Blasphemy

north45

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John Mariucci believed in Minnesota's hockey players. He started what has become a decades long tradition of the Gopher hockey teams roster being almost exclusively filled with Minnesota hockey players. I think many Minnesota hockey fans take a lot of pride in this tradition. I believe it's time for this tradition to end!
I don't say this because I believe the Minnesota hockey player isn't good enough anymore. Quite to the contrary, Minnesota still produces many great hockey players. However, hockey has changed since John Mariucci's days. There are more D1 college hockey teams now. More teams competing for Minnesota's top talent with scholarships. States that never use to produce top hockey talent now do. Missouri recently produced 5 first round NHL draft picks in a year where Minnesota only produced 1. Last years number 1 pick in the NHL was Arizona born and bred. Europe now produces tons of hockey talent.
Bottom line, I think it's time for the Gophers to go after more non-Minnesota hockey players. No other college hockey team's roster is filled primarily with players from their home state. Not Michigan, not BU,not Boston college. All other D1 college hockey teams go after the best talent they can find, regardless of where they hail from. Times have changed, the Gophers need to change.
 

UMD's roster is filled primarily with Minnesotans, and they were one of the two best teams all season and made the championship.
 

Weird. The Gophers stopped recruiting exclusively in the state a long time ago. Wooger's been gone a long time.
 

UMD's roster is filled primarily with Minnesotans, and they were one of the two best teams all season and made the championship.

Do you think it's odd that MN preps would rather play at UMD or SCSU over Minnesota or are these kids that Lucia isn't offering?
 

UMD's roster is filled primarily with Minnesotans, and they were one of the two best teams all season and made the championship.
UMD's roster is about 50% non-Minnesotans. As opposed to the Gophers roster that had only 3 non-Minnesotans.
 


Weird. The Gophers stopped recruiting exclusively in the state a long time ago. Wooger's been gone a long time.
I didn't say they were recruiting Minnesota players "exclusively". I said they recruit from Minnesota "primarily". That needs to change. There are too many good non-Minnesota players out there to ignore these days.
 

Do you think it's odd that MN preps would rather play at UMD or SCSU over Minnesota or are these kids that Lucia isn't offering?

Hockey recruiting is goofy - there are so many factors that it is almost impossible to tell. I don't know the exact number, but hockey teams only have something like 15 scholarships to give out so many/most players are on some sort of partial scholarship. It could be that UMD or SCSU valued a player a little more than the Gophers and offered more of a scholarship. Also, there is the decision of WHEN to bring the player in. Maybe player X would prefer to be a Gopher, but Lucia wants him to spend an extra year in the USHL whereas SCSU has an immediate need and the player would rather start his college career.

The whole roster management aspect of this would give me headache as a coach or recruiting coordinator. I have had a hunch the last handful of years that this is why Lucia has stuck to Edina, Wayzata, and EP for many of his recruits - maybe you can get away with offering less in the more affluent suburbs (obviously there are a ton of great players in those associations as well).
 




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