LetsGoDU

Beat The Gophers Week

Lucia's Favorite Hobby - Looking In The Mirror

From: Denver Post

by Mike Chambers

When Minnesota coach Don Lucia watches his team, he sees college hockey's top-ranked club, which has lost just twice in 25 games and recently had its program-record 22-game unbeaten streak end.

When Lucia studies the Gophers' upcoming opponent, No. 5 Denver, he said, "I feel like I'm looking in the mirror."

That's quite a (backhanded) compliment to the Pioneers, but certainly one DU coach George Gwozdecky won't let go to his players' heads.

DU enters its two-game Western Collegiate Hockey Association series tonight against the Gophers as the underdog, even though Lucia's comments have merit.

Both teams possess gifted freshman forwards and rely on opportunistic scoring, and each has a stingy, young defense that features one of the country's top-rated goalies. The big disadvantage for the Pioneers is their young stars will have more than 10,000 boisterous (loser) Gophers fans against them in one of college hockey's premier settings.

Minnesota is on a 21-game unbeaten streak (19-0-2) at its on-campus home.

"Outside of our national championship games (2004 and 2005), going into Minnesota will be the highlight of my career, and a lot of the guys' careers here," DU captain Adrian Veideman said. "When you get put into an environment like that, it makes you really feel like you're a part of something."

As many as seven DU skaters will play on the Olympic-size ice sheet at Mariucci Arena for the first time.

"Those people are so loud, and they're all over you about everything," DU sophomore defenseman Chris Butler said of Minnesota fans. "It's 10 times worse than (Colorado College) and very similar to Wisconsin. The best thing we can do is keep reminding our freshmen to get used to it, that it's not going to change."

Freshman Kyle Okposo and Jay Barriball are Minnesota's top goal-scorers, and Gophers goalies Kellen Briggs (1.77) and Jeff Frazee (1.80) are first and second in the WCHA goals-against average.

Freshmen Brock Trotter, Rhett Rakhshani and Tyler Ruegsegger are three of the Pioneers' top four point producers, and goalies Peter Mannino (.932) and Glenn Fisher (.931) are second and third in WCHA save percentage.

"I don't know of any other team in the country that could continue to win as they have, especially during the holiday break, when they have five of their top players out of the lineup," Gwozdecky said. "That tells you the depth of their team."

During the holiday break, Minnesota went 2-0 as five players were missing from the squad to play with the U.S. world junior team.

Lucia, who was Colorado College's coach in the 1990s when the Tigers returned to national prominence, expects to see two tight games.

"Maybe the difference of a bounce of a puck," he said.