Heartstoppers With less than a minute remaining in regulation, Minnesota goalie Adam Hauser was pulled for an extra skater and Minnesota got the game-tying goal from Matt Koalska. That marked the second straight year that a goal was scored with an extra man on the ice in the championship. Last year, North Dakota scored two … Read more
A few hours before they played in their first Frozen Four, members of the 2002 Minnesota team watched a video that tied their purpose this weekend at the Xcel Energy Center to another, larger one. As much as the Golden Gophers are playing for those that skate on the ice now, they’re also playing Saturday … Read more
Darren Haydar leaves St. Paul without any hardware, but with plenty to look forward to.
There are plenty of unwritten rules in sports. You don’t bunt in baseball to break up a no-hitter. You don’t walk across a player’s putting line in golf. You don’t hoist a three-pointer in basketball with a 20-point lead in the final minutes. Football teams know that there’s no need for a Hail Mary instead … Read more
With Minnesota hockey the hottest act in town, capitalism was strongly in evidence on the streets of St. Paul Saturday afternoon.
If you have a grandson who is very dear to you and he’s an athlete, there are few thrills greater than watching him compete for a national championship. So when Chris Heisten’s grandfather settled into his seat at the Xcel Energy Center to watch Maine take on top-seeded New Hampshire on Thursday, it was with … Read more
In the end, it was the kid from North Dakota who ended 22 years of Minnesota’s unrequited pursuit of postseason happiness. At 16:58 in overtime, in St. Paul, in front of a partisan crowd of 19,324 fans, Grant Potulny capitalized on a power play to deliver the 2002 NCAA championship to the Minnesota faithful. Matt … Read more
Grant Standbrook has been a quintessential assistant coach, and a rock, for 25 years.
It was a Frozen ‘4’ indeed for Minnesota, for which numerology just might have played a part in an NCAA title win.
Most of them come from a land with 10,000 lakes, 10,000 rinks and hundreds of thousands of young players who dream of a golden moment like the one Saturday night for someone who isn’t even a Minnesotan, but is as close now as any foreigner. Pulling the M-emblazoned sweater over their heads, then pushing an … Read more
Dreams simply don’t come true enough in real life. The movies write great scripts, but everyone knows fantasy, storybook endings are reserved for Hollywood. Certainly St. Paul, Minn., is not the stage where one would expect one of these Hollywood-like segments to be filmed. But if I were a producer, I might want to hop … Read more
Grant Potulny is Minnesota’s first out-of-state player in over a decade. That didn’t seem to mean much Saturday night.
Johnny Pohl knows a thing or two about jumping after a big goal. He paid tribute to his brother Mark’s signature move last season by duplicating the “Pohl Vault,” a jump and turn into the Plexiglas. Matt Koalska’s last-minute goal sent the title game into overtime (photo: Pedro Cancel) So Pohl was pumped when he … Read more
Minnesota defenseman Jordan Leopold was named Friday as the winner of the 2002 Hobey Baker Memorial Award, given annually to college hockey’s most outstanding player. Minnesota captain Jordan Leopold is the fourth defenseman to win the Hobey Baker Memorial Award. Leopold was selected over fellow “Hobey Hat Trick” finalists Darren Haydar of New Hampshire and … Read more
After a disappointing overtime loss to Maine in last year’s NCAA East Regional, then-junior Minnesota defenseman Jordan Leopold had a difficult decision to make. The WCHA’s top defensive player of 2000-2001, whose NHL rights are held by the Calgary Flames, could have left school early for a pro career. Minnesota’s Jordan Leopold, the 2002 Hobey … Read more
The commissioners of the six Division I hockey conferences took questions from the fans and discussed the state of college hockey Friday at USCHO.com’s second annual Town Meeting in St. Paul, Minn.
A bad break for Rocky Reeves was a lucky break for Buffalo, N.Y. In his first game at Buffalo State the day before Halloween in 1998, Reeves scored on a penalty shot in the middle of the second period. But moments later, he slid hard into the boards and fractured his right leg, ending his … Read more
Minnesota, playing in its first Frozen Four since 1995, was largely nerve-free, even in the face of a Michigan rally late.
Head coach Don Lucia has instilled a sense of unity in Minnesota, one reason the Gophers play for the championship Saturday.
Michigan saw both sides of the home-ice coin during the NCAA tournament.