Eeyore responded to Jason Roy:
>Jason W. Roy wrote:
>>
>> I just got off the phone with my buddy who lives in the Twin Cities and
>> he told me rumour that I havent seen on the list yet...Ok here it is.....
>> ......Woog is out as Gopher head coach next year and Dean Blais is in.....
>> I think he said he heard it at the Wisc/Gopher game last
>> night......another thought.............Blais does recruit Out-of-State
>> players.......Its probablly just a rumour....but its definitly an
>> interesting one.......
>
>This rumor actually goes back about three weeks.  I think there probably
>would have been more substance to it if Minnesota hadn't rallied over
>their last five games.
 
I understood that the rumor seemed to have originated in Roseau/Warroad
circles. (For the non-Minnesotans, that's northwest Minnesota, an area that
has produced a lot of hockey players for both the University of Minnesota
and the University of North Dakota.  The North Dakota hockey program was
started by a bunch of Warroad guys.)  Since Blais, a former Gopher, coached
Roseau to the Minnesota HS tourney championship a few years back (1991??),
it's probably just a *little* wishful thinking and a *lot* of speculation on
the part of the locals that has gotten blown way out of proportion and made
its way down south to the Twin Cities. (I'm envisioning a between-periods
conversation at a HS hockey game in early February: "Gee, with the Gophers
losing to the Sioux last week and Woog's NCAA violation... I wonder if his
job might be in trouble.  Who do you think would replace him?  How about our
old coach, Dean Blais?") It seems extremely unlikely that either Blais or
the Minnesota Men's Athletic Department would even have considered such a
thing in mid-season.
 
-Pam Sweeney
Go Gophers!!!
 
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