Here are the two articles from yesterday's (2/5/96) Minnesota Daily:
Gophers get beat in every category
Michael Rand - Staff Reporter
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Links: Golden Gopher Hockey
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- A frustrated and bewildered Mike Anderson sat quietly
in the auxiliary press box at Ralph Engelstad Arena on Saturday night.
The Gophers freshman winger had learned earlier in the day he was the odd
man out of the lineup for Minnesota's game Saturday night at North Dakota.
That meant he was relegated to charting shots and hoping the Gophers' 8-2
debacle on Friday night would be a distant memory after a win on Saturday.
Instead, all he got was a chart full of missed opportunities and an unsavory
7-5 Minnesota loss he had no control over.
"It's killing me up here," Anderson said from his perch far away from the
action. "See that right there? They're just outworking us."
Anderson was right. North Dakota spent two games dominating a team that
hadn't lost in 19 tries. Included in that streak were 4-2 and 6-1 Gophers
victories over the Sioux at Mariucci Arena in early December.
Going into the series, it seemed the only way the Gophers could lose would
be if they beat themselves.
The reality at 10:04 p.m. Saturday was that North Dakota had won, not that
Minnesota had lost. That leads to the obvious question: How did a .500 team
dominate the No. 1 team in the country?
Jesse Bull, one of North Dakota's unlikely heroes for the weekend, said if
the Sioux had a game plan, it was to win the little battles.
The Sioux won the little, the big, and all the battles in between.
Goaltending. One of Minnesota's glaring advantages. Toby Kvalevog has been
an average goalie in his two-plus years with North Dakota, but he picked
critical times to come up big against the Gophers.
He was solid the entire game on Friday night, making 28 saves. Saturday
night Kvalevog owned the first period, stopping 16 of 18 shots en route to a
3-2 North Dakota lead.
When Kvalevog was pulled after allowing a weak fifth goal in the third
period, Sioux freshman Aaron Vickar stepped up and saved all seven shots he
faced.
=46orechecking. The Sioux dump-and-chase style of play clicked this weekend
because of fierce forechecking.
North Dakota's crucial first goal in Saturday's game was set up by Brian
Zierke's pokecheck deep in Minnesota territory. Zierke pocketed the puck and
fed a wide-open Adam Calder for an easy goal less than three minutes into
the game.
Backchecking. North Dakota did a good job of keeping a forward back on
defense to prevent the Gophers from getting 3-on-2 or 2-on-1 chances.
"It was a combination of our defensemen and our forwards containing people,"
said North Dakota coach Dean Blais. "Even their second flow wasn't effective
because of our forwards coming back."
Physical play. The Sioux established a physical tone early in the series and
used it to frustrate the Gophers.
North Dakota's Teeder Wynne, not normally known for his physical play,
racked up four penalties to go with his four points in Friday's game.
"I think everyone on the ice had a little edge to them," Wynne said. "They
embarrassed us down in their rink and we didn't forget about it."
Intangibles. For a rink only two-thirds full on average, Ralph Engelstad
Arena was a hostile environment this weekend.
Two vocal sellout crowds gave the Sioux enough emotional firepower to
overcome the wave of Minnesota's winning streak.
"We've had some success against them in our barn," Wynne said. "Coming in,
we didn't care about what streak they were on."
The streak Minnesota left with is 17 games shorter and in a different
direction than the one in which it came. The Gophers did not have their best
weekend of the season by any means, but it's quite possible their opponents
did.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
=A9The Minnesota Daily
Sioux say, 'U, you're not good'
Matthew Cross - Staff Reporter
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Links: Golden Gopher Hockey
GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- Words were not necessary to
tell how the Gophers hockey team felt about losing to North Dakota twice
this weekend and thus ending its 19-game unbeaten streak.
It was in each players' eyes as they blankly stared across the quiet locker
room after losing 8-2 on Friday and 7-5 on Saturday at Engelstad Arena.
Making things worse, Colorado College jumped six points ahead of the Gophers
in the WCHA standings by sweeping Denver this weekend.
Humiliation. Disbelief. Frustration. Every emotion was tattooed across the
Gophers' faces, and not one player could offer a solid reason for their
spontaneous breakdown.
=46riday night, after getting squashed by six goals, the Minnesota players
basically said, "North Dakota played well. We didn't play well. "
"I thought we came out ready to play, but they beat us by six and could have
beat us by a lot more," Gophers defenseman Mike Crowley said. "Everyone
didn't do their job."
Actually, it was more complex than that.
The Sioux stepped on the ice both nights with about twice the jump that
Minnesota had. North Dakota took advantage of the rabid crowd and smaller
rink with a pair of inspired, hard-checking games that completely took
Minnesota out of its rhythm.
The Gophers did not play well physically and beat themselves with a number
of mental mistakes, bad passes and poor defense.
Minnesota coach Doug Woog admitted that North Dakota walked all over the
Gophers on Friday night.
"The only time that game was close was when the referees dropped the opening
puck," he said. "This was breakfast, lunch and supper given to us tonight."
Gophers star center Brian Bonin was nearly invisible Friday night but had a
goal and two assists Saturday. He said the team was overconfident and
bothered by the crowd, which chanted "Overrated, Overrated" almost
incessantly throughout the weekend.
"We've played some weaker teams at home, but we came into a tough
environment, and we were not able to open up the style we like to play,"
Bonin said. "I think (Friday night) we took them too lightly, and (Saturday)
we didn't do smart things."
Indeed, penalties took their toll on the Gophers as North Dakota had 10
power plays to Minnesota's five on Saturday. The Sioux scored key power play
goals at the end of the first and second periods en route to their 7-5 win.
Despite the result, Woog was happy with the effort from his team Saturday.
He said the biggest difference was in the netminding. The Sioux's 15 goals
were the most North Dakota has ever scored against the Gophers in the
history of the rivalry.
"No matter how you cut it, goaltending was better on one end than the
other," Woog said. "There are three things that you need on your side to
win: the Lord, your goaltender and the referees. None of them were on our
side."
Woog said Saturday's game was decided in the first period when Minnesota
outshot the Sioux 18-6 but skated off the ice for the first intermission
behind 3-2.
"They wanted the game more than we did, and they never quit doing good
things," Woog said. "This one is tough to digest because I thought we played
well."
True, the Gophers played much more inspired during the second game but were
still unable to get anything going after the first period.
Bonin blamed costly penalties Minnesota took every time it seemed to get its
offense going. He said the best thing for the Gophers to do would be to
forget this weekend ever happened.
"Right now we've got to put this out of our minds," Bonin said. "One loss
was all right, but two is a wake-up call. We need two wins next weekend, and
we can't afford another loss this year.
"We've got to realize that we're going to play in smaller rinks later this
season, and we're going to play in front of some tough crowds. But we've got
to be able to play through that."
Unfortunately, Minnesota will have to rely on the hockey gods to win the
regular-season WCHA title.
Not only does Minnesota have to sweep Colorado College at home next weekend,
but either St. Cloud State or Alaska Anchorage must win in the last two
weeks of the season against Colorado College.
Minnesota will have a home-and-home series against St. Cloud State on Feb.
16 and 17 and be at Wisconsin the following weekend to finish the regular
season.
=46RIDAY'S SUMMARY
Gophers 0 0 2 -- 2
North Dakota 2 4 2 -- 8
=46irst Period: UND -- Billy Trew 2 (Naumenko, Panzer), 9:57. UND -- Ian
Kallay 18 (Wynne, Naumenko), PPG 17:13.
Second Period: UND -- Curtis Murphy 6 (Naumenko, Wynne), PPG 5:09. UND --
Mark Pivetz 3 (Calder, Trew), 7:57. UND -- Jay Panzer 2 (unassisted), 8:10.
UND -- Adam Calder 5 (Henderson, Zierke), 14:24.
Third Period: UND -- Teeder Wynne 20 (Kallay, K. Hoogsteen), 2:33. Min --
Mike Anderson 3 (Crowley, Woog), 4:25. UND -- Teeder Wynne 21 (Kallay, K.
Hoogsteen), 17:12. Min -- Dave Larson 9 (Checco), PPG 17:48.
SATURDAY'S SUMMARY
Gophers 2 2 1 -- 5
North Dakota 3 1 3 -- 7
=46irst Period: UND -- Adam Calder 6 (Zierke, Pivetz), 1:16. UND -- Billy Tr=
ew
3 (Johnson), 7:15. Min -- Andy Brink 4 (Bonin), 13:01. Min -- Dave Larson 10
(Bonin, Rasmussen), PPG 13:27. UND -- Mark Pivetz 4 (Wynne), PPG 16:12.
Second Period: Ryan Kraft 13 (unassisted), PPG 13:45. Min -- Brian Bonin 22
(LaFleur, Brink), 13:56. UND -- Ian Kallay 19 (K. Hoogsteen, Naumenko), PPG
17:07.
Third Period: Min -- Jay Moser 6 (Checco), 2:28. UND -- Jesse Bull 1
(Philion), 7:05. UND -- Teeder Wynne 22 (Kallay, K. Hoogsteen), 17:11. UND
-- Brian Zierke 5 (Pivetz), ENG 19:58.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
=A9The Minnesota Daily
Pam Sweeney
Go Gophers!
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.
|
