TUNE IN: This weekend's games will be broadcasted on KKXL "The Fan" 1440 AM (Grand Forks), WDAY 970 AM (Fargo) and KRWB 1410 AM (Warroad) and on www.FightingSioux.com. A webcast is also available through www.CBSSports.com.
A live blog will be open for fans during the game at www.FightingSioux.com or you can get live updates by following @ UNDWHockey through Twitter.
LAST ACTION: North Dakota's WCHA season came to a conclusion in the semifinals of the Final Face-Off, falling to the second-seeded Minnesota Gophers. The Fighting Sioux allowed two first period goals and the Gophers never looked back scoring six unanswered goals in the game.
SCORING TITLES: Jocelyne Lamoureux concluded the regular season as the WCHA scoring champion. She had 82 points overall (34-48-82) and 64 (27-37-64) in 28 league games. Lamoureux also led the league in goals and assists, becoming just the second player since 2000 to lead the league outright in all three categories (the other was her twin sister Monique Lamoureux-Kolls in 2009). She tallied 64 points in league play, the most anyone has scored in seven years. She won the scoring title by 10 points.
Monique Lamoureux-Kolls led all defensemen in scoring. She racked up a total of 53 points in league play.
Michelle Karvinen (23-35-58) finished the regular season ninth in the nation in scoring and easily led all other rookies, finishing 13 points ahead of Northeastern's Kendall Coyne. She currently has 60 points and is 12th in the nation.
Josefine Jakobsen (13-20-33) finished the regular season tied for sixth in points by a rookie and second in the WCHA behind Karvinen.
HOME SWEET HOME: UND set a new home attendance record this season with 28,218, surpassing its previous record of 24,320 set in 2010-11. North Dakota is currently second in the nation with 1,485 per game. North Dakota also broke its record of 11 home wins during 2010-11 having now won 15 games at the Ralph Engelstad Arena in 2011-12. During those games, UND has outscored its opponents 102-36 with an overall record of 15-3-1.
A BUDDING RIVALRY: North Dakota and Minnesota as had a long-standing and heated rivalry on the men's side, but not until recently has the women's programs been that way. The series was dominated by the Gophers, who won every matchup going into last season when the Sioux not only broke into the win column, they swept Minnesota at Ridder Arena early in the season. UND went on to win the season series and has won five of the last nine meetings. The Gophers flexed their muscles, however, in the first semifinals meeting between the two teams last weekend with a dominant 6-0 win, spoiling UND's second trip in two years to the Final Face-Off. North Dakota looks to return the favor by pulling the upset win over the Gophers in its first NCAA appearance this Saturday and continue building the rivalry between the schools.
BIG THREE: North Dakota became the first WCHA school in a non-Olympic year to finish the regular season WCHA standings in the top three. Every national championship has been won by the WCHA's Wisconsin, Minnesota Duluth or Minnesota.
NEARLY A YEAR: 2012 is a leap year adding another day to the calender, otherwise UND would have come within one day of going an entire year without being shut out. Minnesota's shutout over the Sioux in the Final Face-Off was the first time UND had been shut out since March 4, 2011. Then No. 1 and eventual national champion Wisconson shut out the Sioux 3-0 at the Ralph Engelstad Arena.
KEEP THEM COMING: North Dakota enters its first NCAA tournament appearance with 22 wins. That has already set a new program record, passing last year's team that reached 20 for the first time in its history. The Fighting Sioux have also scored an all-time high of 154 goals, surpassing their previous record set last year of 116.
BATTLE TESTED: In arguably the nations strongest conference that had six of it eight teams finish with a winning percentage of 50-percent or better, North Dakota finished third in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association with a record of 16-9-3-2.
WCHA AWARDS: North Dakota's success this season was reflected in the league's postseason awards as it recieved the WCHA Student-Athlete of the Year (Jocelyne Lamoureux) and the WCHA Rookie of the Year (Michelle Karvinen). The Sioux also received one all-first team member (Jocelyne Lamoureux), one all-second team member (Monique Lamoureux-Kolls), one third-team member (Michelle Karvinen) and two all-rookie team members (Josefine Jakobsen and Michelle Karvinen).
UNITED NATIONS: In its ultimate goal of hanging national and conference championship banners, UND is striving to do so by attracting some of the best talent from all over the world. UND is aiming towards diversity in its women's hockey locker room starting regionally and expanding nationally and internationally. It starts in its home town of Grand Forks with natives and twin sisters Jocelyne Lamoureux and Monique Lamoureux-Kolls. UND's roster then expands to five players from northern Minnesota, a total of 10 from Minnesota, five total states (Alaska, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin), five provinces in Canada (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec and Saskatchewan) and three players and one coach from Europe (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden). With this mix of players and staff there are 10 languages spoken throughout the locker room including four student-athletes enrolled in sign language at the university. Languages spoken by the North Dakota women's hockey team are English, French, Spanish, German, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian and "sign language".
