Gone in Ten Seconds—2022-23 Gopher Hockey Eulogy.
Had to wait a few days to write this one. Besides the Gophers lost their national title bid the night before Easter. So, it made sense to wait three days to see if they’d rise again.
Sadly, they didn’t.
In the end, the 2022-23 University of Minnesota Men’s hockey team went all the way to the threshold, before departing the Frozen Four in Tampa wearing a glittering gold bride’s maid dress.
But you already know Minnesota lost to Quinnipiac 3-2 on Saturday night. And since this is an eulogy, we should probably do some eulogy things.
A WAGON OF A SQUAD
I know we lost the big one. I know Minnesota only has 5 National Championships which has thinned our college hockey blue blood to a light blue to say the least. I know even Wisconsin has more titles than Minnesota with six.
But this eulogy cannot go without heaping some praise on this absolute wagon of a squad. We had the pleasure of watching perhaps the greatest line in the 100+ years of Gopher hockey with “Top” Jimmy Snuggerud, Logan “Cools” Cooley, and Matthew “My neck is bigger than my thigh” Knies.
We had the best D-Core in the country with Brock Faber (and Brock Faber’s glasses), Jackson Lacombe, Ryan Chesley, Ryan Johnson, and Mike Koster.
We had the type of hockey players that hockey coaches love. Consistent effort from reliable types, the players coaches tap on the shoulder when things matter most: Jaxon Nelson, Aaron Huglen, Mason Nevers, and Rhett Pitlick.
We had a goalie you wanted to root for with a story Disney could have written in Justen Close.
And we found depth scoring at the end of the year, when we needed it most, from trigger-man Bryce Brodzinski, the Mittelstadt family, Brody Lamb, and Connor Kurth.
It was fun. They were good. We almost got to six.
RAH RESTORED
It wasn’t that long ago that Mariucci Arena was a morgue that served nachos and Drew’s popcorn. No one went to games anymore, and self-hating Minnesota fans relished in sharing photos of an empty arena on social media.
Just a few years into the Bob Motzko-era we ungulate between 5 and 3 full sections of students, and regularly sellout key games during the season. Furthermore, this year’s Gopher team was so good that it rubbed off on the fanbase. Even when we’d get down in games, the Gopher faithful had faith, not an easy task in a hard luck sports state like Minnesota.
CAN WE PLEASE SHUTUP ABOUT THE WCHA
Big Ten hockey was good this year. We’re starting to see rivalries. Michigan State is better, and Mike Hastings and the transfer portal will make Wisconsin a threat again before we know it. Sure, the Big Ten didn’t win the big one, again. But the competition level in the conference was unmatched this season.
While attending my second sold-out Big Ten Championship game, they flashed the attendance on the Mariucci scoreboard and the guy sitting behind me muttered, “The Big Ten ruined college hockey.” Untrue. In fact, the Big Ten has been great for college hockey, it just ruined college hockey for a few thousand Minnesotans who can’t seem to get over their ex-girlfriend. Onward. Upward.
BACK-TO-BACK FROZEN FOURS
If you consider yourself a college hockey fan, you need to travel to a Frozen Four. My family and I went last year in Boston, and I somehow convinced my wife that whenever the Gophers make it from now on, we’d attend. It was great last year in Boston, most notably the amazing multi-story Greatest Bar right down the street from TD Garden that had a floor dedicated to each team. You’d walk up the stairs and see a full bar of Mankato fans, keep going and it was an entire floor of Gopher fans. . . awesome stuff.
The Frozen Four isn’t three games, it’s an event. Hockey is a niche, and college hockey is a niche within a niche. Attending the Frozen Four is the college hockey version of walking into that old print with Elvis, James Dean, and Marilyn Monroe all sharing a drink (Gopher fans, please ignore the title of the print).
At every Frozen Four you’ll see groups of people in jerseys of teams that didn’t even make it into the tourney, you’ll see John Buccigross closing down the hotel bar, Dave Starman getting his workout in, commissioners from different leagues, agents, alumni, and more.
I had heard Tampa Bay does it best when it comes to the Frozen Four, and they did not disappoint. The town was filled with prominent signage. Two top-notch Marriotts are within walking distance from Amalie Arena. Hattricks is an iconic hockey bar filled with face melting waitstaff from nearby University of Tampa, and wings to write home about. Bern’s Steakhouse is an institution with a “desert experience” that warrants its own article. You can bring your sticks and golf. The weather was 80 degrees, so Lava Flow drinks were flowing at the pool, as some guy played Matchbox 20 songs in the shade.
Most importantly, there are plazas all over where you can drink outside to pregame. Hockey has long been criticized as a sport void of tailgating. Well, apparently no one told Tampa because it was open container all over, including the Amalie plaza as well as nearby Splitsville—which was Gopher HQ all week with multiple bars and food trucks nearby.
The rink-front plaza also served as a perfect location for teams to arrive on the “blue carpet” for their gameday fit walks into the rink. This is a tradition at most Frozen Fours but not all, and the Tampa setup for the swagger arrivals was perfect.
Had the Gophers won the title game, those 5-days in Tampa would rank up there for me as an all-time trip. Even with the runner-up finish, it was still a spectacular time. Well done, Tampa.
LET’S TALK ABOUT THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
Actually, scratch that.
LET’S TALK ABOUT THE FIRST HALF OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
The moment I knew we were going to win was watching the Quinnipiac Bobcats arrive on the blue carpet in matching navy golf shirts. It was like watching a bunch of people bring bag lunches into the Oscars. They didn’t look like future NHLers, they looked like a bunch of grad students. I think some of them might have even been wearing socks. The horror! With Knies blue suit and Cooley and Johnson’s peak hair . . .things were trending the Gophers way before the game had even started.
And really for the first half of the game things were good. The Gophers had the lead. They were getting depth scoring . . .and the big line hadn’t scored yet. The Bobcats were chucking pucks, taking icings, and seemed committed to a red line deep strategy that wasn’t effective against the Gopher’s stellar d-core who were executing puck retrievals like the 2007 Anaheim Ducks.
LET’S TALK ABOUT THE SECOND HALF OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
Then everything changed. Suddenly the Gophers were on their heels. It was as if Minnesota was trying to win the game by treading water for 30-minutes while holding a 45-pound sewer cap over their heads.
Suddenly the Gophers were the panicked team. They were chucking pucks. As Twitter has told us for the last few days: they weren’t playing to win, they were playing not to lose. Until they did.
And then in a move that had people remembering “Big Dick” Nick Foles and his fearless coach Doug Pederson when the Eagles won the 2018 Super Bowl —Quinnipiac bench boss Rand Pecknold went for the jugular, pushing all his chips in and pulling his goalie early while on the power play. Guts will get you glory, kudos Rand.
But if Quinnipiac’s golf shirt blue carpet arrival was the moment I felt the Gophers had it, the moment I knew we were going to lose occurred at the very start of overtime. You had to be there to see it. And I know, you won’t even remember this. But before Minnesota had their dreams dashed in ten seconds, a puck flew into the Quinnipiac bench right off the faceoff at the start of overtime. I sat in my seats and watched Coach Pecknold grab the puck, turn around, smile, and take his time looking for a kid to toss it to. In a show of obvious ginger favoritism, Pecknold found a young red headed girl and tossed her the puck. To this day, I’m not even sure if Pecknold saw the winning goal go in the net as he might have still been pointing at the kid making sure she was the one who got the puck. When I saw that calm and those easy like Sunday morning vibes coming from Pecknold, I knew it was over.
WE NEED TO BE BETTER FANS
In another Easter-themed tie-in, Coach Bob Motzko has been getting crucified online. Minnesota fans are saying we went into prevent mode and lost the game almost on-purpose.
To the Gopher fans tossing Molotov cocktails toward this year’s team and staff, please read these bullets. Read them twice if you need to:
It’s really, really hard to win a college hockey championship. There’s never been more parity, and a one-and-done format is brutal. There’s no time to adjust or make up for the mistakes that inevitably college hockey players make. The same mistakes, that deep down inside are what we love about college hockey.
Quinnipiac is killer squad as well. They lost 4 games all year. They dismantled Michigan in the semifinal. Today they wake up each morning as the best team in college hockey, and they were top two all season long.
If Minnesota adjusted, so did the Bobcats. Pecknold certainly grabbed his guys and said settle down, stop chucking pucks, let’s try a different approach.
With all the arrows aimed at Bob, you can’t discount the fact that the Gophers could feel that wooden rectangle in their hands. The second youngest team in the country was up 2-0 in the National Championship game. Dare I say it’s possible the players also got tight? I find it hard to believe Bob was screaming “Ice it!” from the bench like a squirt coach. I don’t think players decided not to shoot or play any offense for half the game.
On the flipside Pecknold painted a Picasso. The pulling the goalie early was an eggplant emoji, not to mention the set play to win it in OT that every Gopher fan has watched dozens of times and probably drawn on a cocktail napkin by now.
Having watched this team all season, it’s not the most outlandish idea to believe that the best D-Core in the country might be able to hang onto a two-goal lead for half a game by committing to a defensive stance. It wasn’t a crazy idea to bet on this group of blueliners, it just wasn’t.
Dear Minnesota fans, it’s possible to get beat. You can lose a game because another team was better that night. It doesn’t mean that they’re the best team, or that they would even win a three or seven game series, but on Saturday night in Tampa, Quinnipiac deserved to win that game. They were the better team, period.
ONE HEAD SCRATCHER
The only thing that keeps me up from the loss, is the lineup to start overtime. It’s not about who was on the ice, it’s who wasn’t. Having been in the building the feeling on the Gopher side was like we had been holding onto a ledge of a skyscraper by our fingernails for 30-minutes. As OT began, we were in desperate need of a few minutes to help us settle down, and maybe make the team believe they could win again.
The top pairing of Faber and Johnson was special all night, and the big line was due to remind us all why they were the big line. Doing the math, I don’t see a scenario where you’re not either starting the Cooley line as forwards, or the top pairing of Faber and Johnson to start OT. Hell, based on how tight my Ski-U-Mah sphincter was, I might have started all five of them.
I’m as frustrated as the next Gopher hockey fan that this storied program only has 5 titles. But I’m not aiming arrows at Motzko. This man inherited a roster that looked like the Edina West Cougars when he arrived, and in a few years’ time has reconnected with the alumni, painted our collars blue, restored the Rah to Mariucci, recruited top talent, and brought us to back-to-back Frozen Fours (and we WON a game this time). All while experiencing the sort of personal anguish most of us can’t even imagine. So yeah, maybe we should have Bob’s back.
HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL
To be clear, this loss hurt. While walking out of Amalie my 24-year-old daughter said, “I’m not sure I should have ever gotten involved with sports. Sports has provided some of the best moments of my life, and some of the worst. I’m not sure I should have ever started.”
I wanted this win bad. I wanted my daughter and wife to see the summit. I want Minnesota to turn into Winnesota. I think it’s bad for the psyche of our entire state that we haven’t had major victories. I was at the Twins World Series game 6 in 1991, but that was a long time ago. I think I drove home from the Metrodome in a Chrysler LeBaron listening to a cassette single with my little brother. I was in Saint Paul for Koalska’s “Polish Leap” and Grant Putolny’s game winner in 2002. I didn’t go to Buffalo in 2003, because I thought the Gophers were going to win it every year. And ever since, I think I’ve lost a half inch in height because I’ve remained a Minnesota sports fan.
As I sat at the Marriott Water Street hotel bar late Saturday night nursing the loss with a Manhattan or two . . .a guy from Boston bumped into me raving about incoming Gopher recruit Cole Eiserman. How he is the second coming of Crosby and MacDavid and Bedard, and so on. “If he was in the lineup tonight, you win.” It got me thinking. I went on YouTube, it made me less sad.
Motzko was tongue in cheek at a NCAA presser when he seemingly joked about Logan Cooley coming back for a second season. As of today, he hasn’t signed with Arizona.
DEAR LOGAN COOLEY. THERE IS NOTHING BETTER THAN BEING A BIG MAN ON CAMPUS. RUNNING THE GUEST LIST AT THE K.K. AND SAL’S. BEING WITH YOUR BOYS. WHEN COLLEGE HOCKEY PLAYERS SAY THEY’RE LIVING THE DREAM, IT’S TRUE. I HOPE YOU STAY. I KNOW THE NHL HAS THE BIG BAG OF MONEY BUT ASK ANYONE—THIS IS AS GOOD AS IT GETS. SPORTS AT THIS LEVEL ARE PURE AND REAL. YOU WANT IT BECAUSE YOU WANT IT, NOTHING MORE. IT’S NOT YOUR JOB YET. EVEN LEBRON WISHES HE WAS STILL WEARING THAT GREEN HEADBAND FOR ST. VINCENT-ST. MARY HIGH SCHOOL.
Who knows? Maybe Cools stays. Maybe the prospects are great. Maybe we win it in Saint Paul.
All I know is we will rise again. We will.
Keep the faith. Ski-U-Mah.
p.s. On the flip side my dog did kill a Gopher this morning as I was writing this article. No one tell Cooley. No one.
