Another Second-Half Sioux Surge, With a Twist

After a pedestrian 5-8-1 start, things were looking up for North Dakota in December. The Fighting Sioux had climbed above .500 with a road sweep at Harvard (winning 10-1 in the opener) and a home sweep of St. Cloud State, and one of their patented second-half surges seemed to be underway.

But a trip to Michigan’s largest and most-maligned city proved that the Lions and the auto industry aren’t the only things struggling in Detroit. The Sioux had a disastrous weekend at the Great Lakes Invitational, recording 2-1 losses to the then last-place teams in both the CCHA (Michigan State) and the WCHA (Michigan Tech) and seeming to prove to doubters that this team was too young and too inconsistent for prime time.

North Dakota forward Chris VandeVelde was named WCHA Offensive Player of the Week after netting a hat trick at Alaska Anchorage last weekend.

“That was a lesson in the fact that it doesn’t take long to get out of your routine and your rhythm,” said Sioux senior forward Ryan Duncan. The team had played a game, then players had gone home for the holidays for a few days before the Detroit trip. The disrupted rhythm led to disaster at Joe Louis Arena. But while the Sioux are hoping the folks selecting the NCAA field forget those two games, keeping that effort, or lack thereof, in mind has paid big dividends for the team since Jan. 1.

“We had our sights set pretty high after Christmas, and the Detroit trip was a real eye-opener,” said Chris VandeVelde, a junior forward who was named the most recent WCHA Offensive Player of the Week for a hat trick at Alaska Anchorage. “We lost to two teams we definitely feel we should’ve beaten. But we learned that just because we’re North Dakota doesn’t mean anyone is going to lay down when we show up.”

Since then teams haven’t laid down, but they’ve been beaten down by the Sioux. North Dakota has gone 11-1-2 since returning from Detroit, and with four WCHA games remaining (two at home with Colorado College and two at Wisconsin) is the odds-on favorite to win its first MacNaughton Cup since 2004.

While from afar this looks like another “underachieve in the first half, come on strong after Christmas” run by the Sioux, the turnaround makes more sense this time, upon closer inspection. Stung hard by early defections (T.J. Oshie, Jonathan Toews, Taylor Chorney, etc.) and young at several key positions, the second-half surge this time seems to be a product of maturation by several freshman and a gradual solidification of the goaltending situation in Grand Forks.

Sioux coach Dave Hakstol tried a goalie rotation early, alternating between senior Aaron Walski and rookie Brad Eidsness, but settled on the kid and the results have been stellar. Duncan thinks back about 11 months when asked about the odds of winning it all with a freshman goalie.

“It’s been proven with a guy like John Muse at BC. They won the NCAA title with a freshman in goal,” Duncan said. “And Richard Bachman was the WCHA’s top player a year ago as a freshman goalie. Brad definitely fits in that class, and stepped up when he had an opportunity.”

But if the goalie is a budding star, Duncan doesn’t want opponents to look to hard elsewhere to find the teams other stars. In October, Duncan claimed that there were no stars on the team (conveniently ignoring the Hobey Baker Award he won as a sophomore) and in February he claims that the team’s balance as the regular season wanes is proof.

“I’d much rather have it this way,” Duncan said, comparing it to previous seasons where so much opponent attention was paid to the trio of him, Oshie, and Toews. “A balanced team is much harder to defend against. When we’ve got guys on all four lines going and six d-men on their game, it makes us much harder to prepare for. But if two or three guys aren’t ready to play, we’re going to struggle.”

Like so many Sioux forwards, VandeVelde follows Duncan’s lead and says that the balance has led to an inherent importance of effort, where every player knows that a top-level game is required every night.

“We don’t really have a star player, so we know that every line has to go out and give its all,” VandeVelde said. “If one line doesn’t do that, we know we could lose that game.”

That “give it all or else” mentality has clicked for them in another enjoyable January and February, which is why the MacNaughton Cup is suddenly likely to spend an 11th summer in Grand Forks.

Badger Blues in Blue Earth County

A glance at the current WCHA standings shows Wisconsin (13-9-2 in conference play) in fourth and Minnesota State (9-13-2) in eighth. So one would naturally assume that this weekend’s series between the Badgers and Mavericks in Mankato would be a chance for Wisconsin to right the collective ship (the Badgers were swept at home by Denver last weekend).

But to make that assumption, you’d have to ignore some history, namely the fact that the Badgers are just 4-8-2 all-time as visitors in the Mavs’ often-renamed home rink. Most memorable among the losses there was a February 2006 sweep by the Mavericks.

Ryan McDonagh and Wisconsin visit Minnesota State this weekend. Mankato has not been kind to the Badgers in the past.

Wisconsin goaltender Brian Elliott had just returned from an injury, and all looked well as the Badgers jumped out to an early 3-0 lead on Friday night. From there, Minnesota State scored 13 of the next 17 goals, winning 6-4 and 7-3, and prompting more than one Badger to use the term “rock bottom” in describing the state of their team. Of course, Wisconsin lost just once the rest of the season, claiming the NCAA title just six weeks after the mauling in Mankato.

Asked why his teams seem to have a hard time versus the Mavericks more often than not, the Badgers coach said the problems aren’t unique to his club.

“I think if you went and looked at a lot of teams, they don’t play well there. It’s a tough place to play,” said Mike Eaves this week, noting the now-famous “Ole! Ole!” song chanted by thousands of purple-clad fans whenever the Mavs score a goal. “That crowd, it reminds me of the junior hockey league. You know, they get rowdy. They sing that European song, and they get into it. I know as a coach I can’t see the game very well from the bench. I feel like I’m tucked in this bunker behind the bench and can’t see what’s going on. And they play hard. It’s a hard place to play in.”

Eaves also had some less-than-complimentary words about the Alltel Center, but noted that a road series in a hostile environment might do the Badgers some good.

“It’s a dark building … so it’s like playing in a cave a little bit,” Eaves said. “But that’s the kind of atmosphere they want, and it’s a great test for your team. I think it’s the type of weekend we need right now to rebound. We know what we’re getting ourselves in for, and we need to get up and get ready to play.”

A Sad Goodbye on the Front Range

After a few months shy of 150 years as the primary news source for countless residents of Colorado, the owners of the Rocky Mountain News shut down the paper this week. The last edition of the tabloid hit newsstands on Friday, adding yet another sad chapter to the mess that is the modern newspaper industry.

As a journalism student at Minnesota Duluth two decades ago, the Rocky Mountain News handed me one of my first opportunities to freelance for a major metropolitan daily, when they hired me to cover rookie coach Frank Serratore and the Denver Pioneers during a visit to the DECC. From that weekend until now, I’ve probably had more than 100 stories printed in the News, covering Denver hockey nearly every time the Pioneers traveled to Minnesota, as well as occasionally covering Colorado College, the Colorado Avalanche, the Denver Broncos, the Denver Nuggets, pro soccer’s Colorado Rapids, and even the Colorado Valkyries — a short-lived professional women’s football team — for the paper.

I fell in love with Colorado and the Rocky Mountain way of life on many trips to Denver, and made no secret of my dream to one day live in the foothills and cover college hockey for the Rocky Mountain News full time.

In December, I traded email with assistant sports editor Kevin Huhn, who has become a good friend and mentor over the years. He confirmed the stories that the paper (which reportedly lost $18 million in 2008) was for sale and unless a buyer was found, the presses would be stopped for good. I spent the last few months realizing my dream was probably dead, but hoping for one last chance to cover a WCHA Final Five as an unofficial part of the Denver media. Alas, like much of what we hope for in life, that was not to be either.

So to folks with names like Huhn, Rooney, Sadowski, Lopez, Kreiger, Tomasson, and the Cowboy who have meant so much to stringers like me and to readers all across the Front Range for many years, I thank you and hope you quickly find new places for your talents. Just as you’ve given so many of us a place to write in the past, if you ever want to jot a little bit about college hockey in the future, I’m sure INCH can find a page for you.

As for me, I plan to hold onto my 2004 Frozen Four credential for a long time. That was the year, in Boston, when I had the privilege of covering Denver’s run to the NCAA title wearing a pass that read “Jess Myers, Rocky Mountain News” on the front.