RandBall: Gophers men’s hockey has champagne problems compared to North Dakota

I’m a native North Dakotan, raised in Grand Forks, so I know plenty of UND hockey history.

My youth was spent wearing lucky green sweatpants, doing as many concourse laps as I could between periods at the old Ralph Engelstad Arena and generally cheering for excellent teams. The pinnacle, when I was 10, was the magical and dominant 1987 championship team, which gave UND its third NCAA title in eight years.

I could never imagine watching the Gophers as a primary team. Indeed, I used to have a crude black and white glossy photo of a real gopher impaled on a hockey stick.

But then I went to school at the University of Minnesota in the mid-to-late 1990s and my attention predictably shifted. I’ve been in the Twin Cities for 30 years now, nearly twice as long as I was in Grand Forks.

Suffice to say: I know more now about North Dakota’s hockey past than I do about its present, and it was a bit of a surprise to see head coach Brad Berry fired and then dig into the reasons why.

One NCAA tournament win in eight years, including four national tournaments missed altogether (not counting the canceled COVID year) in that span?

These are actual hard times for a program that wants to win a championship every season, and they stand in contrast to any angst Gophers fans might be having right now during the Bob Motzko era — something Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Monday’s Daily Delivery podcast.

The complaint about the Gophers is a recurring one: no NCAA titles since they went back-to-back in 2002 and 2003, which means they are almost as far removed from those now as they were during the 23-year drought from 1979 to 2002.

The reality is that hockey is an unforgiving game of momentum, hot goalies and good fortune, which makes a single-elimination NCAA tournament format more of a roll of the dice than anything else.

The Gophers should have won it all in 2023, a title game overtime heartbreak with a loaded team that still haunts. But in general, Motzko has delivered: Minnesota has been to two region finals and two Frozen Fours in the last four seasons and carries the No. 2 region seed into a winnable part of the bracket in Fargo on Thursday.

Another Frozen Four trip is possible, and if you can say that you can say a championship is as well. Being in the mix every year is about all you can ask for, unless you’re part of the “championship or bust” crowd every season.

North Dakota was in that space with Dave Hakstol, Berry’s predecessor. He took the Fighting Hawks to the tournament every year he was there and to seven Frozen Fours but never won a title.

Berry won a championship in 2015-2016, his first season. The last eight have been a little heartbreak (four NCAA tourney losses, three in overtime, all short of the Frozen Four) and a little mediocrity (four years missing the tourney entirely).

Conclusion from someone who straddles the border: The Gophers have champagne problems compared to the real ones facing North Dakota.