Gopher Hockey Travel West

The Gophers travel to Denver, Colorado this weekend to take on the Pioneers of Denver University. WWWWW, get the picture? Oregon Trail......the Gophers play the Pioneers..... get it! Pure brilliance on my part. That picture does remind of one thing that always pissed me off as a kid. How in the hell was that little slut Mary always breaking her arm or getting sick? Every time you would start making some progress on your journey to Oregon you would receive an urgent message that little slut girl is hurt again or drank some water and has diarrhea. Seriously, someone should have just traded Mary to the indians for a bottle of fire water and 2 blankets. Having Mary on the Oregon trail would be like driving home from Canada or Madison with Dawg, only 10 times worse. Back to hockey. Minnesota's mission is to see if they can actually get more than 1 pt this weekend. With the way the Gophers have been scoring this season I would say no chance, but things haven't been going very smoothly for Denver the past 3 weekends either.

Denver has lost 4 of their past 5 games (loss to Air Force and twice to Mankato, ooouch) and their leading scorer, Brock Trotter, left school earlier this week. Rumors have been flying all over the internet about why Trotter left school. He has been accused of cheating on a test, plagiarism (WWWW, you should have him write for this blog), legal troubles or having personal issues. Seen as how this is part of that internet thing I am going to go on record as saying the reason Trotter left school is his teammates outed him on a road trip a couple weeks ago. How is that for breaking news! The University has kept quiet about the matter, only saying the Trotter is still a member of the team. The only thing that is known for sure is Trotter will not be playing this weekend and I still say he is gay and ashamed. Sophomore Tyler Ruegsegger was injured last weekend when Denver was swept by Mankato State and is questionable for this weekends series. If both Trotter and Ruegsegger are out this weekend it is very likely a pair of soccer matches will break out again this weekend.

A couple notable Denver players that will actually put on a pair of skates this weekend are freshman forward Tyler Bozak (12 goals and 11 Assists) and sophomore forward Rhett Rakhshani (9 goals 10 assists). Both are extremely talented young players who could be dominant when Trotter and Ruegsegger are also in the lineup. Chris Butler is the lead man on Denver's D and is a classic offensive defenseman. Butler is strictly a puck mover and nothing illustrates that more than his zero penalty minutes for the season....pussy! Lastly, the key for Denver this weekend will be goalie Peter Mannino. Mannino is one of the elite goalies in college hockey and that spells trouble for a Gopher team that couldn't score with puck bunnies right now.

As usual the key for this weekend will be wether or not the Gophers can actually score 3 goals in a game. If I was Bogart, and bet on everything humanly possible, I would bet the Gophers would not score 3 goals in a game this weekend. To make things worse, Denver's penalty kill is one of the best in the WCHA. That is not good since the Gophers sport one of the worst power plays in all of college hockey. The two bright spots for the Gophers the past couple of weeks have been the play of Defense and of course Alex Kangas. The Defense was suppose to be this teams weak link coming into the season and since December have been very good. If the Gophers could ever find a couple of goals their D and goalie are actually playing well enough for them to make a run. Alex Kangas should have his jersey retired right now. Not only has he been outstanding, he is also the guy who banished Jeff Frazee from my life. For that I will always owe him and would gladly give him my first child in return. I love you Alex.

The Gophers will play Friday nights game without Tony Lucia who is suspended for "the fight" at the end of last saturdays game. Expect Hoeffel to move up to the 2nd line and fill Lucia's spot. I have heard a lot of crap this week from homer gopher fans who think the little slap and tickle episode with UND last weekend will bring this team together??? Seriously, if all it takes is a cat fight to get this team playing well I will be the first guy through the doors at Blarney's next October looking to start shit with next years incoming freshmen. It would almost be worth the beating to actually watch good hockey next winter.

My prediction, the Gophers tie 2-2 and win 3-1. That is right, I am now changing what I said earlier in this post, the gophers will score three goals in one game. Probably not, but I didn't want to be all negative like WWWWWWW. Friday nights game is on BTN at 8 PM and Saturdays game is on FSN following the Wild game. Also, why is the gophers game part of hockey day MN (or what ever cheesy name FSN is calling saturday), but the game isn't in MN? Why wouldn't FSN work with the WCHA and have MN play UMD or another MN team this weekend??? F'ing retards. Hockey Day MN my ass!

**Extra** Alex Goligoski was called up by the Pittsburgh Penguins this week. Add another player to the list of players the Gophers coaches never developed.