Gopher men's hockey off to its best start since 1939-40 season
There have been some incredible Gopher hockey teams in the University of Minnesota's history, but the 2020-21 team is off to a start that has Dinkytown faitful dreaming of another national championship.
Minnesota's 6-4 victory over Arizona State Monday night has the Gophers 10-0-0. It's the best start to a season for Minnesota since the 1939-40 team finished 18-0-0 and won the national title.
In their 10 wins, the Gophers have outscored the competition 37 to 13 while sweeping every series of the season thus far against Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan and Arizona State.
"Moe made a couple monsters saves for us," head coach Bob Motzko said of sophomore goalie Jared Moe, who made 20 saves in his first start of the season in place of Minnesota's No. 1 goalie Jack LaFontaine.
"He's been awesome," Motzko continued about Moe. "We've won some big games, and he's the first guy out to congratulate LaFontaine. He really had a good week of practice…we had to get him in there."
LaFontaine, by the way, is one of only seven players on the roster who aren't Minnesota natives. There are 20 players from the State of Hockey helping fuel the best start to a season in more than eight decades.
The Gophers' run for perfection will continue in Madison against the 12th-ranked Wisconsin Badgers Saturday and Sunday.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.