11:15 a.m., Sunday: What to make of UNO's penalty-marred 5-2 loss Saturday night against Colorado College?

It was a tight, up-and-down game when the teams were even-strength, which wasn't often the case following the first period.

The Tigers scored three of their goals on the power play, and the nifty backhander that gave Omahan Nick Dineen his hat trick was all-but a power-play goal, because it happened right after a UNO penalty expired. So, essentially, the Tigers' final four goals of the night all came with Mavericks in the box, including a goal scored a few seconds after a CC 5-on-3 power play expired.

The game was tied 2-all 26 minutes in, and each team had been called for one penalty apiece. Then, starting at the 6:57 mark of the second period, UNO set up permanent residence in the penalty box. CC wouldn't be slapped with its second penalty of the game until the 11:12 mark of the third. By that point, the Mavs had been whistled for nine consecutive minor penalties.

Dean Blais didn't say anything about the officiating in his postgame comments. Instead, he was furious at his own team for taking what he called five undisciplined penalties.

But both Blais and assistant Mike Guentzel could be seen yelling at the referees on the ice following a bizarre second period in which the Mavs spent about 10 minutes on a continuous penalty kill. CC took advantage of that stretch with a pair of power-play goals, and it's a big credit to UNO's penalty killers and sophomore goalie John Faulkner that it wasn't even worse.

UNO spent just 1:39 on the power play -- 1:24 in the first period and only 15 seconds in the third. CC's time on the man advantage totaled 14:37, and 11 of the Tigers' 26 shots on net came while they were on the power play. The Mavs were hit with 13 penalties compared to CC's three, with eight different UNO players spending time in the box.

The problem, as I saw it, was that everything that could go wrong for UNO did -- both self-inflicted and otherwise. There's no question that the Mavs were guilty of a number of infractions. But Blais before the game talked about the importance of keeping shifts even shorter when a team isn't used to playing in high altitude. Well, when a team spends 15 minutes of a 60 minute game shorthanded, its skaters are going to get more and more tired with every penalty kill. Weary legs often lead to more penalties, and everything seemed to snowball against the Mavs as the game went on.

Still, it's rare for an officiating crew to call everything on a team that's struggling to stay in the contest. When a team's already shorthanded, those hooking, holding and interference calls have a way of going un-whistled. That wasn't the case for UNO Saturday, when one penalty led to two, two to three, and on and on. And it's not everyday when you see a game with such an overwhelming discrepancy in calls, no matter how one-sided the play might be.

As an example, look at UNO's 8-0 rout over Clarkson earlier this year. That's about as dominant a performance by one team over another as I've witnessed, with the Mavs working out a whopping 60-26 shot advantage. Yet the power-play totals that night were only 8-5 in the Mavs' favor, and Clarkson never spent long stretches down a man.

**A bad game turned even worse for UNO when standout sophomore forward Terry Broadhurst suffered a hand injury. Blais said Broadhurst's status for Sunday's series finale at CC was unknown. If Broadhurst can't play, the Mavs will be down to 11 healthy forwards. In the past two weeks, sophomore forward Brandon Richardson quit the team, and freshman forward Johnnie Searfoss was injured during the Michigan Tech series.

**UNO's road struggles could be developing into an ugly trend once again. On Nov. 12, when the Mavs won 3-0 at St. Cloud State, they notched their fourth road win of the season -- equaling the number of road wins UNO totaled in all of 2009-10. Since then, the Mavs are 0-3-1 away from home.

**Prior to the game, during a pre-game gathering of UNO fans at World Arena, I caught up with Athletic Director Trev Alberts to ask him where the Mavs are at in the process of potentially building a new on-campus arena. Alberts had some interesting things to say:

>>"What that really was an update for the folks involved in the process," Alberts said of a Thursday meeting UNO held to go over data collected by an arena feasibility study. "We've engaged in that study to understand what (a new on-campus arena) could look like, what kind of revenues would be available, all of those things. What that (meeting) was was an update to look at where we're at, how we're moving forward. I think what we're aspiring to do is pretty dramatic, so it's certainly going to take a substantial amount of time. What we've tried to do is be honest with ourselves about where we fit, what we look like and how we contribute, not only to our (university) system but also to our community. And I am really encouraged about that process."

>>"Would we be in a position to have a UNO-only facility? Probably not," Alberts said. "We're looking at a public-private partnership that benefits the community. Community will be the most important piece of anything involving the future of UNO athletics."

>>"I'll also throw this out there," Alberts said. "We're in this new league, and we're winning at unprecedented levels. What happens to our crowds? I mean, let's not limit ourselves. We do have a 16,000-seat facility. Would I prefer to have 16,000 people every night? Absolutely. So is there some merit to some patience? Probably. We're (ranked) eighth in the country, and historically our first-half crowds have been impacted by Husker football, and that's understandable. But we have increased our attendance both years that Dean has been here -- what's going to happen here in the second half? Let's say we're a top-10, top-five program, and we're playing Denver and Wisconsin -- what's the impact of that? Can you grow to 16,000 consistent fans?”

>>"I think it's reasonable to say that we need to take a look at the whole deal," Alberts said. "The greatest thing I've learned through this whole thing is to learn to not manage the outcome. If we go in saying this is the conclusion we're going to reach, then we're managing the outcome. We need to let the process dictate the outcome, whatever that might be. So we've tried to be very open-minded about everything. I'm pretty excited to see what our attendance is going to look like in the second half. And there is no question that the greatest facility I've been in in a long time is the Qwest Center. It's not an issue of quality. The question is really how we can ensure revenue generation to be the type of program that, A, Omaha demands, and B, that the rest of our programs need hockey to be for us to be successful as an athletic department. That's my job."

« Maverick Blog

Share