College (ice) hockey

[The Exploding Vole]

College (ice) hockey

Without wishing to sound condescending, a college hockey championship is probably the pinnacle of sporting achievement in North Dakota.

[ursus arctos]

College (ice) hockey

Don't discount rodeo, TEV.

A friend of mine is an alum of UND, and he is genuinely excited about this run.

Of course, they already have seven national championships to their name.

[The Exploding Vole]

College (ice) hockey

Rodeo is big in North Dakota, eh? A pity it's not much of a college sport.

[Reed John]

College (ice) hockey

UND hockey is indeed a very big deal in North Dakota and the nearby parts of Minnesota, at least outside of NDSU fans, but NDSU doesn't have a hockey team for some reason.

I was glad to see Yale and BC get bounced, but I don't like any of the teams in the Frozen Four. I guess I'll root for Duluth.

[The Exploding Vole]

College (ice) hockey

Do, because Duluth is quite a nice place.

[ursus arctos]

College (ice) hockey

Mandi Schwartz lost her battle with cancer yesterday.

RIP

[Reed John]

College (ice) hockey

Update:

PSU's first men's D1 coach will be Guy Gadowski. I'm stoked. He seems like the ideal fit. He built Fairbanks and Princeton from total shit to respectability despite not having a lot of local talent to draw from and, in the case of Princeton at least, being somewhat constrained by academic standards. He'll do well at Penn State. As soon as I heard they were looking at him and read more about his background, I knew he was the best guy, even better than the guy at UMD or Mark Johnson.

This wasn't part of the orginal plan, but the current head coach of the club team has agreed to step down and let Gadowski coach the ACHA team next year, the last year before they start NCAA play. They're already getting recruits that aspire to play on the D1 team and Eddie Olcyk's son has verbally committed to Penn State, so that's kind of exciting. It will be interesting to see how it goes next year. They'll have a lot of talented freshmen, at least. No doubt it will be better than this last year, which was the PSU ACHA team's worst in memory.

On the women's side, they've hired Josh Brandewene.

He captained Penn State when they won their first ACHA title and has coached a lot at the ACHA and New England Prep School level. He doesn't have any D1 women's experience, but I think his connections with the prep school scene in New England will be helpful since that's probably where most of the women's recruits will come from early on. Pennsylvania is behind on girls hockey. It's starting to pick up, but most of the D1 women's players come from Minnesota, New England private schools, Canada, or Scandinavia.

Brandewene was a student of my mom's. She taught the required writing classes. She remembers him because he was a nice kid, albeit not a great writer, she says. I remember that when he was on the team, he proposed to his now wife at center ice after a game. Obviously, they bleed blue & white, as the expression goes.

[ursus arctos]

College (ice) hockey

I agree that Gadowski is a perfect fit for PSU. Princeton is very sorry to see him go.

[Reed John]

College (ice) hockey

I'm sure Princeton will manage.