Men’s D-I: WCHA

WCHA Column: Oct. 12, 2000

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After two games, NCAA champion North Dakota is — gasp — winless, while Minnesota starts out hot. New coaches, line changes and odds and ends: Todd D. Milewski previews the WCHA.

Wisconsin Not Hit Hard in Shoe Scandal

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Wisconsin’s hockey team can say something its football and men’s and women’s basketball teams can’t — it came away from an athletics department scandal largely unscathed. Unlike the three other high-profile teams at the school, the hockey team was not hit with any suspensions stemming from athletes accepting unadvertised discounts at a Madison-area shoe store. … Read more

Season Preview: Michigan Tech Huskies

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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

Season Preview: North Dakota Fighting Sioux

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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

Season Preview: Colorado College Tigers

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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

Season Preview: Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs

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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

Poll: NCAA Champion Sioux Top Pick In WCHA

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The defending NCAA champion North Dakota Fighting Sioux have been tabbed by the coaches of the WCHA as the conference’s preseason favorite. The Fighting Sioux received six first place votes and a total of 77 points in the annual polling.

Season Preview: St. Cloud State Huskies

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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

Season Preview: Denver Pioneers

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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

Season Preview: Alaska-Anchorage Seawolves

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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

Season Preview: Wisconsin Badgers

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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

2000-01 WCHA Season Preview

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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.

Season Preview: Minnesota Gophers

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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

WCHA Final Five ‘Heading Home’ To St. Paul

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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.

Commodore Signs Deal with Devils

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Mike Commodore, a stalwart defenseman on this year’s North Dakota national championship team, has signed a three-year contract with the defending NHL-champion New Jersey Devils. The 6-foot-4, 230-pound defenseman had one more year of eligibility remaining, but decided he couldn’t pass up on the Devils’ offer. According to the Grand Forks Herald, Commodore received a … Read more

Heatley Picked Second, Mulls Future

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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

Going Out On Top

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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