Celebration Postponed
Friday, February 24, 2007
A gang of spoilsport hockey bullies representing a small university located 74 miles upriver from Minneapolis ruined a planned championship coronation at Mariucci Arena on February 24. St. Cloud State University (SCSU) rallied to defeat the University of Minnesota hockey Gophers by the score of 5 to 3. Consequently, Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) commissioner Bruce M. McLeod had to pack up the McNaughton Cup and return to his home base in Denver.
The win gave second-place SCSU a weekend sweep over the Gophers for the first time since 2001, although Minnesota maintains a 40-22-9 series record against the Huskies. Minnesota and St. Cloud State have been competing against each other on the ice since 1990.
The first meeting between the two teams this year took place on Friday, February 23, at the so-called National Hockey Center in St. Cloud. The Huskies won, 5-1. A win by Minnesota would have gained the Gophers a second straight MacNaughton Cup.
“We didn’t want to see them celebrate on our ice,” SCSU’s ace goalie Bobby Goepfert remarked. After the Friday win, the Huskies’ players voted against witnessing celebrations of any kind. “We talked all Saturday morning about not seeing Minnesota celebrate at all,” SCSU coach Bob Motzko told reporters after Saturday’s game. Motzko formerly was a Gopher assistant hockey coach before leaving to head the Husky program. A 1987 graduate of SCSU, Motzko was a two-year letter winner there.
Saturday’s contest was marred by seven penalties in the first period alone, but the Gophers managed to grab a 2-1 lead on goals by Evan Kaufmann and Jay Barriball. Things settled down somewhat in the second period, and Blake Wheeler beat Goepfert for a goal and a 3-1 Minnesota lead midway into the period. The crowd at Mariucci, after battling through a snowstorm, anticipated another MacNaughton Cup victory ceremony presided over by McLeod, who was seen in the stands rehearsing his speech.
But St. Cloud State was not ready to cave in. Motzko brought with him a crew of tough non-Minnesotans including eight from Canada, an Austrian (starter Andreas Nodl), and natives of California, Illinois, and New York. The latter state was represented by Goepfert, who took advantage of SCSU’s laidback academic standards and enrolled there after encountering obstacles to a successful graduation path at Providence College. Only two natives of St. Cloud grace the Husky roster. In contrast, all the Gophers, save one, are native Minnesotans. The one exception is goalie Kellen Briggs of Colorado Springs. And it was Briggs who was beaten by SCSU fourth-liner Marty Mjelleli for the second Husky goal at 16:28 of the second period.
“Until that goal,” Motzko said, “we were getting busted. “We needed on play.” Mjelleli’s goal provided that. “In the last four and one-half minutes of the second period, we started to play,”Motzko said.
As SCSU revived itself, Minnesota lapsed into a funk. No longer aggressive on the ice, the Gophers held back and allowed the opponents to take the action to them. Mistakes and busted coverage cost the Gophers a pair of goals in the third period, the first by Gary Houseman, the second by Nate Radnus. On offense, Minnesota lacked the spark shown in the first period and three-quarters when the Gophers held a 22-7 shots-on-goal advantage.
The Gophers simply came unglued and wilted in the face of the SCSU third-period onslaught. An open-net goal by defenseman Matt Stephenson added salt to the wound. Minnesota must now overcome visiting Michigan Tech March 2-3 if the Gophers want to celebrate retention of the WCHA championship.