There have been times when Xcel Energy Center has been abuzz with activity with three or four of the nation’s top-ranked teams gathering to fight it out for a guaranteed bid into the NCAA tournament. This spring, league champion North Dakota and pre-season favorite Denver are among the nation’s elite, while Omaha and St. Cloud State are battling for that level of prestige.

At 7:30 p.m. on Friday, St. Cloud State — which is on the outside of the NCAA’s PairWise-based top 16 — will take on powerful Denver in the second NCHC semifinal, after North Dakota takes on Omaha in the first semifinal at 4 p.m. at the NCHC Frozen Faceoff. The two winners will advance to Saturday night, where they will clash for the playoff title and the automatic NCAA berth, and will have the unique benefit of playing after the Minnesota Wild play at 1 p.m. that afternoon at the X.

They will all want to get comfortable in the home of the NHL’s Minnesota Wild, because the NCAA Frozen Four will be held there April 11-13.

The UMD Bulldogs had both the highest of hopes and the longest of long-shots as they headed west to contend with a mountain snowstorm and get to Denver’s Magness Arena, where the powerful Denver Pioneers had no mercy and not a lot of patience in whipping the Bulldogs 4-0. The next game was closer than the final score of 5-2 indicated but still a Denver victory, ending the Bulldogs’ season.

St. Cloud State had to go to Sunday and win the third game of a best-of-three series to subdue Western Michigan, leaving behind NCHC rival Minnesota Duluth, along with Minnesota State Mankato. St. Cloud State will serve as Minnesota host for the NCHC Frozen Faceoff.

Beyond the NCHC
Bemidji State still is in good position to advance, having beaten Lake Superior State 4-1 on Saturday to gain the CCHA championship playoff game against Michigan Tech, which eliminated MSU Mankato with a 4-3 Tech victory. 

Minnesota had high hopes of repeating as Big Ten tournament champion but first had to get past Michigan, its quarterfinal foe, and the rival who had knocked out the Gophers in the two previous seasons. The Wolverines, who had beaten the Gophers two weeks earlier in a wild 6-5 overtime battle, gained a 1-0 lead and stretched it to 2-0 in the second period, then held off the Golden Gophers 2-1 after Jimmy Snuggerud scored to cut into the deficit in the third.

In normal circumstances, that defeat would have ended Minnesota’s season, but the Gophers have managed to hold their high rank in the PairWise and in the national rankings even while falling in the Big Ten standings. So, while Michigan advances to face league champion Michigan State this weekend, with the tournament winner getting an automatic invitation to the NCAA party, the Gophers are virtually certain to be awarded an NCAA at-large bid and sneak in the back door.

The four NCAA regionals are scheduled for Sioux Falls, S.D., Maryland Heights, Mo., Springfield, Mass., and Providence, R.I. Undoubtedly, if the Gophers get an at-large invitation, they will be sent on the road to an Eastern regional, or get a lower seed to stay in the west, both of which will be more difficult to win.

Much as all of us in Minnesota would love to see another playoff match with Minnesota against anybody, and things won’t seem normal to have NCAA tournaments without UMD or MSU Mankato, you have to consider the big picture and know that if you’ve ever been anywhere between East Lansing and Ann Arbor, Mich., then you have some idea how every sports competition between Michigan and Michigan State becomes the biggest rivalry in the country.

With Michigan State as big a surprise conference champion as Michigan was finishing fourth, the single-game elimination between the Spartans and Wolverines will be well worth watching on t he Big Ten Network, when they collide at a sold-out Munn Arena in East Lansing on Saturday night.

When the shooting finally stops in each conference championship, the survivors will be scattered among four regionals around the country, each playing semifinals and finals to determine one Frozen Four team for the NCAA semifinals and finals back in St. Paul at Xcel Energy Center.

“Go, Buzzy, Go!”
Back in 1966, I had recently pulled out of the University of Minnesota to accept a sportswriting job at the Duluth News Tribune. It was a fascinating time, because UMD had just made the move to begin shifting to Division I in hockey and into the WCHA as a conference. Ralph Romano was coach, athletic director, ticket manager and sports information director at UMD, and he did an amazing job of manipulating all of those tasks at once.

My wife, Joan, and I found an apartment that could house us and our young son, Jack, and we were very close to Romano and his operation. So, when he invited us to meet him for a recruiting rip to his hometown of Thunder Bay, Ontario, it was high adventure. We drove up the North Shore, got a hotel room, and met Romano at the arena to watch a junior hockey game where a young prospect named Ron Busniuk was the top attraction.

A stocky counterman with quick moves and a hard-nosed willingness to mix it up in the corners, Busniuk — universally called “Buzzy” in the region — caught our attention right away. Our toddler son chanted “Go, Buzzy, Go…” every time Buzzy touched the puck. Romano was successful in recruiting Busniuk, who came to UMD and never forgot our closeness. Freshmen were ineligible to play varsity hockey in those days, and we had Buzzy over to our apartment for dinner. Joan remembers him with a tiny souvenir hockey stick, playing floor hockey with Jack on the living room floor.

Busniuk stepped in and led the team in goals and points as a sophomore and junior. When he was a senior, Romano shifted him back to defense, where he not only led the Bulldogs in goals and points but also earned All-WCHA and All-America honors in 1970.

After leaving UMD, Busniuk signed with the Buffalo Sabres of the NHL, and after two seasons, he signed with the Minnesota Fighting Saints, where he was a highly valued asset as a puck-moving defenseman. for two seasons. He later played several more years with the New England Whalers and Edmonton Oilers of the WHA, before retiring back home to Thunder Bay, where he coached the Thunder Bay Twins to two Allan Cup national senior men’s championships.

I had lost touch with Buzzy, after writing about him for most of a decade, and I never heard that he was ill. So it was a jolt to me when I read that Ron Busniuk had died earlier this month at age 75 at a residence in Thunder Bay.

They’ve already held the services up there, and while it may be traditional to wish “Godspeed” to a close and highly respected friend who has died, our family prefers to send him off with one final “Go, Buzzy, Go!”

The post A Pause In Puck Playoff Frenzy appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Last season, the Gophers defeated UMD all five times they played, four in the regular season and once in the playoffs. Doubtful that even that landslide completely made up for the sting Minnesota felt when its previous season ended on home ice in a 2-1 loss to the Bulldogs in the 2022 NCAA West Region final.

That’s the sort of thing that is hanging in the balance whenever these two teams meet.

“It’s always a good game,” said UMD defenseman Nina Jobst-Smith. “A lot of players on both teams played against or with each other growing up. That helps raise the level of intensity to some extra animosity. That always makes it more fun. They’re quick, and very offensive from their forwards back to their defense, and they’ve got good goaltending.”

But none of the players, or coaches, involved with the two programs can recall the intensity that was born when the UMD program was born 25 years ago. Minnesota had already been playing for a couple of years, with only Division III Augsburg as an area competitor. When UMD started its hockey program, it was also the first year that enough other Western teams started that the Western Collegiate Hockey Association also started. Both the WCHA and the Bulldogs are celebrating their 25th anniversary this season.

The first time coach Shannon Miller took her Bulldogs team to face the Gophers, UMD won the Dec. 3, 1999 game 5-4. That led to a very interesting bit of intrigue between the two. Minnesota coach Laura Halldorson used her influence to get the first-year WCHA champion invited to participate in a coaches association four-team, postseason invitational tournament in spring of 2000 at Northeastern.

Several times during that season, I asked Halldorson: Since UMD was surprisingly strong, wouldn’t it be great for the WCHA if the top two teams could go to that tournament to make it two East against two West teams? Halldorson was less than tactful when she said, “No. There will be only one West team and it will be us.”

As fate would have it, UMD went on what still stands as a school record 22-game unbeaten streak that first season, and knocked off the Gophers to win the WCHA title, earning the slot in the invitational tournament. That caused Halldorson to pull in all her chips and get the Gophers invited, too, so it ended up being two East and two West teams.

I told Miller that it would be good for the WCHA to have two representatives, but Miller disagreed.

“She insisted all year that there would be only one West team in that tournament, so now she should have to live by what she said,” Miller said at the time.

After I wrote Miller’s comments, Halldorson decided not to speak to me during or after that tournament. 

Tournament organizers put UMD and Minnesota against each other in the semifinals of the tournament. Minnesota won that game on the way to winning the invitational tournament championship.

One year later, in the 2000-01 season, the NCAA decided to start holding an NCAA championship for Division I women’s hockey teams, structuring a full regional playoff to determine the four entries. UMD, in its second season, won that first national championship with a powerful team led by goaltender Tuula Puputti, plus Jenny Schmidgall and Maria Rooth — the two top goal scorers in UMD history — plus Hanna Sikio, Erika Holst, and defensemen Navada Russell, Brittny Ralph, and Pamela Pachal.

UMD also won the second and third NCAA tournament championships. The Bulldogs were national champions in the first three national tournaments ever held, starting in their second year of operation.

Of course, that didn’t sit well with anyone connected with the Gophers, who worked feverishly to find a way to get an NCAA title of their own. They finally managed, and reached an elite level of play they have never wavered from. But while they were getting there, Miller led the Bulldogs to two more NCAA championships.

So, in what amounted to the dark of night, the Gophers unceremoniously started referring to that first and only invitational tournament title as a “national championship,” which closed the gap on their reviled “Duluth Branch.”

In later years, Gopher teams caught up and slipped ahead of UMD. Thanks to a team with U.S. Hockey Hall of Famers Krissy Wendell and Natalie Darwitz, the Gophers even went undefeated through a whole season, culminating with an NCAA title. But while nobody else seemed to notice, except me, there is one banner hanging in Ridder Arena amid the six legitimate NCAA National Championship banners, which proclaims 2000 as a “national championship” year.

That would give Minnesota seven national championships, to UMD’s five. But it also means that if you count up all the NCAA national tournaments, there would be one more “championship” than there have been NCAA national tournaments. Current Gopher women’s coach Brad Frost defends the sleight-of-hand, insisting in retrospect that the 2000 invitational tournament at Northeastern was, indeed, a national tournament.

Not true, Brad.

“I never knew that background,” said current UMD coach Maura Crowell. “They can’t just do that, can they?”

That’s just another reason why this weekend’s series between the U of M Gophers and the UMD Bulldogs has that little extra edge, which players on either team might be unable to explain.

In the WCHA, both Minnesota and UMD are rebuilding a bit, while Wisconsin and Ohio State have run off side-by-side to stand tied for first place. This weekend, while Minnesota (5-2) is at UMD (6-2), Wisconsin (8-0) is facing Ohio State (8-0) for the early lead.

In the ranking, Wisconsin is No. 1 in the women’s poll after being unrated to start the season.

Men’s hockey upate
The St. Cloud State men’s team, which struggled a little against a deceivingly tough early schedule, got everything back in order just at the right time to start the NCHC regular season, and reeled off sweeps of 3-2, 6-0 against Miami and 3-2, 3-0 against Western Michigan. SCSU coach Brett Larson said he thought those two teams would be tough later in the season and has warned his troops to not be complacent this weekend when Minnesota Duluth — his alma mater — comes to town for a series.

“We get Duluth when they’re sure to be in a bad mood, having lost twice to North Dakota,” said Larson, who coached at UMD in two terms, helping them win three NCAA men’s titles. “I think the league is going to be tough as ever, and it will be no surprise if any of the eight teams beats any of the others. There are no upsets in the NCHC. You’ve got to be ready every game.”

St. Thomas just made its presence felt in the CCHA, hitting the road to Bowling Green and sweeping. First, the Tommies won 4-1 behind two goals from Liam Malmquist in the first period. Then they followed that up with a 4-3 with two goals in the third period after Cooper Gay scored twice early for the Tommies.

The post Women’s Hockey Rivalry: Gophers vs. Bulldogs appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

The University of Minnesota, for example, has a backlog of traditional rivals that go back to Michigan, Michigan State and North Dakota from the early days of college hockey. More recently, the expansion of Division I college hockey teams within Minnesota has led to ferocious rivalries mainly with the University of Minnesota Duluth, and still more recently, Wisconsin and St. Cloud State, along with Minnesota State Mankato and Bemidji State, and St. Thomas arriving on the DI scene.

By going into the Big Ten Conference, the Gophers pretty well forfeited the intensity of the rivalries with North Dakota, UMD and the other in-state colleges, in exchange for keeping Wisconsin and renewing acquaintances with Michigan and Michigan State. Another thing that is certain is that even if the Gophers don’t consider some of those in-state foes as huge rivals, all of them point to the Gophers as the team they most want to beat.

Gophers goaltender Justen Close got the tip of his pad on this shot by UMD’s Luke Bast (38). (MHM Photo / John Gilbert)

In the middle of November, the Gophers can’t take a weekend off from running a gauntlet of those big rivalries. After a banner season that ended as the NCAA Frozen Four runner-up, the Gophers enjoyed some early weeks as the No. 1-ranked team in the country — despite the signing of five defensemen and three prize forwards that are, frankly, impossible to replace.

The Gophers opened with tune-up victories over Bemidji State and a pair against St.Thomas — including a breathtaking 6-5 overtime win in their season opener against the Tommies. Then things got serious, as Minnesota split a series at North Dakota, then returned to 3M Arena at Mariucci and felt the sting of a pair of setbacks pinned on them by Wisconsin, 5-2 and 3-2.

That set up last weekend’s home-and-home series against UMD, which began under a cloak of emotion as the teams paid pregame tributes both nights to Adam Johnson, a quick and skilled center who played for Hibbing/Chisholm and UMD. Johnson died Oct. 28 after a tragic incident during a game in England when an opponent’s skate made contact with Johnson’s neck.

Tributes have been constant from all around the world, and a celebration of life for Johnson was held in Hibbing earlier this week. Without a doubt, the emotional drain for the Bulldogs left them running on empty for their first game against the Gophers last weekend, losing 5-1 at Mariucci to the speedy Gophers.

The next night, the rivalry shifted to Duluth where UMD rebounded with a 4-3 shootout victory at AMSOIL Arena, which the NCAA counts as a tie. Both games were sellouts, with more than 10,000 at Mariucci and 7,345 at AMSOIL.

Time for a breather? It would be nice, but the Gophers go right to Ann Arbor to face Michigan. For any team, facing North Dakota, Wisconsin’s rejuvenated Badgers, UMD and Michigan on consecutive weekends should earn a trip to Acapulco. But not in the crazy world of college hockey’s biggest rivalries.

“We knew it would be a tough series against Duluth,” said Gopher coach Bob Motzko, after the Bulldogs came back from a lethargic first game for a high-speed and intense rematch. “We knew they’d be better in the second game. And we’re not close to getting into our offensive rhythm yet. They had a quick start and we took two really bad penalties. On the road, you have to be disciplined.”

Rhett Pitlick continues his flight as UMD secures shootout victory. (MHM Photo / John Gilbert)

Back-and-forth between Gophers, Bulldogs
UMD, on the other hand, is also rebuilding a bit, and the experience gained early by the Bulldogs, who started off 3-0-2 with both of the ties being shootout wins, got another shot at the game-deciding plan, which counts for an extra point in league play but is only for deciding official ties in interleague play.

In the second game of the weekend between UMD and the Gophers, the Bulldogs’ Jack Smith scored his first collegiate goal for a 1-0 lead, but Jimmy Snuggerud tied it with his sixth goal of the season for Minnesota. Midway through the second period, Snuggerud took a cross-checking penalty in front of UMD’s goal — one of the bad penalties Motzko later referred to. It was made worse when UMD’s Cole Spicer showed the merits of getting a chance to center the first line and drilled a power-play goal to regain the lead at 2-1. Minnesota again tied it, when Aaron Huglen scored a power-play goal after UMD coach Scott Sandelin might have had a gripe about the hooking penalty Kyler Kleven was assessed to create that Minnesota power play.

Minnesota took a 3-2 lead when Jaxon Nelson scored later in the second period, which ended with Connor Kurth took a last-minute penalty for hooking. The overlapping power play gave UMD’s top sniper, Ben Steeves, a small opening, which was all he needed to drill a perfect pass to the top of the right circle from Luke Loheit at 0:53 of the third period for a 3-3 tie. It stayed deadlocked through to the end of regulation and 3-on-3 overtime, which was mostly 4-on-3 because Minnesota’s Rhett Pitlick was called for an extra man, and then UMD’s Carter Loney was called for tripping Snuggerud as he tried to break out of the Minnesota end to give the Gophers the extra skater.

But repeated blocks of Gopher missiles and some huge saves by UMD goaltender Matthew Thiessen held the tie, and it was on to the shootout, where Thiessen again was the star. Brett Olson skated in and beat Gophers netminder Justen Close inside the left post on the first try, and Thiessen made a big save on Brody Lamb at the other end. Steeves then skated in and whistled a shot past Close on the second UMD try, so when Thiessen went down and stacked the pads to block Pitlick’s shot and send him flying across the crease, UMD had regained its form with a 4-3 shootout victory (though officially a tie).

UMD sophomore Cole Spicer celebrated his goal that gave the Bulldogs a 2-1 lead in Saturday night’s 3-3 tie with Minnesota. (MHM Photo / John Gilbert)

Familiar foe for UMD’s Spicer
Spicer’s goal in the game was another contribution to the rivalry scenario.

“I played two years at the U-18 team in the U.S. Development program,” Spicer said. “When I was there, I was teammates with Snuggerud and Ryan Chesley of the Gophers.”

So, matching goals with Snuggerud was a special treat for Spicer, a sophomore who didn’t play much last year after transferring from North Dakota. Spicer grew up in Grand Forks, and his family has a tradition of great athletes who all played for the Fighting Sioux back in the day when that nickname was proper.

“I committed to North Dakota when I was 14 years old, because my dream growing up was to play there,” Spicer said. “I left high school after one year and played on a Triple-A team in Michigan, then played my junior and senior years on the U-18 team. A year ago, I went to North Dakota and enrolled as a freshman, but they told me because of COVID, some older players had stayed for a fifth year, and they brought in some older junior players, so they wanted me to go back and play another year in junior.”

To say that was a disappointment would be an understatement, so Spicer decommitted at UND and opened his recruiting channels again. UMD associate head coach Adam Krause called Spicer, followed by a call from Sandelin, according to Spicer.

“I accepted their offer right away, because I love the whole culture at UMD,” Spicer said. “Coach Sandelin might have great players or not, but he manages to win. We’ve got a big family here. I’m living with four other guys, and we get together and have other players over to our place every Sunday to watch football and have a lot of laughs. Everybody is a great guy on this team, and I don’t regret what happened to me at all.”

Spicer, who was placed between grad students Quinn Olson and Loheit on the first line when Dominic James suffered a season-ending injury two weeks into the season, now has four goals and is seeing quality time on both the power play and penalty kills. And as rivalries go, he has another one coming up imminently.

North Dakota comes to Duluth for a series to open the NCHC regular season at AMSOIL Arena.

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