We can think of a few recent Saturdays in
April that will go down in Denver hockey history as memorable
dates. By contrast, Friday, December 30, 2005, is a day
that Pioneers coach George Gwozdecky and company should
seek to have stricken from all future school media guides.
The trouble started at Magness Arena, where
the Denver Cup began with everyone anticipating a Denver-Boston
College showdown in the tournament finale. Instead, the
Pioneers fell victim to one of the bigger upsets of the
season, as Princeton rallied with four unanswered goals
to upend the host school, 4-1.
“Princeton completely out-played us
in many facets of the game,” said Gwozdecky of the
upset. “That was as disappointing an effort and an
outcome as I’ve been involved with in a very long
time with this team.”
As that was happening in Colorado, there was
further trouble for the Pioneers brewing on the other side
of the Rockies in Vancouver. During Team USA’s game
that evening at the World Junior Championship – a
2-2 tie with Switzerland – USA/Denver defenseman Chris
Butler was ridden hard into the boards and suffered a shoulder
injury. Gwozdecky says Butler might be out of the lineup
for all of January.
Butler’s injury is the latest in a growing
list of ailments that have the Pioneers bringing a third
goaltender on the road with them just to fill out a full
traveling roster. With rookie forward Brock Trotter out
for the year and junior forward Adrian Veideman still not
at full strength, Gwozdecky says he’s thankful the
Pioneers have the coming weekend off before St. Cloud State
comes to visit for a pair on Jan. 13-14.
The good news to come out of Vancouver for
Pioneer fans was Geoff Paukovich, who scored his first goal
of 2005-06 in the Switzerland game. After scoring a dozen
times as a freshman, the sophomore jinx has hit Paukovich
hard, as he has just three assists in his first 20 games
for Denver. Still, Gwozdecky says Paukovich is making an
important contribution to the team even if he’s not
putting pucks in the net, and they look forward to his return
from Vancouver.
“We really miss him for other things
he brings to our lineup,” Gwozdecky said. “He’s
tough, physical, really good on draws and so strong defensively.
Teams aren’t as good in our zone when he’s on
the ice.”
SEEN
AND HEARD IN THE WCHA
Great Weekend Getaway
North
Dakota at Alaska Anchorage (Fri-Sat) North Dakota visits Alaska Anchorage this
weekend in the first WCHA series of 2006 (and the
only WCHA series of the weekend). Picking the more
desperate team is tough, as the Seawolves have gone
winless in four games since their surprise 3-0 victory
at Denver in December, while the Sioux head to Alaska
on a two-game WCHA losing streak after dropping a
pair at home to arch-rival Minnesota.
While You’re There: The previous
generation of Seawolves will assist kids who they
hope are the future generation of Seawolves this Saturday
when the UAA Hockey Alumni Association will host its
annual Seawolf Youth Skills Competition at Sullivan
Arena. The event is open to boys mites, squirts and
peewees, and girls U8, U10 and U12 age groups. Trophies
will be awarded in each division, including a goalie
category, and each player will receive a t-shirt and
a ticket to that evening’s Sioux-Seawolf game.
The competition runs from 1-3
p.m. AST. The entry fee is $10 and full hockey gear
is required. For more information call 907-244-5540
or visit http://hockeyalumni.uaa.alaska.edu.
Stick
Salute
If it’s
true that character is defined not by how many times
you fall, but by how you pick yourself back up, then
there’s plenty of character in uniform at Wisconsin
this season. After suffering their first WCHA setback
of the season a few weeks back (an inexplicable 4-2
home loss to Michigan Tech), the Badgers have won
their next three games by a combined score of 16-2,
and cruised to the title in the Badger Showdown. We’ve
seen nothing out of Madison to make us believe that
the MacNaughton Cup won’t be in residence there
in the coming weeks.
Bench
Minor
While Minnesota
was clearly the superior team in its Dec. 29 game
with Union (even with Blake Wheeler and Phil Kessel
skating in Vancouver), the officiating
left us somewhat bewildered. WCHA referees have been
criticized for years for allegedly “evening
things up” and making sure that each team gets
the same number of power play chances. Apparently,
that unwritten rule is out the window in non-conference
games. In the Gophers 8-0 win, the Dutchmen were whistled
for 49 minutes in penalties and Minnesota scored on
five of their 12 power plays. By contrast, Minnesota
had 10 minutes in penalties and killed two Union power
plays in the game. We never thought we’d miss
the coincidental minor so much.
If any powerful North Dakota alumni have connections
with the airlines, they might want to pull some strings
to ensure on-time arrivals in Anchorage on Friday. While
WCHA teams normally take 22 players on the road, the Fighting
Sioux left for Alaska Anchorage with just 18 skaters, hopeful
that four more will be joining them from Vancouver sometime
on Friday.
Freshman forward Jonathan Toews won gold with
Team Canada at the World Junior Championship in Vancouver,
while a trio of Sioux freshmen (T.J. Oshie, Brian Lee and
Taylor Chorney) wore the red, white and blue for Team USA
in the tournament. All four are planning on flying to Anchorage
via Seattle on Friday. While airline schedules (especially
to Alaska in January) can be in flux due to the weather
and other factors, the Sioux bench boss has confidence that
he’ll have a full squad by game time on Friday.
“They’ll get up there,”
said North Dakota coach Dave Hakstol with confidence before
the rest of his team left Grand Forks. “Whether or
not they’ll play right away, we’ll see. We have
to be prepared for anything, especially when players are
traveling on game day.”
As for what shape the four will be in upon
arrival in Anchorage, Hakstol fully anticipates some physical
and mental fatigue to be a factor not only this weekend
but for his team’s series at Minnesota on Jan. 13-14.
Oshie suffered a rib injury in the bronze medal game on
Thursday and didn’t play in the latter stages of the
Americans’ 4-2 loss to Finland. His status for the
series with the Seawolves is unknown.
“Excitement and adrenaline will probably
get the guys through this weekend, but we’re unfortunately
not in a situation where I can give them five or six days
off to recover,” Hakstol said. “With the World
Junior and WCHA schedules the way they are, these guys could
end up playing something like seven games in a 10-day period.”
With three players on the American team and
another skating for the Canadians, Hakstol – who lives
in North Dakota but is originally from Alberta – admitted
that he’s had to be very careful with his loyalties
while watching the games in Vancouver play out.
“I’m proud of what all of them
have done, and it’s been fun watching them all do
so well,” he said. “But I’ve probably
still got my Team Canada logo stamped on somewhere.”
FRIES
AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG
• Minnesota
State Mankato (university higher-ups have officially dropped
the comma in the school’s name – apparently
as a New Year’s resolution) kicked off 2006 in a good
way on-ice, rallying from a 2-0 deficit to beat Nebraska-Omaha
5-2 on Tuesday. The Mavericks are on a 4-1-1 streak and
have this weekend off before resuming WCHA play by hosting
Alaska Anchorage on Jan. 13-14.
• The season
of perfect inconsistency continued for Minnesota Duluth
over the holidays. After going winless in their previous
four WCHA home games (versus North Dakota and Denver) the
Bulldogs made their first appearance in the Florida College
Classic, where they beat nationally ranked Maine and tied
nationally ranked Cornell. The Big Red won the ensuing shootout,
3-2, to take the tournament title. Having been inconsistent
and unpredictable in just about everything they’ve
done this season, the stage is set for the Bulldogs to finish
seventh in the WCHA, then win the NCAA title.
• It was a
good news-bad news trip to Detroit for Michigan Tech in
this year’s Great Lakes Invitational. The Huskies
lost a pair at Joe Louis Arena, and have now gone 25 years
without winning the tournament that they helped start way
back in 1965. The tournament-opening 3-2 overtime loss to
Michigan State came despite the efforts of freshman goalie
Michael-Lee Teslak, who stopped 57 of the Spartans’
60 shots in the game and was named the WCHA’s rookie
of the week for the effort. Tech’s last GLI title
came in 1980 when Mike Lauen’s overtime goal sparked
the Huskies 3-2 win over Michigan for the title. The all-tournament
team that year included future Tech coaches Newell Brown
and Tim Watters.
• While St.
Cloud State students were away on holiday break, some good
news for Husky hockey fans happened at the polling place.
In a special election held on Dec. 27, Tarryl Clark won
a seat in the Minnesota State Senate, replacing Republican
Dave Kleis, who was recently elected mayor of St. Cloud.
Clark, a Democrat, is expected to wield more power in the
Democrat-controlled Senate and has SCSU officials more hopeful
of getting roughly $5 million in state funds approved for
improvements to the National Hockey Center. Coach Bob Motzko
and others at the school have expressed a need for expanded
team offices, a new lobby and a larger ticket office in
the facility, which opened in 1989.
• After their
team’s massacres in Motown, Colorado College fans
are hoping it’s not another 40 years before they get
invited back. The Tigers scored a dozen goals versus Michigan
and Michigan State to win the GLI in their first trip to
the event since the inaugural tournament in 1965 at Detroit’s
Olympia. Then-Tigers coach Bob Johnson's club lost 6-2 to
the University of Toronto and 10-3 to Boston University.
A variety
of sources were utilized in the compilation of this report.
