Todd D. MilewskiIt’s a new era for Minnesota State-Mankato, but one era may go out with another. Longtime coach Don Brose finished his career at the end of last season with a fourth-place finish in the team’s first year as a member of the WCHA and with an appearance in the Final Five. But Brose may have … Read more
Where do you go from here? Nowhere but up, Tim Watters hopes. The Michigan Tech coach endured his worst season in a four-year collegiate coaching career last year, going 4-34, the most losses in a season in college hockey history. All the more reason to think there’s nowhere to go but up. The best thing … Read more
Yes, North Dakota lost a few important players, and the Sioux are somewhat smaller this year, but Dean Blais may be looking at his team’s situation a little drastically: “We’re rebuilding this year.” Blais has a great poker face, but that’s line’s easy enough to see through. Offensively, Lee Goren, Jason Ulmer and Peter Armbrust … Read more
Scott Owens maintains this year is no more important than any other for his Colorado College program. But after so much success under Don Lucia, there are now certain expectations of the Tigers. And two consecutive years of missing the NCAA tournament might be more than the Colorado College brass can take. No pressure or … Read more
In a sense, former Minnesota-Duluth coach Mike Sertich picked a good time to retire and look out for the future of the program simultaneously. Scott Sandelin was looking for a head coaching job. With Sertich’s retirement after 18 years with the Bulldogs, Duluth was looking for a coach. And the rest is history. Duluth grabbed … Read more
After finishing third in the WCHA, the expectations were set high for St. Cloud State: Do better. And if there ever was a Huskies team that could be up to that challenge, it may be this year’s. With plenty of scorers back, with the top goaltender back, with a team eager to prove last season … Read more
You think the stock market fluctuates too much? Try being George Gwozdecky. The last seven years have been like a cruel roller coaster ride for the Denver coach, who has watched his team look like it’s going to be a force in the WCHA for years to come, only to drop seven or eight places … Read more
Dean Talafous thinks the Gap is closing. But don’t run out to grab trendy-yet-overpriced clothes. He’s not talking about that Gap. The Alaska-Anchorage coach said the gap between his team and the league’s elite has dwindled. And, judging from last year’s results, he may be correct. The Seawolves were poised to host a first-round league … Read more
Everything else could wait. There was one bit of news the Wisconsin hockey program wanted to hear over all others. Dany Heatley is coming back. So they waited, the Badgers did, months after finishing one of the most successful campaigns on record, yet without a national championship to show for it. They waited to hear … Read more
The Year of the Goaltender? That’s the consensus among coaches in the WCHA, which features a crop of netminders perhaps better than any the league has seen in years. Todd D. Milewski slices, dices, mixes and purees the new season.
There was a point last season where Minnesota found out, all too clearly, that it may have been leaning on goaltender Adam Hauser. That’s when it all came crashing down. The Golden Gophers, on their way to home ice in the first round of the WCHA playoffs, got smacked square in the face when they … Read more
Things are heating up in the WCHA playoff race.
The league announced on Tuesday plans to play its postseason tournament at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., for the next three years. The Center is being built on the site of the former St. Paul Civic Center, which hosted the tournament in its infancy.
Now the nail-biting begins. Wisconsin’s Dany Heatley has been drafted – at No. 2 by the Atlanta Thrashers in Saturday’s NHL entry draft – and now faces his decision. Should he stay or should he go? The decision rests a bit with him and a bit with the Thrashers, who could tell the 19-year-old they … Read more
A few weeks ago, when told associate coach Scott Sandelin was going to be leaving at the end of the season to take the coaching job at Minnesota-Duluth, North Dakota players said they’d just have to win the national title to give Sandelin a proper sendoff. How prophetic. Sandelin joined head coach Dean Blais behind … Read more
Was there any chance anyone could pry the national championship trophy out of Peter Armbrust’s grasp? “No, not a chance in hell,” Armbrust said. “This thing is staying right here.” The University of North Dakota senior is one of a select few players who can say his last collegiate memory will be piling on the … Read more
Jeff Panzer is not a picky man. He’ll take another 2-0 final in the national championship game Saturday night. Just as long as North Dakota has the 2. Panzer and the Fighting Sioux could only find the back of the net twice in their national semifinal against Maine on Thursday, though that was enough to … Read more
North Dakota coach Dean Blais didn’t have to say much to sum up his team’s 2-0 national semifinal victory over Maine Thursday. His goaltender, Karl Goehring, did most of the talking with his play on the ice. Goehring, who missed the Western Collegiate Hockey Association Final Five and the quarterfinal round of the NCAA tournament … Read more
St. Lawrence coach Joe Marsh referred to his team as being “absolutely giddy” after the third overtime of his team’s NCAA quarterfinal game against Boston University in Albany, N.Y. Apparently, the giddiness hasn’t exactly left Marsh just yet. Just another one of the repercussions of the longest NCAA tournament game in history. Marsh took the … Read more
Don Brose wanted Troy Jutting to follow in his footsteps. On Monday, Brose got his wish. Jutting, an assistant under Brose at Minnesota State University for the last 10 years, was named the school’s head hockey coach. He will replace Brose, who resigned after 30 years as coach of the Mavericks. “I’m extremely excited and … Read more