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UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

gomavs#1 said:
Regarding Blais, late season collapse or not, no way should Blais go. He has a team full of freshmen in the hunt going down to the final two weeks of the season. We're missing our captain and are going to a new arena next year. There's no way he goes.
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Uh, Dean Blais is one of the best paid coaches in all of college hockey and was given a contract extension a little less than a year ago through the '17-'18 season:

http://www.omaha.com/uno/new-deal-m...cle_07371eb8-cfec-5131-bf92-8f2b77f64009.html

Personally, as far as Blais is concerned, I want to see this season as well as next season play out before rendering any final judgements on the guy. His prior track record merits that although the late season melt-downs the past 3 seasons and how he has handled off-ice issues have concerned me. Alex Hudson was kicked off this team for reasons I don't agree with. (disclaimer: I have no intention of divulging here what happened that got Hudson booted, which has never been publicly discussed. I know someone that was in a completely unique situation to know what did happen to him and he told me what transpired when I asked him about it. I promised him I would not divulge what he told me since it would be obvious who the source was if I blabbed. This person and his business are also a customer of mine, besides). Matt White and Preston Hodge got booted over something even the "victim" of the incident in question said the school, as well as the police, totally overreacted to and in the end, he felt so strongly about this that he did not cooperate with the police, publicly said why he wouldn't, and the the charges against both guys got dropped as a result. Perhaps if Coach Blais and the school administration weren't going batsh*t crazy and overreacting to off-ice incidents (in each case involving team captains and having manifest effects on each of the two separate seasons in which these "incidents" occurred), perhaps the school's fortunes of war on the ice would be better than they were in those 2 seasons.

UNO leads the nation in underclassman scoring. Their incoming class next season is very, very promising, on paper, as the current one was. They will play in a new arena next season in front of a sellout crowd for every single game they play next season and will hopefully reap the benefits of the excitement of all the hugger-mugger that will generate. Coach Blais now has something to recruit to and it already is showing, despite the fact that we have yet to play a single game in the new facility. I am willing to give it one more season past this one. I sincerely think UNO is a pre-season top ten team next year and if they had not stupidly burned Massa's redshirt in '12-'13, I'd be calling them a pre-season top 5 team next season. The only question I see on this team next season, barring pro defections, is in goal.

Blais is going nowhere any time soon and I not ready at all ready to pull the plug, since UNO will, next season, become one of college hockey's true "haves".
 
Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

MAVFANJEFF said:
I always thought that showing a coach the respect he thinks he deserves by spelling his name correctly meant that he earned it by winning. blaze is headed for another meltdown.
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I am now dumber for having read this. thanks alot Joff.

UNO probably needs to win 3 games between now and the end of the playoffs to get in. Only 2 of those can be CC (and they have beaten us). The other two need to come on the road against the #3 team in the PWR and in the first round of the playoffs in which we have never advanced under Dean Blais. I have to say, I'm not terribly confident that we can get 3 if the SCSU series shows what this team has left in the tank.
 
Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

5thYearFreshman said:
UNO probably needs to win 3 games between now and the end of the playoffs to get in. Only 2 of those can be CC (and they have beaten us). The other two need to come on the road against the #3 team in the PWR and in the first round of the playoffs in which we have never advanced under Dean Blais. I have to say, I'm not terribly confident that we can get 3 if the SCSU series shows what this team has left in the tank.
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Yep. Totally agreed - we have to win at least three more and based on past year's performances and last Saturday, it doesn't bode well for the group. Hoping that some form of energy, leadership, offense, goaltending, anything positive pops up this weekend and we can sneak out a victory. Not counting on it though.
 
Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

You know my question was part chest puffing but also a good question: who would UNO wanna match up with in the first round? Who does anyone want to?

While not mathematically out of the question, don't see them ending up facing CC or WMU. So that leaves 5 potential opponents. And we're in the same boat. Personally, I'd love to avoid playing UND for the second time in two weeks' time and I'd love to stay out of Ohio; we managed to sweep them at home, they're probably due to return the favor or at least win the series. Between you guys, DU and UMD, can't say I have a huge inclination one way or the other as far as opponent, I'd just like to see if we can't split in NoDak, sweep the Pios and get it in Cloudy town.

Also, there's now talk of getting rid of Blais; my question is, who'd you replace him with? I don't know how you got him to begin with, but I think you'd significantly downgrade with a replacement. Its not like Gwoz would come running, and speaking of the Tiny Prancer, how's DU feeling now that they've moved on without him? I think unless you can replace him with someone as good, there's no use in running him outta town. WMU may finish 7th in the conference, but they know they'll never get someone better than Andy Murray, so he'll stay put I'm sure.
 
Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

Trev Alberts discusses UNO's transition to D-1:

http://www.kvnonews.com/2015/02/uno-ready-end-transition-d/

.........which is being brought to us by---UNO Hockey, which starts footing the real bill next season.

And, of this quote by him in the article:

“We started holding ourselves accountable four years ago on the actual product on the court or ice,” Alberts said. “I’ve long felt that we can’t even hold our coaches accountable on wins and losses until I feel comfortable that we are providing them the necessary support, and it isn’t just financial, its ‘do we have the right people in place?’
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I think this is still something of an issue at the school, and, I am not necessarily talking about coaching, by the way.
 
Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

5thYearFreshman said:
I am now dumber for having read this. thanks alot Joff.

UNO probably needs to win 3 games between now and the end of the playoffs to get in. Only 2 of those can be CC (and they have beaten us). The other two need to come on the road against the #3 team in the PWR and in the first round of the playoffs in which we have never advanced under Dean Blais. I have to say, I'm not terribly confident that we can get 3 if the SCSU series shows what this team has left in the tank.
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I'll make it easier for you, blaiz wants respect win the games you're supposed to win and motivate your players from the beginning of the season to the end. his teams are supposed to be among the most conditioned and once again they seem to be dead on their feet. How on God's green earth do NHL players keep going until june????
 
Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

WOWT, the NBC affiliate here in Omaha, announces some sort of affiliation/partnership with UNO Hockey and will also, apparently, be televising our season ending series next weekend with CC:

http://www.wowt.com/fortheheartland/headlines/Omaha-Mavericks-290221571.html

I saw an ad on their station about this today, as well.

This is sort of odd since the press release about this is dated the 20th, but there has been not a peep about it on the school's own Athletic Department web site, nor in the Mavpuck forum or the associated Facebook or Twitter pages that I have seen, nor at @RedArmyUNO.

Somebody know something that I don't, here?
 
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Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

Red Cows said:
WOWT, the NBC affiliate here in Omaha, announces some sort of affiliation/partnership with UNO Hockey and will also, apparently, be televising our season ending series next weekend with CC:
Click to expand...

Such negativity… you realize now matter how bad they play the next two weeks, they still get to make the playoffs, right? :D
 
Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

SCSU Euro said:
Such negativity… you realize now matter how bad they play the next two weeks, they still get to make the playoffs, right? :D
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I was hoping we could just skip the playoffs and go straight to the NCAAs.
 
Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

No regular season conference title is the offing for us, now.

We can finish 2nd, though.

One win next weekend against CC gets us home ice, since we now own the tiebreaker against UMD, even if they sweep next weekend, since one win against CC for us and a sweep for UMD at Western would leave us tied in the points standings.

SCSU secured a road gig for themselves tonight in the conference tourney.

There are two home ice spots left up for grabs in the NCHC tourney and those two spots are going to UNO, Denver, or UMD and UNO has the inside track to one of those spots.

My guess is that DU or UMD will be playing UNO in the CenturyLink Center come March 13th.

An aside, UNO moves up to 5th in Pairwise tonight and probably guaranteed itself an NCAA tourney slot although I'd like to get a look at the Pairwise predictor and see how a CC sweep of us next weekend as well as a 2 game exit at the conference tourney by us might affect that. My guess is that we'd still be in.

I'd like to see us sweep CC (who has nothing to play for), get to the Frozen Faceoff at the Target Center and do well enough to sew up one of the #1 seeds.

I'm guessing getting to Minneapolis and winning at least one game there will do it.

Pairwise predictor, anyone?
 
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Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

With Miami playing UND, a sweep of CC should get us second place in the conference. Not a bad season in the toughest conference.

I would agree - we should be in regardless. I would have to think getting to the championship game of the conference tourney would secure a top seed. Just hope we don't drop one to CC next week.
 
Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

Red Cows said:
No regular season conference title is the offing for us, now.

We can finish 2nd, though.

One win next weekend against CC gets us home ice, since we now own the tiebreaker against UMD, even if they sweep next weekend, since one win against CC for us and a sweep for UMD at Western would leave us tied in the points standings.

SCSU secured a road gig for themselves tonight in the conference tourney.

There are two home ice spots left up for grabs in the NCHC tourney and those two spots are going to UNO, Denver, or UMD and UNO has the inside track to one of those spots.

My guess is that DU or UMD will be playing UNO in the CenturyLink Center come March 13th.

An aside, UNO moves up to 5th in Pairwise tonight and probably guaranteed itself an NCAA tourney slot although I'd like to get a look at the Pairwise predictor and see how a CC sweep of us next weekend as well as a 2 game exit at the conference tourney by us might affect that. My guess is that we'd still be in.

I'd like to see us sweep CC (who has nothing to play for), get to the Frozen Faceoff at the Target Center and do well enough to sew up one of the #1 seeds.

I'm guessing getting to Minneapolis and winning at least one game there will do it.

Pairwise predictor, anyone?
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Technically a win doesn't put you past Duluth. If you split and they sweep, they'd win the tiebreaker. Tiebreaker is not head to head, its conference wins. If you split you'd end up with 12 and they'd have 13. Last year when it looked like UND and SCSU could end up tied for the Penrose, UND would have been the 1 seed despite us going 3-1 against them.
 
Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

SCSU Euro said:
Technically a win doesn't put you past Duluth. If you split and they sweep, they'd win the tiebreaker. Tiebreaker is not head to head, its conference wins. If you split you'd end up with 12 and they'd have 13. Last year when it looked like UND and SCSU could end up tied for the Penrose, UND would have been the 1 seed despite us going 3-1 against them.
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My bad. You are correct.
 
Re: UNO '14 -'15 season thread. Will the sleeper awaken?

Here is video of Purple Cows Head Coach and Omaha Lancer/Omaha hockey legend Mike Hastings on senior night at in Mankato this past Saturday night, post game:

https://vimeo.com/120920103

I am posting it here because Coach Hastings gives a shout out to UNO Assistant Coach and former Mankato Head Coach Coach Troy Jutting in his speech to the crowd in this video (at about the 7 minute mark), and because Omaha hockey fans pretty universally have warm fuzzies for Coach Hastings, in any event.


We wish him all the best--unless he and his purple gang are playing us.
 
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