Loud “Let’s go Bulldogs” chants were heard last weekend as the UMD men swept Minnesota in Minneapolis.
And, Bulldog Country, your work did not go unnoticed.
Meanwhile, the UMD women are preparing for the possibility of two top players being out for this weekend’s series in St. Cloud.
Lots to discuss, so let’s get at it.
9 THOUGHTS
1. I’ve been doing this a long time, which makes me old, and it also qualifies me to say this: Saturday night was the loudest I’ve ever heard UMD fans in a visiting building.
I even went back to previous road journeys. There were a few in St. Cloud that stood out, but nothing quite like Saturday, especially as the game wound down. Maybe it stands out more because of recency bias, or because it’s the Gophers in Minneapolis, or because of the way the last couple years have gone around these parts. Maybe it’s a combination of all these things. But Saturday was, frankly, a hell of a night be affiliated with this place.
I mean, listen to the people.
The power play is MAXED OUT, 3-1 UMD!!
— UMD Men’s Hockey (@umdmenshockey.bsky.social) October 25, 2025 at 8:59 PM
2. It 100 freaking percent did not go unnoticed.
“It’s hard to tell whose fans are whose because we’re all got the same colors,” UMD coach Scott Sandelin cracked this week. “But yeah, it was awesome at the end, hearing our fans and seeing them in there and not hearing theirs.”
“It’s cool,” said fourth-year assistant coach Cody Chupp. “Obviously for me, I haven’t been here as long as some of the other guys, but (goalie coach) Brant Nicklin was bouncing off the walls excited.”
UMD captain Joey Pierce: “It was super special. Obviously those games, they mean a lot to us. They mean a lot to our fans. And so for us to be able to play like that in front of them and then for them to give us that to finish those games off was super special. It’s definitely one of the cooler things I’ve been a part of as my time here.”
For players who grew up around this program, it was a special experience.
“Max and I and Ty (Hanson) probably got to see it because we were around it when we were younger,” said sophomore forward Zam Plante. “The Dogs were winning, but it was really cool to see with our group, and hopefully we can carry that forward.”
3. Chupp repeated a refrain we’ve heard often, even going back to last season, with regards to UMD’s young core, and how last weekend’s wins can serve as a springboard.
“The excitement’s high,” he said. “Internally we’re excited about this group. Optimistically excited, understanding that there’s still a long way to go. There’s still a lot of growth that needs to happen in all areas of our game with all the players on our roster.
“I think there was an element of questioning probably leading up to last weekend of, how good are we? This isn’t taking away from anyone we’ve played up until this point, but going into Mariucci to play the Gophers, it’s different. I hope that that is a nice warmup for the environment that we’re going into this weekend.”
Unquestionably, the Bulldogs are running high on confidence and vibes at the moment.
“The room feels really good right now,” Pierce said. “We haven’t had too many downs so far this year. I’m sure they’ll come at some point. But right now, we’re staying on this high. and just trying to enjoy it while we’re here, but also understand what works and I think that’s what we’ve done a good job of. We’ve continued to get better each weekend, almost each game.”
Sandelin said this just continues a trend he’s noticed in the building for months back.
“This group’s been hungry since the day we started,” he said, “probably since the year ended, the guys coming back. That attitude and that mentality is good. Our competitiveness has been good. We’re getting really good play out of some guys that we need to have good play, obviously starting with Adam (Gajan).”
4. While the Plante line has gotten a lot of the attention so far, and deservedly so, the Bulldogs have a line with two veteran transfers and a sophomore that is doing some amazing work. During preseason practices in September, the coaching staff put Alaska transfer Kyle Gaffney and UMass-Lowell transfer Scout Truman, both seniors, with sophomore Callum Arnott, who is on the right wing after playing most of last season at center.
The trio hasn’t scored a lot. Truman has four goals and no assists, Arnott two and two, and Gaffney just one assist through eight games.
But don’t be fooled by numbers. Last weekend against Minnesota, the three combined for 29 shot attempts, 27 of them at even strength. They had the puck a lot, and it was clear they — especially Truman — got under the skin of the adversary.
“We know Scout now, we’ve been around him long enough and that’s kind of the guy he is,” Pierce said. “He’s going to get on your guys skin. He’s the guy you want on your team, but he’s also not fun to play against and I think that’s super important. He’ll find ways to piss people off at different times, but he’s going to, between the whistles, he’s still going to play his game and that’s super important as well. We know that he’s doing that and he’s not doing it as a show or anything. That’s who he is and that’s how he’s gonna be and he’s not hurting us in any way. And if he’s getting under their skin, we love that.”
Chupp said the kind of player Truman is proving to be is a very frustrating kind of player to have to play against.
“He’s got that old soul in him,” he said. “I think as a person where he plays that way is a lot of sandpaper and he’s cutting guys off and he’s getting in their way and he’s finishing checks and he’s using his body well down low and he’s getting to the net front. All those things that are just frustrating to play against for opponents.
“He’s also got that personality where he leans into that a bit. After whistles, before whistles, at faceoffs, which we saw, which I love. Then you add that little bit of there’s a comment here, there’s a comment there, there’s a bump here. It can get guys off their game. And I think it’s something that is a great attribute that Scout brings on top of all the other things that he’s bringing to us right now.”
5. Gaffney, Truman, Kyler Kovich, Brady Cleveland, and goalie Ethan Dahlmeir all joined UMD from the transfer portal this offseason.
I took the opportunity Wednesday to ask Chupp about the process of sifting through dozens of names in the transfer portal to find guys who appear to have been letter-perfect fits for this program. He offered a level of insight I hope all of you out there appreciate when you start looking at the websites that publish names from the portal and dream about certain players ending up here.
“It’s stressful,” he said. “I think at Duluth, we’ve always recruited a little bit slower just because we’re not really willing to make mistakes in the recruiting world. When we recruit a kid, he’s coming here. So it’s important that we check all the boxes and we spend a lot of time getting to know the player, the family that he comes from, what his coaches say about him, what his teammates say about him. That process tends to be a little bit longer than maybe some other places.
“The transfer portal, you’re trying to do all that work in about 24 hours. So when a kid’s name pops in or you know a kid is going in, you have to do all those things or try to do all those things almost immediately. Come up with an offer. Come up with where you see them in your lineup. Present that offer to the kid who’s being bombarded by a number of other schools. It’s a challenging process and it just happens so fast. I think that’s the part that adds so much stress to it.
“But for us, we’ve always tried to make sure that we’re making sure that we’re building a team that can be successful together. It’s not so much about points or where the person played as much as is this a person or a player that we think can help us on the ice that can help our locker room that can drive our culture. Those things are just as important as what they’re doing on the ice. We’re thrilled with our transfers so far this year that we have. I think they’ve all done a great job in their own way.”
If you’ve ever seen the movie “Miracle,” there’s that scene from the tryout camp in Colorado Springs, where Herb Brooks (wonderfully played by Kurt Russell) turns to assistant coach Craig Patrick and says “I’m not looking for the best players, Craig. I’m looking for the right ones.”
The right players can become the best players if you put them in the right situation with the right teammates and the right coaches playing the right style of play.
Truman, for example, wouldn’t have been as good a fit in many places as he was at UMD. Sandelin referenced it again at his media conference Wednesday, when talking about the growth the Bulldogs have gotten from their younger players.
“We knew last year, like with our freshman group, that we had some really good players in there that we felt could have an impact on our team, and they did, for the most part. This year, we’ve got another really good freshman class that is just kind of growing as we go. They need seasoning, they need games, and every weekend’s a learning curve for them. But they’re learning quickly and they’re contributing. And they haven’t had to be thrust into that, to carry a team. That’s kind of fallen on our sophomore line. And then we’ve added some guys with college experience that I think was very critical. You can tell they played college hockey. Scout, Gaff (Gaffney), Kovy (Kovich), Brady, guys that have played college hockey. That’s a really important factor because they’re a lot different than freshmen. You can see it in the way they play.”
6. Sandelin has praised the Gaffney line all season, and both he and Chupp echoed a similar message: If they keep playing this kind of game, the goals will come.
“They haven’t scored as much as they probably would like,” Sandelin said, “but what they’ve done and the shifts that they’ve given us when we’ve needed to shift momentum or get momentum going our way or change the tide of a game, those things you can’t measure.”
Chupp references what the coaches call “the ground game,” and that Gaffney line is as good at it as anyone on the team at this point.
“I think they’ve done an awesome job,” he said of the trio. “We’ve seen it in time of possession in the offensive zone. I think it speaks to the maturity of that group and understanding of how to wear teams down, how to support pucks. Their physical attributes allow them to play that game, we call it the ground game, and just be able to cycle pucks, keep pucks low, sustain offensive zone time.
“I would say the points probably have not followed that line. But if you just watch them play and watch what they do and the chances that they create, the points haven’t quite followed yet, which given where we’re at in the season, it’s kind of exciting to be honest with you. If those guys do start finishing some of the chances that they’ve created, that’s just another element of offense that we have available to us.
“I think for us in our conversations with them, it’s continue to do what you’ve done. Don’t grade your performances on goals or points. Grade your performances on chances and how you’re creating those chances. What I love about that line is they’re different than Max, Zam, and Shaugs (Jayson Shaugabay), how they create offense is different and that’s okay. I think it’s a line that’s really given us good momentum shifts when we need it throughout the course of the last eight games. So it’s something that they have to continue.”
7. The task gets tougher again for UMD this weekend with two games at North Dakota to kick off the NCHC schedule. UND is 4-2 under new head coach Dane Jackson after splitting two games last weekend at Clarkson.
Jackson was promoted from associate coach when UND fired Brad Berry after missing the NCAA Tournament last season. The Fighting Hawks lost a handful of players in the portal, including top offensive players Sasha Boisvert and Owen McLaughlin, so Jackson was immediately charged with restocking the roster, both for now and the future of UND hockey.
With general manager and UND alum Bryn Chyzyk hired from the USHL to manage the roster, and eventually Matt Smaby hired from the USHL to join the coaching staff, UND was able to find enough talented players to not only fill the 2025-26 roster, but to get picked high in the NCHC preseason poll and national rankings.
Both Sandelin and Chupp said they’ve noticed a more aggressive forecheck from North Dakota in its first six games of the season.
“I think how they forecheck, their neutral zone forecheck, different things like that that we need to be aware of,” Chupp said. “It’s that building. I think their style of play plays into the environment at home. So they’re gonna come fast, they’re gonna come with two guys, they’re gonna pressure you early, they’re gonna dump a lot of pucks in, get in on the forecheck. We have to be prepared for that early on, especially to manage a little bit more pressure than we saw last week. They’re going to be all revved up. We got to make sure we’re prepared for that, kind of calm that storm and make sure that we get to our game.”
Sandelin said there isn’t a ton that’s different about UND, and he expects a tough battle this weekend.
“They’ve got some really good returning defensemen. Their goaltending is a little bit new, so they’ve played a couple different guys. Hard working pressure pucks, D are very active. They’re going to make it difficult. They’re a hard forechecking team. So a lot of their traits in the past haven’t changed. It’s going to be certainly a more contested space on the rink type of battle.
“We’re going to see a lot of really, really good hockey teams starting with this weekend. So we’re going to keep learning about our team.”
8. The NCHC season kicks off this weekend with some other intriguing series. Miami takes its 6-0 record back home for two games against Arizona State. The RedHawks are an underrated story so far, but how will they fare in the conference schedule? Miami’s last NCHC win was Jan. 13, 2024, 38 league games ago.
Omaha plays two at Colorado College, a matchup that pits two top senior goalies head to head in Simon Latkoczy and Kaidan Mbereko, players who are serving as captains for their respective teams this season.
Also, defending national champion Western Michigan makes the trek to St. Cloud State. The Huskies are 5-2, but this is a major step up in competition for Brett Larson’s team, a team that doesn’t leave the state of Minnesota until a Nov. 21-22 series at Miami.
Non-conference action sees Denver at home to face Alaska-Anchorage. The Pioneers will start their league schedule next weekend at Western Michigan.
9. The UMD women got an injury scare last weekend, but it could benefit them in a way this week. Junior goalie Eve Gascon left with a concerning-looking upper-body injury in Friday’s 4-0 loss to Minnesota. Somehow, she was good to go for Saturday’s game, but her departure threw freshman goalie Sophia Villanueva to the wolves in a sense. Villanueva, who grew up in multiple states with her dad in the Army and bouncing around a bit, stopped 14 of 16 shots Friday after being pressed into duty.
But she might be back on the ice this weekend in St. Cloud. Head coach Laura Schuler said Gascon and sophomore forward Caitlin Kraemer are both with Team Canada at a camp preparing for next week’s kickoff of the US-Canada Rivalry Series, and it doesn’t sound like either is expected back for this weekend’s games against the Huskies, though Schuler wasn’t looking to handicap the odds of it happening or not at her weekly media conference.
Villanueva said it was tough going into the game Friday knowing Gascon was injured and not knowing the extent of the injury. But she did admit the experience could be beneficial.
“That’s not how the way I wanted to start (playing college hockey),” she said. “But I think it kind of helped to rip the Band-Aid a little bit. Once you play a team like Minnesota and every team we’re going to play is is a new challenge, but knowing that I can, I have the ability to play at this level, I think helps me in the future.”
(By the way, Villanueva killed it as the player at this week’s media session. Her story is a cool one, with her mom driving hours from El Paso to Arizona so she could play hockey as a youth, to her moving to Connecticut last year to get noticed for a shot at Division I hockey. Take a gander here to see the whole thing.)
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We’ll be in Grand Forks with the men on Northland News Radio. 6:30pm pregame Friday, 5:30pm Saturday from Ralph Engelstad Arena.
Women’s games at 2pm Friday and 1pm Saturday in St. Cloud can be seen on Big Ten Plus.
Back pregame from North Dakota with lines and notes on the NCHC opener.
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