The group of North Dakota Fighting Sioux hockey players who enter this
season are talented, well coached, disciplined, dedicated,
experienced, and most of all angry. The group of sophmore kids who
were over-achievers in the dynamic 1997 National Title run merely
measured up to expectations last season, and disappointed legions of
fans with a difficult loss at the hands of eventual Champions
Michigan. The players can still taste the bitter pill that was left
in their mouths in Ann Arbor that wretched Spring night.
History quickly forgets the upsets and usually concentrates on the
Champions. The 1997 Michigan team ran up a record that was simply
awe-inspiring, but lost in the Semi-Finals to a hearty Boston U. team.
After a few years, nobody will remember the Michigan regular season
stats outside of Ann Arbor, but everybody will remember that North
Dakota won the National Title. In the next few years, nobody will see
that Michigan was rated as a lower seed than three other teams in its
NCAA bracket, yet was somehow able to have home-ice advantage in that
tourney -- an embarrassing slight to the hard work the higher seeds
had to put in to get to the high-seed position by an ever financially
driven NCAA. No, in a few years all that will be recalled will be
that Michigan won the Championship.
North Dakota had a better record and was ranked higher than Michigan
all year long, and yet the Sioux still had to travel 1,000 miles to
play Michigan on its home ice. While this was a laughable joke, it
has been already covered quite thoroughly and is best saved for
another time. What matters is that at the end of last season, the
Fighting Sioux were struggling somewhat, and there was a perception
that they were beatable. The underclassmen who won it all in ‘97 were
very unhappy at the result at the end of the '98 season. They are not
going to dwell on the NCAA Selection Commitee's placement of Michigan,
even though their fans will.
Now they are seniors, this core of a team for the past three years.
David Hoogsteen, Jason Blake, Brad Williamson, Adam Calder, Jay
Panzer, Jeff Ulmer, Jesse Bull, and seldom used Tom Philion, all came
into a program rich in history but short on recent success. They were
the key to the Sioux renaissance in Grand Forks, and they have helped
lift the temporarily down program back to the heights it was so used
to occupying. These seniors are, to a man, unhappy with the way the
season slowly ground to halt around them in ‘98, and swear to do better.
Doing better would be tough, since this team virtually ran away with
the WCHA last season with another 30-win season. But the expectations
of this group of players, and their devoted followers, are aimed
higher than the WCHA. They want another Title.
There are some holes to fill, but that is the case with every new
college hockey season. Curtis Murphy will be the biggest hole, as he
logged over 25 minutes a game last season, playing in all situations.
Expected to fill the void on the point left by Murphy will be the
tandem of sophomore Trevor Hammer and senior Brad Williamson.
Williamson has been a solid starter each of his previous three
seasons, and logged a ton of ice time last season. His solid
defensive play and timely rushes could take some pressure off the man
who is expected to carry much of the play offensively from the
blue-line, Trevor Hammer. Hope is running high that Hammer will
respond to a full year of tough conditioning and experience, and step
up and be the power-play general Dean Blais envisioned when he saw
Hammer in high-school. Of all the young players the Sioux used on the
point last year, Hammer was the singularly most improved. If his
improvement continues into this Fall, he can fill at least part of the
void left by Murphy.
The other hole to fill will be that of Matt Henderson. The giant
checking machine who was a spiritual and emotional leader the last two
seasons will be missed. Somebody in the underclass will have to step
up and take charge. Lee Goren showed he loved to bang bodies last
year, and almost all the forwards are expected to do their share of
the hitting. If Goren can pop in about 15-20 goals this season in the
grinding style Henderson provided, while staying out of the penalty
box for post-whistle altercations, the Sioux would probably be very
happy.
On the plus side is depth. No other team in D-I hockey can match the
Sioux for line depth. Three solid forward lines, each with skill and
experience, will be simply too much for most teams. The nagging
complaint from last season was that the Sioux had just as much depth,
if not more, in 97-98, and were all too often beatable or sloppy. One
bad game each against Duluth, St. Cloud, and Wisconsin, and wide-open
matches against Minnesota and Mankato, made the Sioux look vulnerable.
It was clear they were talking to themselves in Milwaukee and then in
Ann Arbor, wondering if they were going to be able to put another big
third period together. This is where the anger comes in, and this is
why 98-99 will be very different from last season.
Last year, the team all but coasted to the WCHA title and the NCAA
first round bye. Jason Blake admits to taking too many nights off,
but he should not shoulder all of the blame. Many players had bad
nights, which didn;t show up in the loss column mostly because of the
amazing Sioux depth. That depth was tested often last season, as
injuries nagged some of the more talented stars. The
Panzer-Panzer-Hoogsteen line suffered a series of injuries lasting in
duration from a few days to nagging hurts that lasted the whole season.
This season, there is something brewing deep in the bowels of
Engelstad Arena. The Sioux are looking to not just win, but win so
convincingly, to dominate the opposition so totally, that no doubt is
ever raised outside of Coach Blais' daily practices. Every night,
their reputation is on the line. Last season, the team buckled on
occasion. This season, as the seniors look to make their mark on one
of the most storied college hockey programs in history, they will be
unstoppable.
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