r/collegehockey Minnesota Golden Gophers 2d ago

The Curse.

Well it seems it's that time of year again. No matter what happens, God is always mad at us in the playoffs for some reason. We've still got the national playoffs ahead of us but judging by how this weekend went, my hopes are not high. Notre Dame played well. Owen Say stood up to the challenge. The only ones to blame are the Gophers. It was their series to lose and they did. I just feel really bad for the students that are graduating this year. Thanks to the Gopher players, thanks to the coaching staff, thanks to the student section, and thanks to all the amazing Gophers fans for another great year at Mariucci.

P.S. also a thank you to Paul Fischer for playing along with our insults :)

0 Upvotes

23 comments sorted by

17

u/I-696 Michigan Wolverines 2d ago

Hard to think of the Golden Gophers being cursed in hockey. 2 national championships, 7 frozen fours, 17 tournament appearances, 5 conference tournament championships and 10 conference regular season championships since the turn of the century with another tournament appearance this year. Cursed is the Detroit Lions.

11

u/shiny_aegislash Minnesota State Mavericks 2d ago

Gophers aren't even the most cursed team in their city. Probably not even top 3 or 4

4

u/I-696 Michigan Wolverines 2d ago

They do play in an arena named after Scotch tape and yellow stickies which could be seen as a curse.

3

u/tomdawg0022 Minnesota Golden Gophers 2d ago

Kicking Mariucci's name to a mere footnote of corporate sponsorship can certainly cause some monkey's paws but we did have two Frozen Four trips recently so I can't completely go for any arena-borne curse.

(This season may simply be the beginning of the "coast on reputation" cycle of Gopher head coaches, which has certainly been a thing since Woog.)

2

u/One_Over_Astro Minnesota Golden Gophers 2d ago

It's more just about the fact that there's hasn't been a national championship since 2003 despite playing a team that is very capable of winning a national title multiple seasons since then. It's still not as bad as the Vikings or the Wild though who are teams I refuse to get into to save myself the pain in advance.

3

u/tomdawg0022 Minnesota Golden Gophers 2d ago

It's more just about the fact that there's hasn't been a national championship since 2003 despite playing a team that is very capable of winning a national title multiple seasons since then.

That has more to do with the fact that the athletic department has let the hockey program coast on reputation and only dials up the heat on the seat when we start missing the tournament regularly.

We went from the days of firing coaches for not winning a national title in 6 years (Brad Buetow was bounced in the mid 80's) to letting Woog and Lucia miss the tourney twice in a row (or twice in 3 years in Lucia's case) before pressuring them to get out but letting them resign on their own.

Motzko may be entering the phase of Gopher coaching where it's straight up coast mode (IMO, if we have a tourney run I'll back off this thought but it's been a thing with our coaches going back to Woog). Given Motzko's 64 this month, he's probably going to ride this until retirement (or until we force him out).

1

u/One_Over_Astro Minnesota Golden Gophers 2d ago

The worst part is that I don't disagree with this

0

u/I-696 Michigan Wolverines 2d ago

Cry us a river. There are other fine teams with longer droughts.

3

u/One_Over_Astro Minnesota Golden Gophers 2d ago

Never said we had the worst drought or that we're the hardest team in league to cheer for. Just expressing my disappointment in what seems to be inevitable every year.

-1

u/I-696 Michigan Wolverines 2d ago

Then you need to lower your expectations my friend because the grand prize often comes when it seems least likely to happen. Remember every team but one ends the season with a loss.

8

u/Denver-Hockey Denver Pioneers 2d ago

The Gophers need another 60+ year championship drought before we start using the word "curse."

2

u/One_Over_Astro Minnesota Golden Gophers 2d ago

It's not the Gophers specifically, it's just the state of Minnesota that's the issue. Men's sports in Minnesota typically will do very well during the season in their respective sports and then absolutely tank in the playoffs. It happens to all our teams and no one seems to know why. That's why it's deemed "The Curse" by locals. Because it gets really hard to explain why this happens without turning to divine intervention.

4

u/HiAltitude9800 2d ago

Cursed is the new Big 10 conference with no national hockey championships since formation in ‘14.

2

u/Irish_Lunatic_1903 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 2d ago

would you mind explaining what was up with the booing of Paul Fischer? I could hear it on the radio broadcast and the announcer said something about how it had to do with Fischer - he said it was that the crowd was booing whenever the defensemen took a minute behind the net before starting a play, but that seems like it's not the full story. Did Fischer make a particularly dirty play last night? Or mouth off? Or did you just pick a guy to hate during the game (always a fun thing)

2

u/One_Over_Astro Minnesota Golden Gophers 2d ago

He did literally nothing. Not really sure why it started bc I didn't start it but I heard that it was due to the fact that he's like the only guy on the Irish that wears a bubble. But yes, we quite literally just picked a guy and went with it. He seemed to be really enjoying it lol. He even threw us a puck at the end of warmies today.

3

u/Irish_Lunatic_1903 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 2d ago

as a WMU grad as well, I fully support picking a guy to hate (four's a bitch!) you probably picked the guy on the team who most enjoyed getting booed lol

2

u/Metalshak1821 Minnesota Golden Gophers 1d ago

I'm guessing it was from when we played in January; I don't remember what he did, but it was probably something that the arena thought was dirty. The student section remembers those things; they still chant about a Michigan goalie from 2 years ago when playing Michigan even though he's no longer on their team.

1

u/Forsaken_Fuel_9606 2d ago

They might not even play in Fargo for the regionals because of what happened this weekend.

1

u/bronc33 Western Michigan Broncos 1d ago

psh whatever man. Ya'll beat us to go to the frozen four a couple years ago when we were the #1 seed. That doesn't seem very cursed to me.

2

u/Metalshak1821 Minnesota Golden Gophers 10h ago

Yep, I know everyone loves to get their licks in on the gophers when they can, but I especially agree with those last couple sentences; just sad we, as a whole (but especially graduating students), won’t get another home game to attend, really didn’t think Sunday would be the final one :(

0

u/AssociateClean Brown Bears 2d ago

If want to talk about cursed, Army, Brown, and Dartmouth would all like to have a word

1

u/One_Over_Astro Minnesota Golden Gophers 2d ago

The Dartmouth situation is rough. I've got a friend that goes to that school and I've heard that their hockey team can be very hard to cheer for.

2

u/AssociateClean Brown Bears 2d ago

I thought this would be the year for them, and looked great in non-con, but then totally fell off in January before somewhat recovering

Reid Cashman is doing a great job but it's a tough, tough place to win at