After two practices on Saturday and two more on Sunday to open the season, the Gophers had a day off Monday. Coach Don Lucia, starting his 10th season at the U, apparently knows how long the season is and he can’t keep the pedal down all the way.

Somebody must not have been impressed with the Gophers’ early practices. They dropped from No. 9 to No. 10 in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine national rankings. Boston College stayed at No. 1, Michigan No. 2. Colorado College moved up from No. 5 to No. 3.

My question: Why? Nobody has played a game yet.

The players still had to show up Monday at Mariucci, though, for a photo shoot. They had head shots taken and posed for the team poster. It was kind of hard to get them all in it, Jim Strick, the men’s hockey SID, said jokingly. The roster is up to 27 players with the addition of 12 freshmen.

Assistant captains also have been named, but Strick is keeping their names quiet until media day on Wednesday. He did say they were either seniors or juniors.

Not much of a clue. But then you look at the roster and there are only two seniors on it: defenseman R.J. Anderson and forward Justin Bostrom.

Since the team captain, junior Ryan Stoa, is a forward, it’s probably a good guess that Anderson, a defenseman, is one of the assistant captains.

 The other assistant could be Bostrom, or maybe junior center Mike Carman or junior defenseman David Fischer.

The other juniors on the team — the other possibilities – are forwards Jay Barriball, Ryan Flynn and Tony Lucia, and junior defenseman Brian Schack. For a variety of reasons, I don’t think it’s any of them. Who would you pick?

BUSY WEEKEND — EXCEPT FOR U

All nine of the other WCHA teams, outside of the Gophers, open their seasons with nonconference games this weekend.

The team I will be paying the most attention to is Wisconsin. The Badgers play at Boston College on Friday and at New Hampshire on Saturday. Both those teams, like Wisconsin, were in the NCAA tournament last season. BC, of course, was the national champion. … The Gophers play at Wisconsin on Oct. 24-25.

There are three exhibition games this week. The University of Alberta plays at Colorado College tonight, then the University of British Columbia plays at St. Cloud State on Wednesday and at the Gophers on Friday.

The media will get a shot at the 10 WCHA coaches on Tuesday in a daytime teleconference. Each coach will be on the call for 10-15 minutes.

Doug Spencer, the conference’s communications guru, keeps beating the drums for the WCHA in his releases. If you didn’t know, he will remind you the WCHA has won five of the last seven NCAA titles and 36 in all since the league was formed in the early 1950s. … There are 67 NHL draft picks on WCHA roster this season. And so on …

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Gophers men's hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.