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Huskies have bizarre break
While most students deserted the SCSU campus during Christmas break, the men's hockey team was hard at work trying to compliment its successful Cinderella first half of the season.
Somewhere along the way, the Huskies saw a variety of crazy events including: the lock on top of the WCHA standings diminish for the first time since the season began, a non-conference Providence Coffee Pot tournament trophy, the first back-to-back defeat at home in four years, the top first-year forward depart and mascot Blizzard get his head punched off by an intoxicated UND fan.
Among all of this chaos that led up to this weekend's 4-1 win and 6-3 loss in Alaska Anchorage, eight out of ten WCHA teams remain in the Pairwise rankings (current as of Sunday night) which predicts the 16-team NCAA tournament field.
"Once again it just shows the strength of our league. It's so tough from top to bottom," said Husky head coach Craig Dahl, who's team was ranked No. 5 before its split with UAA this weekend. "There aren't any easy games in this league. That puts a lot of pressure on your players that they've gotta show up and really play hard every night and we've gotta get some bounces."
SCSU is only the latest victim to fall to a much-improved Seawolves team that was winless in the WCHA last season. UAA, who was rated No. 13 in the Pairwise rankings, has already beaten the No. 7 ranked Gophers, swept No. 11 Colorado College and tied No. 1 UND.
Although SCSU got two goals a piece from Matt Hendricks, Garrett Larson and Justin Fletcher in the weekend series, UAA finally put an end to the Huskies unbeaten streak that hung over its head since Feb. 8 1997.
The Huskies have hit a series of highs and lows in the second half of its 2003-04 season. After being swept by Denver Dec. 12-13, which was its first time being swept at home since February 1999, the Huskies rebounded by winning the Providence Coffee Pot Tournament Dec. 27-28, with consecutive wins over Harvard and Providence.
SCSU then tied and lost to the top- ranked UND Fighting Sioux Jan. 1-2, without three of its top players in Zach Parise, Brady Murray and Drew Stafford, who helped the USA junior team take its first ever gold medal. Although the Huskies have hit a bit of a speed bump lately, falling to third in the WCHA with a 2-5-1 record in its last four series, including only one win in its last three series in the National Hockey Center, Dahl and his Huskies are not hitting the panic button just yet.
After all, a major reason the Huskies (13-8-3 overall, 9-6-3 WCHA) still have a No. 4 Pairwise ranking (as of Sunday night), is because of its strength of schedule. The Huskies, who had what was regarded as the hardest schedule in the nation last season, won't get much more help this season.
"When we played here against North Dakota, it was a pretty good series and the weekend Denver played us they were flying, so it's just going to be like that. This is a tough league." Dahl said. "I thought that after the Providence tourney that we started to score some goals. The first night against North Dakota we got four, but the next night we only got one in another close game, so obviously we still need to add some more offensive punch."
Hill leaves for Regina
The Huskies received some shocking news last Friday (Jan. 9) during a week off when first-year winger Brent Hill informed the SCSU players and coaching staff that he was catching a flight the next morning to join Regina, a major junior team in the Western Hockey League. Hill told the Regina Leader Post he did not see eye-to-eye with Dahl, but the SCSU coaching staff was puzzled because Hill told assistant coach Fred Harbinson that he was excited for the second half of the season.
"We didn't have any indication that he wanted to leave or that he didn't like school," Dahl said. "He never told us that. He didn't talk to anyone on the staff, or anyone on the team until Friday morning when we first found out."
Hill, an Alberta native, had three goals and two assists this season, and is the second Husky first-year player in two years to leave the Huskies for a major junior team. Jonathan Lehun left last June.
"Those major junior teams are calling up young players all the time," Dahl said. "They called Joe Motzko and tried to get him to go to Seattle when he was a freshman, so it's going to happen. They think they're ready to go play professional hockey right now, and so they think if they go play a year of major-junior, they're going to be able to step out into the professional hockey world.
"It's a patience thing. It's like when I graduated from college, I wasn't ready to coach a Division I hockey team. You've gotta pay your dues, work your way up unless you're a world class athlete like Zach Parise. (Hill) was getting an education at the same time. It just didn't make any sense. But we wish him well and hope it works out for him."
Mascot attacked...again
Erich Weiss, a 24-year-old business management major at SCSU, did not know what he got himself into when he decided to take the job as Blizzard (SCSU's hockey mascot) four years ago.
Weiss was on the receiving end of a physical confrontation for the second time in two years during a Jan. 3 game in which UND beat the Huskies 3-1. The game was sold out with an attendance of 6,685 people, many of which were Fighting Sioux fans.
Weiss approached a couple of SCSU fans, which included a young girl, whom he hugged.
"Then I looked and there was a UND fan standing near by so I just did the same thing and opened my arms," Weiss said.
What he got was a blow to the face which lifted the head of his costume clean off, according to Weiss.
Ryan Hazzard, an 18-year-old North Dakota fan was on the delivering end of the punch. Hazzard was charged with minor consumption, disorderly conduct and giving false information to police after he returned to the NHC for a second time after being escorted out due to the original incident.
According to Weiss, it was clear from the beginning that Hazzard was intoxicated even though the NHC is an alcohol-free facility.
"It's usually fans' emotions that start it, but in the case against UND, it was intoxication. I could smell the alcohol on his breath with my dog head on. That's hard to do."
Weiss was also in the Blizzard costume during an altercation that took place in 2002 at Yost Arena in Michigan during the Huskies' first- round NCAA Tournament loss to the Wolverines.
Controversy began well before the game did when a newspaper reported that an SCSU cheerleader was verbally bashing Wolverine fans. During pre-game warm ups, Husky cheerleaders took the ice along with Weiss. According to Weiss, numerous Michigan players attempted to trip the cheerleaders, which led to a shoving match between Blizzard and Michigan players that had to be broken up by the police.
"Basically it was just that atmosphere and environment that led to the whole thing. That was in a place that isn't used to seeing other teams mascots and cheerleaders, and I don't know if that was the right place for me to be," Weiss said. "I got in there and got pushed by a (Michigan) player and pushed him back. His teammates saw that and all the sudden it's time to chase the mascot. People really blew it out of context though, it wasn't that big of a deal."
Although this is the second time Weiss has been in a physical dispute, he's not too worried about any problems in the future.
"It's something you never expect to happen. In Michigan it was a fluke and it was the same type of thing (last week)."
UND goalie Jake Brandt, who did not dress Jan. 2, also had an altercation with a couple SCSU fans as he sat up in press row. However, only verbal blows were exchanged this time. Brandt ended up earning the 3-1 win Jan. 3 making 17 saves.
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