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UNFINISHED BUSINESS

How will the 2019-20 University of North Dakota hockey team be remembered?

With the No. 1 position in the Pairwise Rankings — the system devised to determine NCAA Tournament teams — the UND hockey team seemed poised to make a strong run at its ninth national title. That is until the COVID-19 pandemic halted their season. No postseason tournament. No chance at finishing what they had started back in October. No way to measure up with historic teams of the past. Sure, this team will have its legacy on a white conference champion banner at its home rink, but was there more in store?

The Fighting Hawks had missed out on the national tournament in each of the last two seasons and that didn’t sit well with returning captain Colton Poolman. He had seen his older brother win an NCAA championship just four seasons ago and he wanted to help lead the organization to its ninth title.

So, he bypassed NHL free agent opportunities to finish what he started: Getting the team to the ultimate prize and finishing his degree in biology. The journey began right after the close of the 2018-19 season, a year that saw the team lose many tight games.

With new assistant coach Karl Goehring, ’01, aboard to help kickstart a sluggish power play, UND immediately saw dividends on its offseason work.

Joining the mix was graduate transfer Westin Michaud, who would surely add to the power play after 14 career power play goals in his first three seasons at Colorado College. Second-round NHL draft pick Shane Pinto would add some scoring punch as the duo led the Fighting Hawks in goals this past season as those close losses turned into wins — and many of them.

This team donned its black jerseys (their “business suits”) during key occasions — in fact, right off the bat in the season opener against Canisius. That game set the tone in a 5-0 win for North Dakota, which rediscovered its scoring and kicked off another season-long storyline: strong goaltending.

Sophomore Adam Scheel was among the best goaltenders in the entire country in the first half of the season, piling up a 14-1-2 record in the first half with a sparkling 1.56 goals against average and a .927 save percentage. Backup junior Peter Thome later stepped in and solidified things with a 1.37 GAA and a 7-1-2 record in his 11 games. In a season that ended full of question marks, the only question in goal was who was number one — and there wasn’t a wrong answer.

Jordan Kawaguchi (29) led the 2019- 20 UND hockey team, and was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, given to the top player in the country.

Photo by Russell Hons

So, then, how will this season full of the question marks and what-ifs be remembered?

Will it be the team that silenced the critics early by starting the season 14-1-2?

UND’s only loss before the calendar year turned came at Minnesota State, a team that finished No. 3 in the PairWise Rankings and had won 11 consecutive games at home until North Dakota tied the Mavericks 4-4 on Oct. 11. MSU had won 23 of its last home 24 games and had not allowed four goals to any opponent in that stretch. In that 17-game first-half, North Dakota outscored its opponents, 71-27.

Will it be the last time they played at home (Feb. 29), scoring an overtime goal to clinch the NCHC’s Penrose Cup as the regular season champions?

It looked bleak just moments earlier when Western Michigan scored an apparent goal early in overtime. However, the goal was waved off and North Dakota had another shot in front of its home fans. Shane Pinto delivered, sending raucous fans at Ralph Engelstad Arena into a tizzy.

Will it be the demolishing of rival Minnesota at Mariucci over Thanksgiving weekend?

UND feasted early and often on the Gophers on Thanksgiving Day with three first-period goals to jumpstart a 9-3 thrashing. Eight different goal scorers dotted the score sheet for UND. The Hawks would piece together another win Friday, 3-2, for a sweep at Mariucci, its first sweep of Minnesota since 2006-07.

Will it be the national spotlight that shown on Jordan Kawaguchi and his run at a Hobey Baker Award?

Kawaguchi went from zero preseason allconference accolades to finishing in the final three for the Hobey Baker Award to go along with a boatload of All-America honors. The junior was second in the country in points (15 goals, 30 assists for 45 points) and was the USCHO. com National Player of the Year and the NCHC’s Forward of the Year. He paced the NCAA in game-winning points with 13, scoring five game-winners and assisting on eight more. His highlight-reel, between-the-legs goal thrust him immediately into the Hobey Baker conversation as he spearheaded North Dakota’s return to national prominence.

And how, then, do we recognize such a season?

It’s easy to look up into the rafters at the Ralph and see the nearly dozen-and-a-half white banners signifying conference championships and eight more green national championships to measure how great those teams were. But how do we completely tell the story of 2019-20 properly many years down the road? One that didn’t get a chance to measure itself up to the likes of the 1987 Hrkac Circus, the 1997 and 2000 championship teams under Dean Blais or even Coach Brad Berry’s first team (2016) that all of these seniors witnessed winning the year before they got a chance to suit up in Kelly Green.

Only time will tell, but this UND hockey team was special, regardless of the finish. ///

— by Mitch Wigness

2019-20 AWARDS

Jordan Kawaguchi

*Hobey Baker Award Hobey Hat Trick finalist *USCHO Player of the Year *AHCA All-America West First Team *USCHO.com All-America First Team *College Hockey News All-America First Team *All-NCHC First Team *NCHC Forward of the Year *NCHC Player of the Year finalist *NCHC 3-Stars Award *UND's Most Valuable Player

Head Coach Brad Berry

*Spencer Penrose AHCA Award co-winner *College Hockey News National Coach of the Year *USCHO.com National Coach of the Year *NCHC Herb Brooks Coach of the Year *NCHC regular season champions

To read the full story and see a complete list of team awards, see fightinghawks.com.

The UND Men’s Basketball Team celebrates its Summit League Tournament quarterfinal win against the University of South Dakota on March 8.

Photo by Dave Eggen

A YEAR OF FIRSTS

UND men’s basketball team finished the season strong under first-year head coach Paul Sather.

The 2019-20 season was a year of firsts – and seconds – for the UND men’s basketball team. With a win over Nebraska, they beat a Big Ten opponent for the first time since 1933. They were first in the nation among all Division I men’s basketball programs in community service hours. And, in his first year as head coach, Paul Sather led the team to a Summit League title game – only the third coach to ever do so. The team – picked to finish the season in eighth place – came in second.

“How we finished – the run we made towards the end of the season – it says a lot about the leaders on the team,” Sather said.

His team had already lost to the University of South Dakota twice this season, most recently one week before the conference tournament, when the Fighting Hawks dropped the regular season finale 77-67. They met up with the Yotes again in the first round of the tournament, getting their revenge and winning the quarterfinal round.

“Beating South Dakota was a big win for our program,” Sather said. “And then getting all the way to the championship game showed the belief the guys had in each other. It was a fun way to end a season, no question.” They lost to North Dakota State University in The Summit League championship, but it doesn’t leave a bitter taste in Sather’s mouth. “I was really proud of our guys and how they continued to fight for this team,” he said. “To make a run like that at the end of the season, it says a lot about their character.”

Earlier in the season, the team had beat the Bison in a thriller, with senior Marlon Stewart hitting a game-winning three-pointer with 0.9 seconds left in front of a full house at the Betty on senior night.

Head coach Paul Sather completed his first year at the University of North Dakota. Sather joined the team after serving as head coach at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D., for the past nine years.

Photo by Russell Hons

Fans of the team will likely talk about that game for years, but it’s not what Sather’s taking away from the season.

“Every day, those guys focused on getting better, being a team, and fighting for each other,” he said. “That win was fun, but the day-to-day work that they brought made it a lot more fun.” ///

— by Alyssa Konickson, ’06, & Alec Stocker Johnson, ’17