Gophers players received two of the three weekly awards the WCHA hands out.

Sophomore wing Mike Hoeffel was named the WCHA Offensive Player of the Week , freshman defenseman Aaron Ness was named the Rookie of the Week.

Here’s what they did:

Hoeffel had three goals as the U swept St. Cloud State 5-1 at Mariucci and 8-6 in St. Cloud.

He had the first goal on Friday, 64 seconds into the game. Nice start. The Gophers have not lost when they scored first this season. He also had one assist.

At the National Hockey Center on Saturday, Hoeffel scored two more goals. He escaped the locker room and the hallway before I could talk to him after the game — but I won’t hold that against him. One of his goals was a blast from way, way out, maybe 40-50 feet. On the other one, he circled in front and went one-on-one with Huskies goalie Jase Weslosky from maybe 10-15 feet. It was no contest. He has one of the hardest, if not the hardest shot on the team. It’s the accuracy that sometime gives him problems. Shots not on the net rarely go in.

Hoeffel had nine shots on net and was a plus-3 in the series. He has seven goals and five assists this season for 12 points.

St. Cloud State’s Ryan Lasch, who had three goals on Saturday, also was nominated for the Offensive POW award by his school.

 Ness, Mr. Hockey from Roseau, had one assist in the first game and a season-high three assists in the second game. I remember his best assist quite well. He slid a pass from the right side, through the slot, to Jay Barriball camped low on the left. Barriball had pretty much an open net.

Ness also was on the penalty kill. He helped hold the Huskies to 2-for-15 on the power play.  

Ness also was a plus-3 for the weekend. Ness has one goal and 12 assists for 13 points this season.

North Dakota sophomore defenseman Jake Marto was the Defensive POW. He had three goals as the Sioux tied Michigan Tech 3-3 in overtime and beat the Huskies 5-0.

Marto helped hold Michigan Tech to 36 shots and 1-for-9 on the power play in the two games.  

JERSEYS RAISE $13,000

Kevin Allenspach of the St. Cloud Times reported that the retro jerseys the Huskies wore on Saturday netted more than $13,000 for the college’s coffers after the game.

Lasch’s jersey alone sold for $1,500. Lasch told the woman who bought it she better wash it because he played a lot of minutes and it doesn’t smell too good.

Saturday’s game reminded some people of St. Cloud State’s 8-7 win in OT over the Gophers in the 2006 WCHA Final Five.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 12:21 am 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.