Yes, it’s generally nasty cold and sometimes miserable on the wind-swept northern plains at this time of year. But there’s an air of quiet resolve that many veterans of multiple North Dakota winters adopt around this time of year. The bad weather happens every year, it’s predictable, it’s inevitable, and everyone else is just as cold and miserable as you are, so there’s no point in complaining about it.
With regard to key injuries, a similar attitude can be found among the members of North Dakota’s most popular hockey team these days. When things go poorly on the ice, as they did last weekend when the Fighting Sioux suffered a come-from-ahead tie and a loss at Minnesota, it would be easy to talk about the players currently out due to a variety of ailments. That’s not what you hear from North Dakota.
“We’ve got real good character in our locker room,” Sioux coach Dave Hakstol said. “Now, if you want to take out Chay Genoway, he’s arguably our best player. Brett Hextall is a pretty good player. We’ve got a couple depth players out. Does that change the makeup of our roster? Yeah. Does that change our expectations? No. We expect to win.”
And prior to the mostly-unpleasant visit to Minneapolis, wins hadn’t been lacking for the Sioux. Star defenseman Genoway was lost to a concussion on Nov. 13 after a hard check from behind in a win over St. Cloud State, and has not returned. As the season wears on, it’s looking more likely that he will sit out the year and try to return again in 2010-11 with a medical redshirt. In the wake of Genoway’s injury, the Sioux went through a 2-6-2 stretch, but had seemingly righted the ship by the time they got to Mariucci. Over the holidays, while star freshman Danny Kristo was off winning gold in Saskatchewan, North Dakota beat Niagara and tied Notre Dame at the Shillelagh tournament near Chicago.
Back in WCHA play, the Sioux swept Minnesota State to stay solidly in the hunt for home ice. But the one-point weekend at Minnesota was a blow – especially Saturday’s 5-1 loss in which the Sioux controlled long stretches of the game, but were at a loss in solving Gopher goalie Alex Kangas.
“In the second period we more than carried the play. We probably had eight to 10 quality chances, we just couldn’t get one to go,” Hakstol said afterward. “We absolutely had more of the play and the better of the play tonight. But that’s not what counts. The scoreboard counts.”
Hextall had moved into a tie for the team lead in goals when he suffered a lower body injury in the Illinois tournament, and is expected to be out for a month. But the members of the current lineup, while acknowledging the missing pieces, say that there are opportunities for new faces to step up.
“Those guys bring a lot to the table,” said sophomore forward David Toews. “We miss both of those guys, but we have a lot of guys that can play roles and jump into those spots. We have to learn from those experiences. We might have problems with injuries down the road, so we just have to keep playing.”
Toews and others admit that consistency, or a lack thereof, has been the team’s biggest problem since Genoway and Hextall have been sidelined.
“Everybody on this team knows that they’ve got to do, what role they play,” said senior Darcy Zajac. “It’s just doing that every night on a consistent basis. Some nights we let up, myself included, and maybe aren’t as ready to go. But I don’t think the character has changed.”
Akin to when bitter cold weather follows a North Dakota blizzard, it just so happens that the injury bug has bitten hardest while the Sioux are playing through perhaps their toughest schedule run of the season. Interspersed among the road trips to Minnesota, Cornell, St. Cloud State and Colorado College are home series with top-ranked Denver and league-leading Minnesota Duluth. But if you want to hear them complain, you’re going to have to listen closely.
“Tough stretch,” said Hakstol, turning to head for his team’s locker room and a lengthy bus ride home. “We’ve got to find a way to get through it with a little bit short of a lineup.”
The road is long, the winter is cold, and the injuries present a challenge. And if you’re waiting to hear the Sioux use any of that as an excuse, you’ll be here until summer.
CONSTRUCTION BEGINS AT CAMP RANDALL
It’s sure to be interesting when Denver battles Wisconsin at the Kohl Center this weekend. And a few blocks away, preparation has begun for another interesting Badger game set for Super Bowl weekend. This weekend, contruction crews will begin the process of transforming Camp Randall Stadium (the 80,000-seat home of the Badger football team) into a hockey rink.
Fans will be able to follow the progress on a live video stream on the University of Wisconsin’s athletics web site as they build the playing surface’s foundation, put up the boards and flood the rink. For the less-patient fans out there, they’ll also show a time-lapse video of the whole process once it is complete.
On Feb. 6 the Badger women’s team will host Bemidji State and the men will face Michigan at the football stadium. The Badgers are 1-0 all-time on the gridiron, having beaten Ohio State at Lambeau Field in Green Bay four years ago.
Good seats for the games are still available.
FONDLY RECALLING ‘HEAVY METAL HOCKEY’
The news in WCHA country this week that Minnesota native (and occasional purple-wearer) Prince was recording a special song meant to fire up the Vikings in advance of the NFC championship game had us thinking back 23 years, and North Dakota’s run to the 1987 NCAA title.
Long before the video and audio technology of today, when every laptop is a studio, a rabid North Dakota fan who called himself Mr. Placebo put together a musical tribute to his favorite team entitled “Heavy Metal Hockey.” The folks at WDAZ-TV in Grand Forks added video to the music, featuring the on-ice exploits of stars like Ed Belfour, Bob Joyce, Ian Kidd and that year’s Hobey winner, Tony Hrkac. Plus, the shots of coach Gino Gasparini behind the bench in his “just won the Masters” green jacket are priceless.
The music is definitely 1987 quality, and the lyrics are, ahem, interesting in spots (“The Sioux can sweep the Gophers; They can beat the Bostons too!”) but for a homemade music video, it’s worth a look.
