M Hockey Story in the NYT (sadly paywalled though)
Nice to see Michigan get some press in The Times.
Hah! Just posted. Mods can delete my entry.
Of note, those with UM connections I believe can get access through the school and/or their local library.
Sorry for the crossing posts.
Don't cross the streams!
SWORD FIGHT!!!!
Unless it involves giving a golden shower...
A/S/L?
Thank you for this - totally forgot i have NYT access through the A2 district library
Good article.
“(Michigan) more top-5 picks than the TB Lightning have on their roster, and the Lightning won the last 2 Stanley Cups.”
LFG!
I am pretty sure that this link will work without the paywall. I’m a NYTimes subscriber and I “gifted” the article. I hope it works. It’s a stupidly long link. Let me know if it works. I am sorry that the link fucked up the formatting on this page. I’ll delete the link if it’s too annoying.
It worked for me, thanks Old Alum👍.
Great read.
From one old alum to another, thanks. It worked well! Good article.
Maybe we were at Yost at the same time watching our boys take on Denver in the WCHA days.
And before Yost--i.e., in the early 70s--there was whatever they called that unheated barn with the ice rink. We wanted fights to break out just so we could jump up and down and yell to get warm.
It was called the Coliseum. I saw my first UM hockey game there back in the mid-‘70s. It was a real dump.
My dad “played” for Michigan in the early 50s. It was a dump even back then.
Old Blue, we probably were! I graduated in ‘78.
Hail!
Probably pregamed at Dooley’s with 15 cent hot dogs and hit up Fraser’s Pub after the game
Is that link from near Anglesey in Wales perchance?
I teared up too.... I want it so badly for THEM.
GO BLUE!!!
NYT link from Old Alum...
A shorter version! What a great story - I recommend that everyone reads it, and also that everyone hopes it doesn't translate to a jinx...
Good article!
Funny enough, The Athletic has an article about when Matty Beniers will make his debut for the Kraken, of course he's got a National Championship to win first!
Great read if you can get access to it
im not ready for this season to be over. Even if they win their next two games it’ll still suck for it to be over. An all time team and it feels like its gone just as soon as it started
I mean, I’m ready for them to win a title. Really ready. It’s not one season ending; it’s 24 years.
Yes, that means that in the reasonably probable scenario that they lose, it will feel pretty bad.
Still, this season isn’t a waste. I’ve lived here for almost 13 years, and in sports terms there has been one thing in Duluth I’ve wanted to see.
Saw it. With my family. In my home.
Just one achievement left to win.
The King and his court!
Bravo!
can confirm. great dad and a great family. how cool is that with taking them to some killer sporting events all the way in minnesota.
That’s awesome. I feel the same way, sad that this season has to end but grateful to have been able to watch it. They achieved so much no matter what.
The fact that the game tonight is 2 blocks from my kids’ school means multiple once-in-a-lifetime events are happening at once. We will be there will bells on.
Btw- there are a LOT of Minnesota and Minnesota State fans in town, and from the limited sample of conversations I had with them don’t seem to care for each other’s teams very much. I wish I could stay for the nightcap…
Go cheer loudly.
That was a great read, thanks for sharing. Now I'm so pumped for tomorrow it's going to keep me up tonight. LFG!!
I hope this isn’t like the SI cover jinx.
The NYT happily paywalled it. They unhappily let Old Alum provide a link around the paywall, though.
Thanks, Old Alum.
"(sadly paywalled though)"
I envision some minion in the Times offices about to load the story into the system so it will be available online, and pausing to think:
"It makes me sad to put this behind a paywall. The world would be happier place if everyone could read about Michigan's hockey team."
My favorite quote:
"During pre-draft meetings with N.H.L. teams, including the Kraken, Beniers told executives that if they expected him join their clubs right away, they would have to fight his mother over it."
I think this reflects the strong brotherhood of this team.
Also, 10,000 MGoPoints to mom Christine Maglione Beniers!
One thing I find crazy is that despite having the greatest collection of high-end NHL talent in college hockey history (four top-five picks, seven first rounders), we're not running away with the most overall NHL talent. Minnesota actually has more drafted players (14 to our 13), and there are various other schools not far behind (Denver and Harvard(!) have 11 apiece, while the NDs each have nine). So we're very top heavy, in a pretty unheard of way (more first round picks (seven) than in all the other rounds combined (six)).
The only thing I can figure is that it goes back to the long lead time in college hockey recruiting, where only just recently has Mel's elite recruiting began to arrive on campus (e.g., only one of our seven first rounders is an upperclassman (Jr.), with the other six being Fr. or So.). Because of that long lead time, the first few recruiting classes were pretty lean on high-end talent, leading to a team with more "program guys" than you'd expect when they also boast seven first rounders.
Given that the collection of talent at the top is probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing (even with Mel's awesome recruiting, having four of the top five picks in the draft is unprecedented, especially in a sport where historically a low percentage of draft picks have come from the college route), it's interesting to think what the roster would have looked like if those guys had come a few years later (and thus more of the "program guys" would have been drafted players). I mean we could be talking a death star of a team even in the context of our current embarrassment of riches. But on the other hand, maybe those program guys are the necessary glue on such a young team, as any rife with high-end picks will by definition be. Probably the craziest development of our post season has been the production of our fourth line guys. Hopefully they can keep it together for six more periods and achieve the destiny we all are yearning for so badly...
Somehow I’ve been stuck with the Spanish audio feed. This is weird.