From Friday night, here is Danny Kristo breaking into tears because he got kicked out of the game for a super illegal check from behind against Minnesota's Ben Marshall. Kristo was doing fine until he came back out of the tunnel for that final 'F--- you" screamed at the officials.
Meanwhile, the following night, Tom Serratore had a hit from behind on North Dakota's Andrew MacWilliam, that was only ruled a 2-minute charging penalty. I don't know that that hit was excessively dangerous given how close MacWilliam was to the boards, but given the current political climate in hockey, and the clamoring for "zero tolerance" on checking from behind, that has to be a five-minute major. It's probably better off for UND that it wasn't, since Minnesota ended up scoring shorthanded on the resulting penalty anyway.
Minnesota's Mark Alt did have a check-from-behind called a five-minute major but I couldn't find a video of it.
But on to the main event. In the closing seconds of Saturday's 6-2 Minnesota win, some pushing and shoving led to North Dakota's Ben Blood being tripped from behind and Blood retaliating by going after a Gopher player in the post-game handshake line.
Here's Blood being tripped by Minnesota's Jake Hansen. And here's Blood punching Kyle Rau in the handshake line.
First off, there are three things that are just absolutely fantastic about this.
1. Blood gets tripped from behind, doesn't see who did it, and just assumes it had to have been Kyle Rau. In his defense, I made the exact same mistake.
2. The North Dakota announcing crew. Not for their spot-on description of "Blood takes Ambroz down" as Blood is laying there motionless in a headlock. That's pretty much what I expect out of them. No, the best part is that they can't possibly fathom how teams could still show respect for each other by participating in a post-game handshake after something like that. Here's a protip: Just do what every other hockey team at every other level does.
3. Wally Shaver's call of the incident. I've always liked Wally Shaver. "I'm done with these guys. Go form your own league." is an instant classic.
As fallout, Ben Blood has been stripped of his role as North Dakota's assistant captain, but will face no further discipline because the WCHA league offiice is basically a high school teacher a year and a half from retirement that just doesn't care anymore, and really, who would want to deal with all those whiny emails?
If it were up to me, I would have handed out at least a single game suspension to both Jake Hansen and Ben Blood. Hansen's trip hasn't gotten as much attention, but I would classify that as nearly as dirty. That garbage seems to happen with every Minnesota/North Dakota, and ultimately, it ends up looking embarrassing to the sport.
0 recs | 7 comments
One factor left out of your comments
If you look what set it all off, it is Blood taking a slap shot directly at Ambroz right before the buzzer. I think we could understand him taking a last second shot toward the goal if his team were down by one goal but I don’t think that slap shot was going to count for four goals. He was definitely aiming at an opponent out of frustration.
As for Rau, how can you think it is Rau when he isn’t even on the ice? Unless you and Blood can’t read numbers?
20Forever - January 18, 2012
What are we to make of all this?
Do you have some message here, other than that Ben Blood should be jailed or forced to watch Alan Alda movies or what? The reality of it is that all of the players involved, Blood, Hansen, Kristo, Rau, Alt, etc. are Twin City area products that have been playing with and against each other since they were children. This kind of behavior has been endemic with players from that milieu for decades but of course Gopher fans, who seldom see a game in which their beloveds are not involved, are unaware that their local hockey culture demands pugnacity and post-whistle cheap shots. It’s a tradition that was embraced by John Marriucci and Doug Woog (remember Jake Eneback and Jesse Bertaglia?) and continues to this day. Teams with a more Canadian component, Denver, for instance, and North Dakota of yesteryear, are more interested in actually playing hockey.
chuck martel - January 19, 2012
Thanks for the chuckle
UND is well known for being one of the most chippy teams in college hockey and it has been that way no matter what the background of its players. Guys like Eades or Archibald are among some of the best known UND goons of the past and they came from north of the border. Even Hakstol was a relatively heavily penalized player in his days. Another Canadian.
The culture of hockey in MN has never been one of fighting, cheap shots, or overly physical chippy play. Do those things ever happen? Of course. But it is hardly common. I’ve gone to hundreds of youth and HS games over the years and I have rarely seen kids act the way you say. You are clearly speaking from an uniformed angle.
20Forever - January 19, 2012
You realize that Eades and Archibald have’t played in what 30 years, and Hakstol is probably 20 years. That dog doesn’t hunt anmore. UND has a fair share of the players from the MPLS/St Paul Metro Area.
Eric B - January 19, 2012
Try reading before posting Eric. The point in bringing up those three names is because “chuck martel” said the following: “Teams with a more Canadian component, Denver, for instance, and North Dakota of yesteryear, are more interested in actually playing hockey.”
Obviously the three names I mentioned fit perfectly to show his commentary is not exactly factual. They each were on North Dakota of yesteryear, they each were from Canada, and all three were chippy players.
20Forever - January 19, 2012
Check out the boxscores
for the Gopher-CC series and the North Dakota-SCSU series last weekend and tell me all about it.
chuck martel - January 24, 2012
"Checks from behind" happen all the time.
Count how many times two players are going into the boards and one rides the other from behind into the boards. Most of them are not called as checking from behind, because really, most of them just aren’t that dangerous.
Usually the player being hit knows it’s coming and is tight to the wall and its no big deal. Riding the player into the wall in this case does nothing productive from a hockey point of view (the player usually has chipped the puck along and no longer has possession of it), and could just as easily have been avoided to the same effect. It’s probably to the checking players benefit to skip making the check and get on with playing the puck, than it is to smash the player into the boards.
The types of hits I’m talking about are similar to players whacking the thighs of the puck carrier while chasing them up the ice. The slash isn’t hard, doesn’t do any damage and has no effect on play, it is just unnecessary. Sometimes it looks like they’re playing lacrosse out there (where “slashing” is legal in most respects).
If they would call those “nuisance” slashes, that would go along way to reducing the unconscious stickwork that seems to be going on. In the same vein, calling those not dangerous, but not productive checks along the boards in the back would have a similar effect.
Especially since the margin between a not very dangerous check from behind and an extremely dangerous one is pretty small.
bconway6 - January 19, 2012
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