History on the Heels of Husky Heartache

My Fellow Wockeyites-

 

I must apologize for the tardiness of this blog post.  I have left you in a lurch while we have much to discuss--the fairly predictable nature of this year's NCAAMIHT, the historical Wockey achievements due in part to that predictability, the indescribable incompetence of other Wockeyites despite that predictability, the potential Wockey outcomes for next weekend's Frozen Four, and of course, this.  But first, I feel I owe you an explanation as to why it has taken me roughly 72 hours to surface since the end of the first weekend of Wockey.  

 

By this point many of you realize that I am a big college hockey fan.  Some of you may also have gathered that I am a HUGE St. Cloud State hockey fan.  I spent the better part of my collegiate life at SCSU cultivating an appreciation for the program, the fan base, and the fact that you can spend ten years at a school and still manage to graduate without much in the way of effort.  The choice to attend St. Cloud State not only instilled in me a deep love for the game of college hockey, it also shaped the person I am today--that is a barely employable, lackwitted jackaninny who could probably make something of himself if his every waking hour wasn't consumed by a trivial college hockey pool.  But I digress.

 

The first thing one learns upon initiation into the St. Cloud State hockey fan base is to hate...HATE the Golden Gophers of the University of Minnesota.  Being a Husky Hockey fan is akin to being a whipping boy, a little brother to a bully of an older brother.  Every year when the schedule would come out, the first weekend you went to was the one when you played the hated rivals to the south.  No games meant more to us each year than the ones in which the opponent donned the dreaded "M".

 

                                                                            We even hate stupid Gopher babies.

 

This doesn't mean, of course, that we don't know our place.  Husky fans are a mere nuisance to those who bleed maroon and gold.  Gophers fans focus on the teams they consider their truer rivals--Wisconsin and, even moreso, North Dakota.  And St. Cloud fans can be admittedly overbearing when it comes to our outward attitudes towards the Gophers.  On the other hand, Minnesota backers are often petulant and priggish when it comes to their team, often wanting to compare national titles, Hobey Baker awards, and alumni in the NHL as if a program that has been in existence for barely 25 years could compete with the tradition and allure of Minnesota, the state's university, one of the original fixtures of college hockey for over 100 years.  For St. Cloud as well as the other smaller schools in the state, the chance to beat the perennially contending Gophers is a chance (at least temporarily) shut those fans up and to prove that your program is headed in the right direction.                                                                           

 

For St. Cloud, that has been happening with more regularity.  Over the past decade, St. Cloud has begun playing more competitively against Minnesota going 10-14-3 in that span.  After tying for the WCHA championship last season the Gophers choked in the NCAA tournament, while St. Cloud reached it's first-ever Frozen Four.  Despite having to grind, scratch, and claw for everything we earned as a program, the time had come when we could be stand toe-to-toe with the big brother Gophers on a national scale.

 

And that's what made Sunday night so important.

 

In 25 years of competing against the Gophers, never before had a game carried this much weight, this much meaning.  Beating the Gophers wasn't just on the line.  Beating the top-seeded Gophers, the class of college hockey for the entire season, the team that took us out in the North Star College Cup in December, and now with a shot at the Frozen Four no less; no this wasn't just the biggest game of the season--this was the biggest game in the history of St. Cloud State hockey.

 

And I was there.

 

At 3:15, just over three hours before the drop of the puck, my brother, Chris, called.  He had tickets.  He wanted my wife, Sarah and I to join him.  On top of that, our parents, our brother, Nick, and Chris's new wife, Ashley, were going.  In our family, there is no bigger rivalry than Gophers-Huskies.  My dad, Todd, brothers Nick and Zach, and wife all went to the U of M.  Chris, Ashley, and myself all graduated from St. Cloud State.  In the Walker family, blood runs thicker than Zamboni water, but the heat that emanates from this hockey-fueled antipathy can melt even the coldest rink of ice.

 

                                        Walker parents Todd and Polly watch with glee as Alex, Chris, and Ashley

                                        struggle to comprehend why the Huskies are completely blowing the West

                                        Regional Final in St. Paul.

 

I could go on and on about the events of the evening--the way I forced my wife to switch allegiances and wear an SCSU sweatshirt, my mother twisting a knife in my back by showing up in a Gophers sweatshirt after swearing she'd support St. Cloud, the fight a section over that got an older Gophers fan and younger Husky supporter kicked out within the fist minute of the game--but that would serve no purpose in further describing the primary outcome of the night.  Instead, I'll give you this brief timeline of what occurred.                      

 

6:30  The puck drops.

6:32  Chris and I realize something has gone horribly wrong.

6:33-8:45  Agony.  Pure, unrelenting agony.

8:46  Mercifully, it ends.  Gophers 4, Huskies 0.  The entire evening felt pretty much like this.

 

It's not even that St. Cloud lost.  It's the way they lost.  It wasn't even competitive.  This is the game St. Cloud fans have been waiting for for 25 years, and while the Gophers were and are quite obviously the better team, the Huskies played as if they were some JV team out there against the varsity skaters, which painfully, is what those pretentious, overbearing Gophers fans have been telling us for years.  And tonight, we had no comeback.

 

                                                 First Lady of Wockey, Sarah, doesn't appreciate

                                                 being forced to don the uniform of a loser.

 

So where have I been the last 72 hours?  I've been in hiding, in mourning.  I've been licking my wounds.  In the span of two-and-a-half hours, everything I'd built myself up to believe came crashing down.  I lost my way, my faith.  I lost my belief in humanity and worse, in the Wockey gods from whom I couldn't accept a fair rationale as to why the Gophers deserved to win that game.  I'm ashamed to admit, I contemplated ending it all.  But then, in my darkest hour, I remembered something...nay, someone.

 

I remembered YOU.

 

I owed it to you to follow through on Wockey 2014.  I owed it to you to bounce back fitter, stronger, and stranger than ever.  I owed it to you to show the true meaning of Wockey--that one can never give up, never surrender, never wallow in your sorrows too long when you're down, but instead to come back better than ever.

 

And so today, Wockey Nation, I make a vow to you...that this will be the longest, weirdest, and most painful-to-get-through blog IN THE HISTORY OF THE WOCKEY POOL.

 

Let's get it on.

 

The Obvious Choices Advance

 

A large part of the fun of the NCAAMIHT, and hence the Wockey Pool, is the complete unpredictability of the results.  Therefore, it's a bit galling to see that this year's Frozen Four participants include three number one seeds and a number four seed, North Dakota, who has made the Frozen Four 20 times.  In fact, I'd argue that the fact that these four teams made it is more surprising than it would have been if there had been upsets.  Nevertheless, it's going to be one hell of a Frozen Four.

Boston College and Union have been two of the top three teams in the country all year long.  BC has the probable Hobey Baker winner in Johnny Gaudreau while Union ran away with the league that produced the two title game finalists last year.  Minnesota has been the clear-choice top team in the country all season long and while the breakup of the WCHA meant that they would no longer have hated antagonist North Dakota on their schedule, the one benefit of St. Cloud losing is that as college hockey fans, we get to see this, one of the greatest rivalries in college hockey, renewed on the ultimate stage.

So despite the Frozen Four being filled with unsurprising names, the quality of the seasons's penultimate weekend will be undeniable.  There will be some intense, beautiful hockey being played.

 

To Wockey Without Peer

 

As I mentioned last blog post, after no Wockeyite had achieved a perfect 8-of-8 in the first round in seven years of Wockey, seven Wockeyites did just that in 2014.  The relative predictability of the tournament certainly had something to do with that.  Still, it is nothing short of astonishing that two Wockeyites, Eric Fritz and Scott Steichen have perfect brackets heading into the Frozen Four.  With Eric picking Union to win and Sean backing Minnesota, at least one of those brackets won't stay perfect.  However, having done this well through the first weekend of the tournament is something that has to impress even the Wockey gods.

 

Prorogated Puckhead

 

Despite having over 300 brackets submitted, French expat Elena Luoto Meister's infamous record of zero points will stand unmatched.  Rather, this year's Puckhead will go to one of two Wockeyites who managed to pick just one game correctly over the tournament's first weekend.  

Jeff Stark and the aforementioned Chris Walker each botched what turned out to be a completely predictable tournament so poorly that their race for the Puckhead will come down to the final weekend, and to be more precise, to the tournament's first tiebreaker--total goals scored in the Frozen Four.  In a fascinating twist, Jeff went extremely low with his prediction of 7 while Chris went unusually high with 22.  This almost certainly means that, for just the second time ever, the title of Puckhead will come down to the championship game.  If there are 15 goals or more scored in the tournament, Jeff will be your 2014 Puckhead.  If the teams score 14 goals or less, Chris will have gone from third place to last in one year while also becoming the second Walker to don the crown of thorns known as the Puckhead after brother Zach accomplished the feat back in 2011.

 

This Blog Post Hasn't Been as Weird as I Promised

 

Therefore, this, this, this, this, and this.

There.  I think we're all caught up now.

 

Potential Outcomes

 

Despite the perfect brackets, eight Wockeyites are still in the running to be named 2014 Wockey Champion.  And for the seventh year in a row, I am not one of them.  But I could still finish in 246th!  Here are the breakdowns of the top-five finishers for all eight potential outcomes.

 

If Minnesota beats Union (NY):

Chris Trudeau is your Wockey Champion.  Dan Fuller finishes in second.  Sean Steichen ends up third.  Fourth and fifth places come down to a three-way tiebreaker between Ron Goodman, Nick Woog, and Shane Kullman.

 

If Minnesota beats Boston College:

Sean Steichen finishes with a perfect bracket and wins the Wockey Pool.  Two-time Wockey Champion Kevin Jewett finishes second.  J.P. Zandlo and Craig Nelson will go to a tiebreaker to determine third and fourth.  A tiebreaker will also be decided for fifth between Marc Majerus, Terry Newton, Mike Pigeon, Chris Long, and Jon Libbey.

 

If North Dakota beats Union (NY):

For the second year in a row, a tiebreaker would be used to determine your Wockey Champion as Pat Harvey and Jonathan Allen would each end up with 65 points.  Chris Goodman would finish third, Jeremy Meyer would end up fourth, and Brandon Nemec would come in fifth.

 

If North Dakota beats Boston College:

Brandon Nemec would be your Wockey Champion.  Defending champ Jason Kuss would finish in second.  Chris Goodman would end up third.  Pat Harvey and Jonathan Allen would go to a tiebreaker to determine fourth and fifth places.

 

If Union (NY) beats Minnesota:

Eric Fritz would finish with a perfect bracket and be named Wockey Champion.  Danny Swendra would finish second.  Jeff Rothmund and Erik Freeman would go to a tiebreaker to determine third and fourth.  Perennial contender Maggie Frye would finish in fifth.

 

If Union (NY) beats North Dakota:

Fritz wouldn't be perfect, but would still be Wockey Champion.  Nick Gaither would finish in second.  Danny Swendra would end up third.  Jason Kuss and Matt Laaksonen would go to a tiebreaker to determine fourth and fifth places.

 

If Boston College beats Minnesota:

Tom Loff would be your Wockey Champion.  Peter Fisher, Bob Poser, and Dave Chrysler would go to a three-way tiebreaker to determine second, third, and fourth places.  Gregg Walker and Drew Percival would go to a tiebreaker for fifth place.

 

If Boston College beats North Dakota:

Angela Hurley would become the second woman named Wockey Champion.  Tom Loff would finish second.  Christy Michailidis, Ron Goodman, and Chad Felchle would go to a tiebreaker to determine the final three spots.

 

Despite all the crazy things that have happened in Wockey this year from prolonged Puckhead-naming to perfect brackets, it will all still come down to next Saturday night.  

 

As for myself, I think I'm starting to get over my beloved Huskies' demise.  It hasn't been easy, but I've discovered something to live for again--writing 2300 word blog posts for weird people who would rather develop hemorrhoids reading on the toilet than go back to their desks to work.  

 

So enjoy your break.  I'll be back before the first game begins next Thursday night with a Frozen Four primer.  Until then, thank you for giving me a reason to live again.

 

Your Regenerated, Rejuvenated, Regurgitated Wockey Commish,

 

Alex