DU 4 - Minnesota 3 FINAL OT

On a night when the University of Denver sent a message by starting five Colorado natives plus Canadian goaltender Sam Brittain, Nick Shore was the hero for the Pioneers.  Shore was not only born in Denver, but both his parents attended DU.

After scoring the game winning goal with less than two minutes remaining, Shore scored the game winner just 17 seconds into overtime, giving DU the 4-3 win.  The victory put the University of Minnesota on the losing end of a sweep for the first time this season.

Following the loss, the Gophers sit just one point ahead of No. 3 Minnesota Duluth and two points ahead of Denver, with three weekends remaining in the race for the WCHA crown.

DU now sits tied at #7 in the Pairwise rankings.

21 comments:

old pio said...

Great "character" win for DU. And the sweep was especially sweet.

dggoddard said...

What an awesome game and fantastic weekend.

The boys earned it this weekend.

DU is 10-2-0 against the Gophers in the last 12 games.

miller said...

Hey CC, you can have the Gold Pan. I will take a sweep of the #1 team any day. And BTW, nice job against Bemidji. You once again are a shining example of the Peter Principle.

UDenver20 said...

Huge win for the Pios... Really impressive persistence, however it was hard to ignore DU coming out lukewarm and then having to fight to get back into the game.

Using slow motion replay, it looked like the linesman was actually correct immediately before MN's second goal. Puck still appeared to maintain contact with the outer edge of the blue line.

Here's to hoping that we can keep it up against an abnormally weak team from Wisconsin and NoDak.

vizoroo said...

Great sweep for the Pios. And how about 5 guys from Colorado in the starting lineup and one big Canadian.

Twister said...

What a game, what a weekend for DU. Incredible finish last night--the conversion on the PP between the Shore brothers was a thing of beauty, and then Nick took care of business in OT. For a while there DU didn't create a whole of quality chances and it was certainly tough to play from behind, but they capitalized when it mattered.

After this weekend there's certainly cause for optimism. All of a sudden DU is only two points out of first place. There have been some bumps in the road, but these guys have persevered. Need another strong weekend against the Badgers, who appear to be floundering this year.

Anonymous said...

Wow-my dad used to tell me about Minn always being irritated at DU putting all Canadian players on the roster-40 years later 5 COLORADO starters?? Great stuff! (and THANK YOU AVALANCHE for stoking the interest...

Anonymous said...

Being a native of Colorado, it was very cool to hear the "all Colorado" line-up (of course with exception to Sam Brittan). Then to pull off the win was just fantastic. It was nice to get the booger eaters from Minnesota who were sitting behind me to finally shut up and leave. I wish we could pack more homers in that place so these tickets won't be available to these expatriates who do nothing more than clog up our highways and do anything possible to disrespect our sports teams. Great Colorado hockey weekend. GO DU!

Anonymous said...

I would hate to see DU become an all-Colorado team.

DU attracts people from all over the world, and I love seeing our rosters including people from places like Helsinki, Calgary, Chicago and Denver.

Anonymous said...

I love it when our roster has Coloradans on it, but it's also awesome to see DU uncover great players from all over, including very weird places for hockey players, such as Las Vegas, Long Beach and Oklahoma City!

Ring_of_Fire said...

@ anon 2:20

I don't think you have much to worry about there. DU will always recruit nationally and, to the extent possible, internationally.

However, with the dramatic expansion of both elite-level talent AND elite-level coaching and organization in Colorado youth hockey, DU would be monumentally stupid to not do everything it can to snag the best of these kids before other programs do.

What you DON'T want to do is become Minnesota circa the end of Doug Woog's tenure, where he aggressively assembled rosters of all Minnesota-born players, to the exclusion of all other criteria...namely, talent.

Anonymous said...

Despite similar state populations of over 5 million in both states, there are 30 hockey playing high schools in Colorado vs 157 in Minnesota, so it will be a long time before the numbers even get close.

When DU started hockey in 1949, there where no hockey playing high schools here.

Anonymous said...

Plus if DU recruits didn't look at Colorado player (such as CC) the hockey program would be missing players like the Shore boys (ALL THREE!!!), JP Testwuide,Knowlton, and Ryder!

vizoroo said...

Don't forget "Goal Czar" Salazar, Didier, Doremus, and Tabrum, whose father once coached at cc.

Pioneers04 said...

Don't forget Luke Fulghum too

anonevermore said...

Fulghum rocked at DU. Tough kid. Loved his goal against CC in the Frozen Four.

Anonymous said...

Is this what a Colorado circle jerk sounds like?

Anonymous said...

It's the sound of Colorado > Minnesota

Mike B said...

Holy empty seats this past weekend. According to DU, both of the games over the weekend were sold out. A sell out means that every available ticket was sold and there were no tickets left to buy. Where do these ticket-buying DU fans go? I am sure that the university doesnt care whether or not people who pay for tickets show up, but, honestly, its embarrassing. Those were two of the best college hockey games that I have seen all year, and there were easily 500-1000 empty seats. As a fan and an alum, I am disappointed.

dggoddard said...

The main culprit was the DU Winter Carnival Committee which siphoned 800 students off to Winter Park. A vast majority of those students are the same ones who buy season tickets.

Like you said, DU was able to sell those unused student tickets for $18 each so they made money twice.

Anonymous said...

Unmitigatingly stupid to schedule Winter Carnival during a home hockey weekend.

Let's hope next year's Winter Carnival Committee does not do that again.