Minnesota's 'natives only' tradition

[651*]

A few things on the rich tradition of U of M Golden Gopher hockey.

It is a bit curious to me - not me in particular as I am born and bred East St. Paul - that the Gophers only hold five national NCAA championships and I was wondering if it because of our long tradition (prior our '02-'03 repeat performances when we went against that long-standing tradition and brought in non-natives, of which only a couple were - and UMD's national championship team two years ago also was all Minnesotan save for three players).

Do you think this is why this historically rich program doesn't have more titles? Certainly there are four other state NCAA hockey programs that encroach in getting blue chippers, not to mention UND and UW, among others, but Minnesota boasts by far the richest youth hockey standard in the country with almost the entire top 30 HS teams coming from the state.

Do you think they should have kept it native MN born only?

Doing Google searches is hard to render how long that tradition went on or where it began or who implemented it, so if anyone could post some that would be appreciated.

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[651*]

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[MN_Gopher]

Short answer no.

MN holds several records. You cannot always win a title but we have put our selves in position many times. Many runner ups and Frozen Four appearances. Conference titles etc.. We have a winnng record against almost every team in the nation only BU 12-13-2is major competition. There may be some 0-1 teams in there. Not sure who.

What killed MN.

A. Winning Olympic gold in 1980. Herb Brooks had a few more in him.

B. Missing out out on the Eveleth kids. Your welcome MI. You will have to read that one.

C. Not moving towards USHL kids early. Woog had too many straight out of high school kids.

D. In recent years. Players leaving early. 2 and downs are OK. Vanek vs Kessel and EJ, even players like Bickel and Taylor. D men you thought would be solid guys for at least a few years. Losing Mueller even Lofquist and Birkholz hurt. One ands are hard to replace. Lucia getting sick and not thinking about the one and dones and having people ready to replace. he was struggling to get out of bed, not recruit for the next few years and having a few in waiting in case.

Before and after sickness.

Ballard leaves Goligoski is in
Kessel leaves Barriball is in.

Bjugstad goes Kloos is ready.

During.
We did not enough players to field a full squad. Pat White double shifting. Players gone for WJCs. No one around. This year we were still fine when Reilley went down. Haula misses a game, Wrning some time. We are ok. We still have bench options.