This worked last year, so here we go.
Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about the Bulldogs wanting out of this season, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bull****. Bulldogs love to fight, traditionally. All real Bulldogs love the sting and clash of battle.
You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your teammates and your loved fans. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, every one of you, were kids, you all admired the champion hockey player, the fastest skater, the toughest checker, the big league goal-scorers, and the All-American hockey players. Bulldogs fans love a winner. Bulldogs fans will not tolerate a loser. Bulldogs fans despise cowards. Bulldogs fans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Bulldogs fans will not lose this year nor will ever lose in the future; for the very idea of losing is hateful to a Bulldogs fan.
You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all men. Yes, every man is scared in his first hockey game. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they skate the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men play who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who plays hockey even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of ending the season overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his fanbase, and his innate manhood. Hockey is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. Bulldog players pride themselves on being He-Men and they ARE He-Men.
Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are not supermen. All through your hockey careers, you men have bitched about what you call "chicken **** practice." That, like everything else for this team, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every player. I don't give a **** for a man who's not always on his toes.
You men are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready for what's to come. A man must be alert at all times if he expects to score goals. If you're not alert, sometime, a Fighting Sioux son-of-an-*******-***** is going to sneak up behind you and beat you to death with a sock full of ****! There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Colorado Springs, all because one goalie went to sleep on the job. But they are Tiger graves, because we caught the ******* asleep before they did.
The Bulldogs are a team. They live, sleep, eat, and fight as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horse ****. The bilious ******** who write that kind of stuff for the Grand Forks Herald don't know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about *******! We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the WCHA. Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against. By God, I do. My 'Dogs don't surrender, and I don't want to hear of any player on my team sitting on the bench unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That's not just bull **** either. The kind of player that I want on my team is just like MacGregor Sharp, who, with a hockey stick against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the stick aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the UND player with his helmet. Then he went out and killed another UND player before they knew what the hell was coming off. There was a real man!
All of the real heroes are not storybook pure goal scorers, either. Every single man on this team plays a vital role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain. What if every grinder suddenly decided that he didn't like the bang of bodies into the boards, turned yellow, and jumped headlong into the bench? The cowardly ******* could say, 'Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in twenty.' But, what if every man thought that way? Where in the hell would we be now? What would our team, our fans, our arena, even the world, be like? No, ******* it, Bulldogs don't think like that. Every man does his job. Every man serves the whole. Every line, every shift, is important in the vast scheme of this war. The powerplay is needed to supply the guns and machinery of war to keep us rolling. The equipment manager is needed to bring up sticks and skates because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man on this team has a job to do, even the one who fills our water bottles to keep us from getting the 'G.I. *****'.
Each man must not think only of himself, but also of his buddy playing beside him. We don't want yellow cowards on this team. They should be killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this game and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the ********* cowards and we will have a recruiting pipeline of brave men. One of the bravest men that I ever saw was Drew Akins in the midst of a furious fire fight in Mankato. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing there at a time like that. He answered, 'Kicking their ***, Sir.' I asked, 'Isn't it a bad time to take a penalty right now?' He answered, 'Yes Sir, but the ********* goalie must be stood up for.' I asked, 'Don't those player cross-checking you from behind bother you?' And he answered, 'No, Sir, but you sure as hell do!'
Now, there was a real man. A real player. There was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty might appear at the time, no matter how great the odds. And you should have seen those penalty killers on Sunday at tDECC. Those guys were magnificent. All day and all night they blocked those son-of-a-******** shots, never stopping, never faltering from their course, with pucks bouncing off them all the time. We got through on good old Bulldog guts.
Many of those players played for over thirty minutes a game. These men weren't goal-scoring men, but they were players with a job to do. They did it, and in one hell of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without team effort, without them, the game would have been lost. All of the links in the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable.
Don't forget, you men don't know that I'm here. No mention of that fact is to be made in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell happened to me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this team. I'm not even supposed to be here in St. Paul. Let the first bastards to find out be the ********* Sioux fans. Someday I want to see them raise up on their ****-soaked hind legs and howl, 'Jesus Christ, it's the ********* Bulldogs again and that daughter-of-a-*******-***** RWD.' We want to get the hell over there." The quicker we clean up this ********* mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt to the ******* regionals and clean up there, too. Before the ********* Sioux get all of the credit.
Sure, we want to go to the NCAAs. We want this weekend over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the ******** who stand in our way. The quicker they are whipped, the easier we'll get into the tournament. The easiest way in is through UND and Denver. And when we get to UND, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-***** Hakstol. Just like I'd shoot a snake!
When a team is playing in a defensive shell, if they just stay there all day, the Sioux will get to them eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't play the trap. I don't want them to. The trap only slows up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to play one, either. We'll win this game, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Sioux that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just beat the sons-of-*******, we're going to rip out their living ********* guts and use them to grease the treads of our bus tires. We're going to murder those lousy Sioux **** ******* by the bushel-*******-basket.
Hockey is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When pucks are flying all around you and you wipe the sweat off your face and realize that instead of sweat it's the blood and guts of what once was your teammate beside you, you'll know what to do! I don't want to get any messages saying, 'I am holding my position.' We are not holding a ********* thing. Let the Sioux do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's *****. We are going to twist his ***** and kick the living **** out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through them like crap through a goose; like **** through a tin horn!
From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our players too hard. I don't give a good ******* about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder WE push, the more Sioux we will kill. The more Sioux we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that.
There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this tournament is over and you are in the regionals once again. You may be thankful that forty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in college hockey, you WON'T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, 'Well, your Granddaddy shoveled **** in Bemidji.' No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, 'Son, your Granddaddy played with the Bulldogs and a Son-of-a-*********-***** named Scott Sandelin!'
General George S. Patton
Rhino-lining hits!
