMD 2017 Season Thread
The 'Dogs take home the hardware from the Windjammer Classic, for what that's worth, by beating UV 2-1...and just barely.
Just barely "because their first goal reminded me of skill sets you have to go back to Atom B2 to see with respect to the quality both of UMD's shot and of UV's goaltending response to said shot. Both off the chart pathetic. And UMD did not play like they played yesterday. This is an offense depleted team whose best bet is synergism...they have no choice. But those who have a modicum of offensive talent need to put it on display consistently thereby helping this desperately in need team. I realize that they lost a couple of close games to higher ranked teams in the last 2 months and if a couple of those games would have gone the other way then they might even still be ranked but if wishes were horses...that being the case I do think UMD is a better team than their record would appear to argue.
I said "for what that's worth"...what I think this hardware victory is worth is the spark of encouragement and belief in themselves that the convincing win yesterday vs Colgate should engender (regardless of their choking it in the final couple minutes by getting horizontal and allowing Colgate the opportunity to score one which Colgate graciously accepted...the choke put a bad taste on a very good win...like the last mouthful of a great turkey dinner that you have to spit out).
The win today might have the same positive effect although geometrically smaller (since judging by their play yesterday they should have dominated UV in a virtual beat down...judging by most of their play so far this year they should have dominated UV...but that didn't happen) because it almost always feels good to win a tournament regardless of how badly you may have played or how bad the competition was.
The goaltending, while not stellar, seems to be consistently solid enough to keep them in games...it's the offense that is the glaring problem this year with most of it having graduated last year. And even though there are some bright offensive spots on the team like Mrazova, Brodt, and freshman Rogge and Bell and possibly Houston (who for some reason isn't having the modest immediate impact that I thought she would have) freshman often take a year or two to make the adjustment both skillwise and confindencewise before there is any possibility of serious impact. Last year's senior class is a good example of that with their biggest contributions by far coming in their last two years...notwithstanding all the turmoil that they had to endure in the program just prior to that.
So, there are some positives to take back to Duluth with the hardware...the hardware being the least of which.
Speaking of recent program financial turmoil, how much does it cost to fly the team to Burlington, put them up for 2 or 3 nights, feed them, etc., etc., to attend a micro tournament which at the outset is meaningless? If the program was trying to save money because the liars in chief thought that they couldn't afford the previous coach's salary I wonder what percentage of that salary attending this tournament would have amounted to?
Just aksin'.
