The World is Flat !

north45

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The world is flat and the Gopher hockey team has gone over the edge and fallen into the abyss! The responsibility for this disaster has to fall squarely on Don Lucia and his coaching staff. There is absolutely no excuse for the miserable uninspired hockey this team has played this season ! I would add that the coaching staffs failures has been an on going problem for a long time now.
While watching two other Big 10 teams play on the Big 10 Network recently the announcers started talking about the Gophers. One of them said, "They look bored !". Bored is just one of the negative adjectives I'd used to describe this team. Unfortunately these problems are not recent developments. The Gophers have consistently come up flat in the post season for a decade now. A well coached team improves as the season progresses. The Gophers have often started the season winning a lot of games only to fade late in the season then fail completely in the post season. Year after year they lose to teams they should never have lost to ! The coaching staff has to accept responsibility for these failures !
How many players show up their Freshman year looking like they will set the world on fire then not only don't improve as their college hockey career progresses but actually fall off in subsequent years ? I can think of quiet a few Gophers who fall into that category ( I'm not going to name names here but I'm sure we can of think of a lot of players ). A good player will improve playing for a good coach. By the time he moves on to the next level he should be a better hockey player than he was as a freshman.
We call Minnesota The State of Hockey. A few weeks ago while watching Hockey Night In Canada the CBC announcer described Minnesota as "the best hockey state in America". As such our expectations as Gopher hockey fans should be on a par with the expectations of a football fans in Alabama or a basketball fan at Duke. We should expect and demand the best hockey program in all of college hockey. We certainly aren't getting it ! It's time for Don and his staff to move on. Ideally we need to find another Herb Brooks. A guy who can put the right chemistry together on the ice and demand results. I realize that guys like Herb are few and far between. Mike Hastings has done a heck of a job at MSU. Him or a guy like him is what the gophers need.
 

The world is flat and the Gopher hockey team has gone over the edge and fallen into the abyss! The responsibility for this disaster has to fall squarely on Don Lucia and his coaching staff. There is absolutely no excuse for the miserable uninspired hockey this team has played this season ! I would add that the coaching staffs failures has been an on going problem for a long time now.
While watching two other Big 10 teams play on the Big 10 Network recently the announcers started talking about the Gophers. One of them said, "They look bored !". Bored is just one of the negative adjectives I'd used to describe this team. Unfortunately these problems are not recent developments. The Gophers have consistently come up flat in the post season for a decade now. A well coached team improves as the season progresses. The Gophers have often started the season winning a lot of games only to fade late in the season then fail completely in the post season. Year after year they lose to teams they should never have lost to ! The coaching staff has to accept responsibility for these failures !
How many players show up their Freshman year looking like they will set the world on fire then not only don't improve as their college hockey career progresses but actually fall off in subsequent years ? I can think of quiet a few Gophers who fall into that category ( I'm not going to name names here but I'm sure we can of think of a lot of players ). A good player will improve playing for a good coach. By the time he moves on to the next level he should be a better hockey player than he was as a freshman.
We call Minnesota The State of Hockey. A few weeks ago while watching Hockey Night In Canada the CBC announcer described Minnesota as "the best hockey state in America". As such our expectations as Gopher hockey fans should be on a par with the expectations of a football fans in Alabama or a basketball fan at Duke. We should expect and demand the best hockey program in all of college hockey. We certainly aren't getting it ! It's time for Don and his staff to move on. Ideally we need to find another Herb Brooks. A guy who can put the right chemistry together on the ice and demand results. I realize that guys like Herb are few and far between. Mike Hastings has done a heck of a job at MSU. Him or a guy like him is what the gophers need.

I am upset with the coaching staff just like you, but the bold statements are making me scratch my head. I guess they are subjective opinions, so I can't say they are wrong. However, I don't think I would classify being the defending national runner up and going to two of the last three frozen fours as "consistently com[ing] up flat in the post season".
 

I am upset with the coaching staff just like you, but the bold statements are making me scratch my head. I guess they are subjective opinions, so I can't say they are wrong. However, I don't think I would classify being the defending national runner up and going to two of the last three frozen fours as "consistently com[ing] up flat in the post season".

I think Lucia should have been fired when he lost to Holy Cross ! Making the Frozen Four so many times and not winning it is not acceptable ! Losing to the likes of Holy Cross , Union and Yale should NEVER happen ! This is not the well coached, highly motivated team it should be. Their fall from the #1 ranking to off the charts this year is the last straw!
GO AWAY DON !
 

I think Lucia should have been fired when he lost to Holy Cross ! Making the Frozen Four so many times and not winning it is not acceptable ! Losing to the likes of Holy Cross , Union and Yale should NEVER happen ! This is not the well coached, highly motivated team it should be. Their fall from the #1 ranking to off the charts this year is the last straw!
GO AWAY DON !

He has made 5 Frozen Fours, and won 2 of them. Given that only on out of the four championship caliber teams in any given Frozen Four can win in any given year, winning the title in 40% of your appearances is not bad. He is 5-3 in Frozen Four games while at the U, and obviously, all of those games are played against other teams good enough to qualify for the Frozen Four.

As for the three teams you listed, Union and Yale were both national champions the years we lost to them. As for Holy Cross, that one was an unmitigated stinker, no argument from me.

There are plenty of reasons to be mad at the Don, but let's at least be honest about why we are mad and his accomplishments and failures here.
 

Lucia's last National Championship was 12 years ago ! I think he has gone stale since then and has been just going through the motions for a long time now. The loss to Yale was due to sloppy uninspired play. So was the loss to Union. They were both teams the Gophers could have beaten ! Minnesotans are way to willing to accept mediocrity from their sports teams. In the State of Hockey I expect better. I expect inspired, excellent, hard nosed hockey from a Minnesota team. I expect National Championships more frequently than 12 years apart.
 


Lucia's last National Championship was 12 years ago ! I think he has gone stale since then and has been just going through the motions for a long time now. The loss to Yale was due to sloppy uninspired play. So was the loss to Union. They were both teams the Gophers could have beaten ! Minnesotans are way to willing to accept mediocrity from their sports teams. In the State of Hockey I expect better. I expect inspired, excellent, hard nosed hockey from a Minnesota team. I expect National Championships more frequently than 12 years apart.

You can expect whatever you want. I also don't disagree that over our history, we have won an unacceptably low number of national championships. You may want national championships more often than we have won them (so do I), but when Lucia took over, it had been 20 years since our last championship. Lucia is one of only two Gopher coaches to ever win the NCAA tournament. It is not like frequently winning national titles is something every coach does and Lucia has slowed us down.

I think we are squandering a season where we have the best talent in the country. Lucia deserves the credit for assembling that talent, and the blame for not being able to win with it. However, if you look at his whole time at the U, even including that 3 year tournament drought (which was historically bad in the annals of Minnesota history), Lucia has been a more productive and successful coach than most in our history.

If you want to talk about Lucia's poor tournament performance, Lucia's predecessor took us to 4 straight frozen fours and 6 overall, and won 0 national championships. The coach before that was 0 for 2. The two coaches between Brooks and Lucia were a combined 0 for 8 on converting Frozen Four appearances into national championships. I think it is very fair to criticize Lucia for too many bad years in a program with a lot of advantages. I just can't believe you are willing to argue with a straight face that Lucia doesn't win enough national titles or go to enough frozen fours. He has enough national championships, frozen fours, and conference championships to satisfy most rational fans. His problem is that he misses the tournament too many times for a program that should not be missing it. For some reason, with him at the helm, when it rains it pours.
 

Face it, Don has lost it. Particularly after this disaster of a season. Bottom line , it's time for Don to hit the road. His tank is empty.
A good looking guy like him could easily land a job an analyst for the Big 10 network or NBCsports. Glen Mason turned an unsuccessful coaching career into a good TV job !
 

You can expect whatever you want. I also don't disagree that over our history, we have won an unacceptably low number of national championships. You may want national championships more often than we have won them (so do I), but when Lucia took over, it had been 20 years since our last championship. Lucia is one of only two Gopher coaches to ever win the NCAA tournament. It is not like frequently winning national titles is something every coach does and Lucia has slowed us down.

I think we are squandering a season where we have the best talent in the country. Lucia deserves the credit for assembling that talent, and the blame for not being able to win with it. However, if you look at his whole time at the U, even including that 3 year tournament drought (which was historically bad in the annals of Minnesota history), Lucia has been a more productive and successful coach than most in our history.

If you want to talk about Lucia's poor tournament performance, Lucia's predecessor took us to 4 straight frozen fours and 6 overall, and won 0 national championships. The coach before that was 0 for 2. The two coaches between Brooks and Lucia were a combined 0 for 8 on converting Frozen Four appearances into national championships. I think it is very fair to criticize Lucia for too many bad years in a program with a lot of advantages. I just can't believe you are willing to argue with a straight face that Lucia doesn't win enough national titles or go to enough frozen fours. He has enough national championships, frozen fours, and conference championships to satisfy most rational fans. His problem is that he misses the tournament too many times for a program that should not be missing it. For some reason, with him at the helm, when it rains it pours.

Fantastic post
 

You can expect whatever you want. I also don't disagree that over our history, we have won an unacceptably low number of national championships. You may want national championships more often than we have won them (so do I), but when Lucia took over, it had been 20 years since our last championship. Lucia is one of only two Gopher coaches to ever win the NCAA tournament. It is not like frequently winning national titles is something every coach does and Lucia has slowed us down.

I think we are squandering a season where we have the best talent in the country. Lucia deserves the credit for assembling that talent, and the blame for not being able to win with it. However, if you look at his whole time at the U, even including that 3 year tournament drought (which was historically bad in the annals of Minnesota history), Lucia has been a more productive and successful coach than most in our history.

If you want to talk about Lucia's poor tournament performance, Lucia's predecessor took us to 4 straight frozen fours and 6 overall, and won 0 national championships. The coach before that was 0 for 2. The two coaches between Brooks and Lucia were a combined 0 for 8 on converting Frozen Four appearances into national championships. I think it is very fair to criticize Lucia for too many bad years in a program with a lot of advantages. I just can't believe you are willing to argue with a straight face that Lucia doesn't win enough national titles or go to enough frozen fours. He has enough national championships, frozen fours, and conference championships to satisfy most rational fans. His problem is that he misses the tournament too many times for a program that should not be missing it. For some reason, with him at the helm, when it rains it pours.

Agree with almost all of this. So far, Lucia has had two great years, several good years and is currently working on his fourth awful one. His bad years have been absolutely horrendous, but he's also had some very good seasons that culminated in banners hanging from the rafters at Mariucci. Like you said, there are plenty of reasons to dislike Lucia as a coach. My biggest criticism is that his teams rarely (if ever) improve and sometimes regress as the year goes on. Either way, you know what kind of team the Gophers will have before the season is even two months old. That's a problem when you have squads like this one that chronically crap the bed.

Even at a program like Minnesota, you can have bad year or two. But Lucia is working on four years of his tenure that have flat out sucked. Should never happen at a program that has as many advantages as this one. But it's not like all his teams have sucked. Far from it in fact.
 



Lucia seems disengaged. Something is not right at Mariucci. I wish one of the local scribes would do some digging. Regardless, it's been many seasons since I agreed with Lucia's defensive philosophy and most of the D recruits. Too small, overmatched physically and get beat one on one way too often to be on the blueline. Small is ok if you play big, but that's not happening.
 

Lucia seems disengaged. Something is not right at Mariucci. I wish one of the local scribes would do some digging. Regardless, it's been many seasons since I agreed with Lucia's defensive philosophy and most of the D recruits. Too small, overmatched physically and get beat one on one way too often to be on the blueline. Small is ok if you play big, but that's not happening.

I am in wholehearted agreement with the bold. I wish we would have more Helgesons and less Marshals back there. If I recall, two of the goals were Marshal's fault last night.
 

Just to continue the conversation a bit, there has apparently been indications that the issues are with some of the upperclassmen and how they've been "leading" the team. In other words, some of our so-called veteran leaders are the root of the problem. One poster, who is an insider with the program, commented that he hasn't seen leadership this bad since the days of Wyatt Smith in the late 90s.
 

Just to continue the conversation a bit, there has apparently been indications that the issues are with some of the upperclassmen and how they've been "leading" the team. In other words, some of our so-called veteran leaders are the root of the problem. One poster, who is an insider with the program, commented that he hasn't seen leadership this bad since the days of Wyatt Smith in the late 90s.

I keep hearing these vague rumors too, but I am not going to draw any conclusions until I get some specifics with regard to who it is specifically and what their issues are (effort? the way the treat younger players? the way they treat the coaches?). I am not doubting that there is some kind of problem of that nature. When a team underperforms this badly without a readily apparent explanation, it is reasonable to assume something is going wrong behind the curtain. I just want to know who and what before I point any fingers.
 



Lucia's last National Championship was 12 years ago ! I think he has gone stale since then and has been just going through the motions for a long time now. The loss to Yale was due to sloppy uninspired play. So was the loss to Union. They were both teams the Gophers could have beaten ! Minnesotans are way to willing to accept mediocrity from their sports teams. In the State of Hockey I expect better. I expect inspired, excellent, hard nosed hockey from a Minnesota team. I expect National Championships more frequently than 12 years apart.

Please. People want to give Jerry Kill a lifetime contract for winning 8 games both of the last 2 years. And yet people want to call for Lucia's head when he's won us 2 national titles. I'd say the guy has earned the right to retire on his own terms. Sometimes the teams just don't gel for whatever reason. Happens at every level. Patience Grasshopper.
 

Please. People want to give Jerry Kill a lifetime contract for winning 8 games both of the last 2 years. And yet people want to call for Lucia's head when he's won us 2 national titles. I'd say the guy has earned the right to retire on his own terms. Sometimes the teams just don't gel for whatever reason. Happens at every level. Patience Grasshopper.

I strongly disagree ! Minnesota is a Hockey state. The University of Minnesota is a hockey school ! Hockey is the only sport Minnesota does well. Minnesota will never ever have a strong basketball program. 8 wins a year pretty good for a Minnesota football team. 12 years (it will be 13 years after this year) between national championships in hockey is NOT acceptable for Minnesota !
The sad thing is they brought in Norwood (Out of his League ) Teague as AD. A hockey school brings in a guy as AD who had probably never seen a hockey game in his life ! He probably doesn't even realize what a lousy job Lucia is doing.
You say "sometimes a team doesn't gel for what ever reason". This team hasn't gelled in over a decade. You can only be patient for so long before there has to be some changes made.
 

I strongly disagree ! Minnesota is a Hockey state. The University of Minnesota is a hockey school ! Hockey is the only sport Minnesota does well. Minnesota will never ever have a strong basketball program. 8 wins a year pretty good for a Minnesota football team. 12 years (it will be 13 years after this year) between national championships in hockey is NOT acceptable for Minnesota !
The sad thing is they brought in Norwood (Out of his League ) Teague as AD. A hockey school brings in a guy as AD who had probably never seen a hockey game in his life ! He probably doesn't even realize what a lousy job Lucia is doing.
You say "sometimes a team doesn't gel for what ever reason". This team hasn't gelled in over a decade. You can only be patient for so long before there has to be some changes made.

Stop with the hyperbole. That's an absurdly wrong statement.
 

I am in wholehearted agreement with the bold. I wish we would have more Helgesons and less Marshals back there. If I recall, two of the goals were Marshal's fault last night.

Completely agree with this. Ben Marshall looked very, very bad Friday night. They just don't have enough size and toughness at the blue line and their defensemen make poor turnover after poor turnover.

I know that he's been put in a bad spot by the play in front of him but does anyone think that it might be time to sit Wilcox down for a game? That said I know nothing about the relative strengths of the two backups.
 

Stop with the hyperbole. That's an absurdly wrong statement.

I don't agree. I certainly can not think of many playoff games in the last 12 years where the Gophers played intense highly disciplined hockey from the opening face off. I can think of a lot games where they started slow. Struggled to stay in the game and often came up short against teams they should have beaten. That ain't gelling in my book !
 

I don't agree. I certainly can not think of many playoff games in the last 12 years where the Gophers played intense highly disciplined hockey from the opening face off. I can think of a lot games where they started slow. Struggled to stay in the game and often came up short against teams they should have beaten. That ain't gelling in my book !

I guess you can define "gelling" any way you want. In my book, you don't make it to national title games without a fair amount of "gelling" going on.
 

I don't agree. I certainly can not think of many playoff games in the last 12 years where the Gophers played intense highly disciplined hockey from the opening face off. I can think of a lot games where they started slow. Struggled to stay in the game and often came up short against teams they should have beaten. That ain't gelling in my book !

Did you completely miss the UMN vs SCSU game from last year?
 

Did you completely miss the UMN vs SCSU game from last year?

No, didn't miss that game. They "gelled" a little last year but then played pathetically against Union. I'm sorry but there is no way they should have lost to Union. One "gel' in 12 years is not enough. Between last year and 2003 there wasn't much gelling just a lot of underachieving.
Lucia has to bear the blame for this years total disaster. I'm a lifelong Minnesotan. It's very Minnesotan to accept mediocrity but I refuse to accept.
DON HAS TO GO !
 

I keep hearing these vague rumors too, but I am not going to draw any conclusions until I get some specifics with regard to who it is specifically and what their issues are (effort? the way the treat younger players? the way they treat the coaches?). I am not doubting that there is some kind of problem of that nature. When a team underperforms this badly without a readily apparent explanation, it is reasonable to assume something is going wrong behind the curtain. I just want to know who and what before I point any fingers.

Again, I agree. The public will likely never find out however because Gopher hockey from Lucia on down have always operated under the circle-the-wagons approach to team issues. The insider stuff I've been reading hasn't mentioned any names specifically either, but there is little doubt from the tenor of some of the posts that folks around the program know exactly who is causing the problems.
 

North45 --

Your expectations are unrealistic.


Just looking at the #1 cbb or cfb teams of the last 40 or so years, both Alabama in cfb and Kentucky in cbb have gone 12 years or more without winning Natl Titles.

In fact, UMn's 5 Natl Titles in the last 41 years can not be bested by any other college hockey team or cbb team and only Alabama with their 6 Natl Titles in that timespan can claim more.

Otherwise no single cbb team has more than 4 Natl Titles in the last 41 years.

And only Miami in cfb and Wisconsin and UND in hockey have as many as UMn has in hockey in that amount of time. But it might be noted that 2 of those 5 titles of Wisconsin's and 2 of those 5 titles of UND's were won with former Gopher's coaching them. One other aspect is the olympic aspect. No other major league sports representative "college" team was more hindered by losing players to the olympics than the Gophers were.



Some entire conferences go 12 years without winning a Natl title, the B1G in cbb, as well as the Big 12 & Pac 12, and the Big 12 in cfb, and the B1G before this season.



So many of your claims seem to make you out to be very uneducated and ignorant. Duke, who you mentioned, only has 4 Natl Titles in cbb, and there were big gaps of time between many of them. Same can said of UNC & Kentucky, and Alabama in cfb, among others.
 

North45 --

Your expectations are unrealistic.


Just looking at the #1 cbb or cfb teams of the last 40 or so years, both Alabama in cfb and Kentucky in cbb have gone 12 years or more without winning Natl Titles.

In fact, UMn's 5 Natl Titles in the last 41 years can not be bested by any other college hockey team or cbb team and only Alabama with their 6 Natl Titles in that timespan can claim more.

Otherwise no single cbb team has more than 4 Natl Titles in the last 41 years.

And only Miami in cfb and Wisconsin and UND in hockey have as many as UMn has in hockey in that amount of time. But it might be noted that 2 of those 5 titles of Wisconsin's and 2 of those 5 titles of UND's were won with former Gopher's coaching them. One other aspect is the olympic aspect. No other major league sports representative "college" team was more hindered by losing players to the olympics than the Gophers were.



Some entire conferences go 12 years without winning a Natl title, the B1G in cbb, as well as the Big 12 & Pac 12, and the Big 12 in cfb, and the B1G before this season.



So many of your claims seem to make you out to be very uneducated and ignorant. Duke, who you mentioned, only has 4 Natl Titles in cbb, and there were big gaps of time between many of them. Same can said of UNC & Kentucky, and Alabama in cfb, among others.

There are 252 Div 1 football programs. 351 Div 1 Basketball programs, Only 59 Div 1 hockey programs. SO NO , my expectations are not unrealistic !
Minnesota and a hand full of other programs get to pick from the cream of the crop. Minnesota would have a couple more National Titles if they had a better coach. One who goes after the right mix of players and can get a team ready to play big games.
 

There are 252 Div 1 football programs. 351 Div 1 Basketball programs, Only 59 Div 1 hockey programs. SO NO , my expectations are not unrealistic !
Minnesota and a hand full of other programs get to pick from the cream of the crop. Minnesota would have a couple more National Titles if they had a better coach. One who goes after the right mix of players and can get a team ready to play big games.

This isn't exactly a revolutionary idea. If we had a coach that recruited an ideal team and never had a letdown game, we'd have a bunch of success? Shocking
 

This isn't exactly a revolutionary idea. If we had a coach that recruited an ideal team and never had a letdown game, we'd have a bunch of success? Shocking

Your definition of success must be different from mine. My definition is winning the National Championship ! Something that hasn't happened in a LONG time now !
 

Your definition of success must be different from mine. My definition is winning the National Championship ! Something that hasn't happened in a LONG time now !

Nope, that's pretty much exactly my definition too. I just understand that it's not quite as easy as "get a coach who can recruit perfectly and never have a letdown game".
 

Nope, that's pretty much exactly my definition too. I just understand that it's not quite as easy as "get a coach who can recruit perfectly and never have a letdown game".

A team will always have letdown games. Lucia's teams have had way too many !
 

There are 252 Div 1 football programs. 351 Div 1 Basketball programs, Only 59 Div 1 hockey programs. SO NO , my expectations are not unrealistic !
Minnesota and a hand full of other programs get to pick from the cream of the crop. Minnesota would have a couple more National Titles if they had a better coach. One who goes after the right mix of players and can get a team ready to play big games.



Really? 252 Div 1 football programs? LMAO, are you that clueless?


That little mistake alone should make everything you say meaningless and worthless.


But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, that you DO know that those 252 teams play in TWO SEPARATE divisions, and that you aren't a total and complete idiot, lol.


So genius, tell me how many of those 59 hockey teams have won a Natl Title since 1948 and how many of those 351 cbb teams have won a Natl Title since 1948?


I'll tell you, since I don't think you have a clue.


Fully 33% of those 59 hockey teams have won a Natl Title. 20 of 59.

And 38 of those 59 teams have gotten to a Frozen Four. Thats 2/3rds.


Yet only 29 of those 351 cbb teams have won a Title since 1948. Not even 8%.


So it honestly does not matter how many teams play Div 1A in each of these sports, about the same # of teams have a realistic chance of winning a title.
 

Really? 252 Div 1 football programs? LMAO, are you that clueless?


That little mistake alone should make everything you say meaningless and worthless.


But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, that you DO know that those 252 teams play in TWO SEPARATE divisions, and that you aren't a total and complete idiot, lol.


So genius, tell me how many of those 59 hockey teams have won a Natl Title since 1948 and how many of those 351 cbb teams have won a Natl Title since 1948?


I'll tell you, since I don't think you have a clue.


Fully 33% of those 59 hockey teams have won a Natl Title. 20 of 59.

And 38 of those 59 teams have gotten to a Frozen Four. Thats 2/3rds.


Yet only 29 of those 351 cbb teams have won a Title since 1948. Not even 8%.


So it honestly does not matter how many teams play Div 1A in each of these sports, about the same # of teams have a realistic chance of winning a title.
I stand by what I said. In the past 20 years almost (but not ALL of the national championships ) have been won by what can be considered a fairly small number of top programs. As I previous stated Minnesota gets to pick from the cream of the crop. The results have been unacceptable. I blame Lucia.
As for your personal insults, there is no place for that on a board like this and I think you should be barred from participating for those remarks. They are totally uncalled for !
 




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