USA Today-USA Hockey Division I Men

1 Boston College
2 North Dakota
3 Miami of Ohio
4 Michigan
5 Yale
6 St. Cloud State
7 Maine
8 New Hampshire
9 Minnesota Duluth
10 Cornell
11 Denver
12 Alaska Fairbanks
13 Wisconsin
14 Boston University
15 Minnesota

Others Receiving Votes: Notre Dame, Rochester Institute of Technology, Bemidji State, Ferris State, Union, Vermont, Michigan State, Northern Michigan, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Colorado College, Northeastern, Nebraska-Omaha, Merrimack.

Wow! Yale must be a world beater sitting they’re sitting at number 5 in the country. Personally, I would put SCSU ahead of them in the pre-season poll. Time will tell and this is why we play the game. Again two ECAC teams in the top ten.

Read the full original article…

Hum! Very interesting. I am sure that there will be a few people that are unhappy about Darby no longer being on the FSN broadcast team. Now the Minnesota Wild have two former Golden Gophers and a Fighting Sioux on their coaching staff.

Minneapolis Star and Tribune —- Head coach Todd Richards has hired Hendrickson, who scored the first home goal in Wild history, on Oct. 11, 2000 in a 3-3 tie vs. Philadelphia –, to be his third assistant. It is a full-time gig, which means Hendrickson will have to give up his job as a divisional representative with the NHL Players Association and his gig with Fox Sports North as part of the Wild broadcasts.

Actually, I want to give props to Fire Helmet Guy 26 for bringing up this little news nugget on my facebook page today. As many of you know I am not a fan of Wild forward James Sheppard and I believe that he is a first round bust and a waste of a uniform and a roster space and that the Wild have held on to him way too long and have given him way too many chances and should have cut their ties with him after last season. It’s like someone in the Wild management believes one day Sheppard is going to wake up and become a star player in the NHL. Sheppard has scored an unimpressive 11 goals – 38 assists for 49 points in 224 career games. If I was the Wild GM for even one day I would trade his worthless ass for a bag of pucks and a dozen Christian Brothers hockey sticks.

The Wild got some good news from one of their injured players. Or did they? Wild perimeter player forward Pierre-Marc Bouchard said he is working out again and getting ready for training camp to begin. Below is The paragraph from Michael Russo’s article does concern me though.

“I still have symptoms here and there, some pressure in the head, but it’s not too bad. I’m trying to pace myself on the ice and in the gym, but my goal is to be ready for training camp [Sept. 17].”

That paragraph leads me to believe that Pierre-Marc Bouchard is not all the way back from his concussion and could become a drooling vegetable with one vicious dirty hit to the head. Now every time Steve Ott or some other head hunting hack is on the ice, Wild fans will have to worry about Bouchard.

I found this blog post over on MVN.COM ; first off I wouldn’t call it a rift but a smart hockey move by the Minnesota Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher. Hiring Former Fighting Sioux defenseman Rick Wilson who is a proven assistant coach in the NHL was an awesome move and his defensive philosophy can help a team that was horrible defensively last season. I don’t think it it’s a stretch to say that last season the Wild defense looked like a bunch of orange pylons or road cones and it was almost like they had forgot everything that the previous coach had taught them.

Is the hiring of defense-guru Wilson a sign the team has lost a little faith in Richards’ and his system to win games? Mike Ramsey, who was the outgoing defensive guru noted philosophical differences as part of the reason for deciding to step away as part of the Wild’s trio of coaches. So far nothing public has been stated that really points to a rift but Fletcher clearly is willing to place who he wants above the desires of the head coach. I know that many Wild fans steadily began to question Richards’ decision-making especially after holding an optional practice after a particularly paltry effort the night before. So could upper management be wanting Richards to be on the hot seat unless the team shows some real improvement? Maybe, because the franchise is finally feeling a bit more pressure from hockey-mad fans as demonstrated by the struggles to sell season tickets, especially in the lower bowl where you can now purchase 10, 20 and 30 game season ticket packages for the first time in the history of the team. The best cure for those sorts of woes is winning and I think Richards would be foolish to think he would not catch some flak from the ownership if the team again finds itself mired in a mediocre season. The fact of the matter is the team is spending near the cap ceiling, and Wild owner Craig Leipold is going to want to see some return on that investment. I think many Wild fans are wanting the same thing, and they’re hoping to avoid a complete rebuild even if that really may be the best solution in order to achieve long-term success.
[State of Hockey]

Check this out this little nugget that I found it over on Michael Russo’s blog, it looks like former Minnesota Wild and Minnesota Gopher hockey player Darby Hendrickson could be doing color for Gopher hockey this winter on FSN if he wants the job. Interesting!

Russo note: If it’s the coach, I believe the vision is for this person to basically be around home practices and games. I think former Wild center Darby Hendrickson is the guy Richards really wants. But Hendrickson makes good money as a Northwest Division rep for the NHLPA and I’m told by multiple sources that he’s been offered the Gophers’ color job from Fox Sports North. Plus, he works for FSN as a Wild analyst. So Hendrickson has a lot of options to weigh through. But I’m sure Hendrickson would be very intrigued by a unique coaching opportunity with his hometown Wild. So we’ll see where this goes with time.

This is a really good move by the Minnesota Wild,John Madden is one of the best defensive forwards in the game of hockey. According to Michael Russo, it is a one year deal that will pay John Madden 1 million with a possibility to make 250,000 more.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -The Minnesota Wild say they have agreed to terms with veteran center John Madden on a one-year contract.

Terms of the deal announced Friday were not disclosed.

The 37-year-old Madden has won three Stanley Cup titles in his career, including last season with the Chicago Blackhawks. He had 10 goals and 13 assists in 79 games for Chicago.

Adding depth at center behind captain Mikko Koivu has been a priority for the Wild for the last few seasons. The team had interest in Mike Modano, but he signed with Detroit. Koivu signed a seven-year, $47.25 million extension last month.

Apparently Gopher coach Don Lucia is felling better.

Good news: Gophers men’s hockey coach Don Lucia, who has suffered from sarcoidosis — an inflammation of skull lining that affects nerves — for the last 1 1/2 years, is back from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester apparently recovered from the disease. No longer does Lucia have to take steroid treatments and nerve drugs.

“I get to be myself again,” he said this morning.

Here is an interesting perspective. This is how former Gopher “Hack” Tony Lucia and his father see him. I am sure Sioux fans would see him differently.

“I’m a hard-nosed player that brings his lunch pail to the rink every night and tries to give a good effort,” Lucia said when asked to describe his style of play. “I’m not going to be a flashy player, but I like to play a tough game whistle-to-whistle.”