University of Minnesota Athletics
MacNaughton Cup Presentation, Senior Night Set for Friday
2/28/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Hockey
Schedule of Events
Friday
Pregame: Senior Night ceremony (P.J. Atherton, Gino Guyer, Chris Harrington, Peter Kennedy, Andy Sertich, student manager Kevin Dynan)
1st intermission: Presentation of DQ Cup
Postgame: Presentation of MacNaughton Cup
Saturday
Pregame: WCHA Scholar Athlete Award presentations (Mike Howe, Evan Kaufmann)
2005-06 WCHA Champions
With their sweep over UAA last weekend, the Golden Gophers captured the WCHA Championship for the first time since sharing the MacNaughton Cup with North Dakota in 1996-97. With its 2005-06 WCHA crown, Minnesota captured its first outright conference championship since 1991-92. Minnesota is third in the league all-time with 11 WCHA titles, behind UND’s 13 and DU’s 12. Head Coach Don Lucia became the first coach to win the MacNaughton Cup with two different schools he also won at Colorado College in 1994, '95 and '96 and tied his predecessor at Minnesota, Doug Woog, with four conference titles. Lucia ranks tied for fourth in the history of the WCHA with Woog and Gino Gasparini (UND) with four league crowns. Leading the all-time list is Denver’s Murray Armstrong (8), Michigan Tech’s John MacInnes (6) and UND’s Dean Blais (5). Lucia ranks first among active coaches in WCHA titles won, followed by DU’s George Gwozdecky and CC’s Scott Owens with two apiece. This season, Minnesota became the first preseason favorite (according to the annual WCHA coaches poll) to win the conference title since UND in 1998-99.
We’re Going Streaking
With its sweep over Denver last weekend, Minnesota moved its nation’s longest unbeaten streak to 10 games (9-0-1). During that span, UM is out-scoring its opponents, 40-21. The Golden Gopher penalty kill is at 85.1 percent and the offense has managed 35.7 shots per game. Ryan Potulny (10-7--17), Phil Kessel (5-8--13) and Alex Goligoski (3-9--12) are leading the team in scoring during the streak.
The Final Weekend
The final weekend of the regular season has brought varied results for the Golden Gophers in the last 10 seasons. During that span, Minnesota is 11-7-2 in the last weekend of the year. There have been five sweeps for UM, one three-point weekend, one one-point weekend and three opponent sweeps in the last 10 years in the final regular-season series.
