Greetings from south of Omaha, where we’re visiting family for the Thanksgiving holiday and basically doing nothing. Not that the weather is terribly inviting, it was warmer when we visited for Christmas last year than it is now.
Anyway, it’s finally a game week for our KDAL crew. Saturday marks our first live UMD hockey game since March 7, a span of 266 often-excruciating days. We’ll have the UMD women hosting Minnesota with a pregame at 2:45pm. Frankly, I couldn’t be more excited to get back in the arena and calling games again. It starts a stretch of what I hope is 12 game broadcasts over 23 days (we really can’t and shouldn’t be taking anything for granted at this point, but that’s the schedule as of now, subject to change).
“We’re very thankful for the opportunity, especially looking now at these other WCHA teams that haven’t been able to play yet,” senior forward and assistant captain Anna Klein said. “So it was a long time, but it was worth the wait.”
“I’m really proud of how they’ve handled it,” said head coach Maura Crowell, who talked a lot about how grateful her players have been through this process.
“They’ll do anything they have to,” she said of her team’s desire to play. Of course, virus spread isn’t exactly something that’s preventable. Acting like St. Cloud State’s women — or any of the other college programs that have missed games in the last couple weeks — did something wrong to lead to the program shutting down last week isn’t going to get us anywhere.
“If one of us gets it, then there’s a big chance that the other person is going to get it,” Klein said, very matter-of-factly. “And next thing you know, we’re shut down for two weeks. That’s not something we want to do. So I think it’s actually been going really well. People have been listening to us, just wanting to play and knowing the consequences even for your health, the health of the community around us. We’ve all been trying our best to stay safe. And so far, it’s been going well.”
The Bulldogs and Gophers met four times last season, playing a very competitive season series, outside of the Friday game in Minneapolis. UMD tied (getting the extra point on a three-on-three goal) and lost a one-goal game at home early last season. The Gophers have dominated the series, especially over the last 15 or so years, but UMD is making some notable headway towards making this rivalry a very good one yet again.
UMD is off a pair of wins in Mankato last weekend, where the Bulldogs dispatched Minnesota State 5-0 and 7-3. Heading into the season, head coach Maura Crowell talked about the need to find more scoring balance. Well, she saw seven different players score against MSU. 11 players registered at least one point.
“To have that many different goals scorers was amazing,” Klein said. “I think everyone was just ready to play. We really had a team effort, especially in that second game, when things kind of started getting a little crazy in the second period. We really were able to bear down in the third.
“And it was really fun to see a bunch of people score like even freshmen, Clara (Van Wieren, the WCHA Rookie of the Week), that was awesome. She got two goals. So it’s really good to have a balance on our team. I think in years past, we’ve kind of lacked that.”
In a season where the vast majority of games will be played with no or a very limited number of fans, it’s incumbent that teams come out with energy and create their own atmosphere on their bench. UMD took a 3-0 lead in the first period Friday and scored first on Saturday, outshooting the Mavericks 25-17 in the first periods of those games.
“I honestly didn’t even notice there is no fans,” said Klein. “And I think a lot of us felt that way. And it’s like, it doesn’t matter who’s watching us. It doesn’t matter anything. We’re all just so excited to be out there. And you could really feel like you said you could see it, we all just look so grateful and ready. It was so much fun. I don’t think anyone really cared who was there.”
Minnesota picked up a difficult weekend split against Ohio State, winning 4-0 before losing 2-1. Senior Grace Zumwinkle scored three of Minnesota’s five goals in the series, and Minnesota got 69 saves on 71 shots from graduate transfer goalie Lauren Bench.
“Obviously we were hoping for a better result,” 14th-year coach Brad Frost told GopherSports.com, “but I’m proud of how we came back in the second and the third in particular and really started to get up on our toes and play the way that we needed to play. The first period, we got out to that early lead, and they answered the very next shift and really from that point on, they took it to us.”
Zumwinkle, a co-captain from Breck School, is up to 70 goals and 127 points in her outstanding career with Minnesota.
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The obvious concern for UMD fans is the health of junior center Gabbie Hughes, who took a nasty spill (with help from a Minnesota State defender) and left Saturday’s game in the second period. Hughes remains day to day, according to Crowell.
Here is the takedown of Bulldogs junior center Gabbie Hughes at 4:58 of the second period.
Hughes had to be helped back to the locker room and has not yet returned.
Mavs’ Kennedy Bobyck received a minor for holding on the play. pic.twitter.com/ge64o4gPwG
— Matt Wellens (@mattwellens) November 21, 2020
It’s a dangerous play, even if you come to the conclusion there was nothing really flagrant about the initial contact. Common sense dictates that — with Minnesota State playing Friday night — if Bobyck were facing a suspension, we’d know about it by now. Instead, the silence from the WCHA on this play has been deafening. Not only did the officials choose not to review it at the time for a possible escalation to a major penalty, but the league was notified of it and chose to do nothing. From a player safety standpoint, this is borderline malpractice (again) from a sport that claims to care about it.
(Yes, it’s been 266 days since I got to complain about something like this, and whatever other snide remark you can concoct. But this is basically a slewfoot on one of the WCHA’s best players because she committed the heinous crime of having speed and skill. It’s not an play I expect any hockey league to accept as a part of the game, and it stinks we might miss out on seeing Hughes play against Minnesota as a result of it. Bad enough that none of the four officials on the ice saw fit to advocate for a major penalty — and no way they didn’t see such a hit on the puck carrier in open ice — but the league was given a chance to rectify the error and decided not to. We want to see players like Gabbie Hughes on emerging teams like UMD playing against a national powerhouse. When Gabbie Hughes can’t play in these games, we lose as hockey fans. That’s not meant to insult anyone else on UMD, but she’s a top player and one of the — if not THE — best on this Bulldog roster.)
- UPDATE: The indefatigable Matt Wellens now reports Bobyck will indeed be suspended for Minnesota State’s next game. We will keep the rant in place for posterity.)
If college hockey’s powers-that-be care about player safety, they have a really odd way of showing it.
With Hughes out, Crowell had to juggle her lines a bit for the remainder of the game. She also needed others to step up. Enter Kylie Hanley (two goals, one assist) and freshman Clara Van Wieren (one goal, one assist).
Hanley, a junior, has always been a smart, responsible, two-way player (Klein joked the term “responsible Rachel” has been used to describe Hanley, despite her name being Kylie). She really started to develop her offensive game in the second half of last season. Klein says she’s playing with increased confidence now.
“She’s such a hard worker,” Klein said of Hanley. “I do think that her confidence has been growing. Both of her goals this past weekend, in game two, were key goals. They’re really game changers. So I think she’s really been stepping up and you can see your confidence keep building. She’s really key on that line as a center. They have to be producing, too. She’s really shown that we can put a lot of trust in her.”
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Our coverage Saturday starts at 2:45pm. You can hear the game via this here website, or on our free mobile app.
Hope you can join us.
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