The University of Minnesota Duluth finished their seventh season of NCAA Division I Ice Hockey with a 22-9-3 overall record, and a tie for second in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association with a 18-7-3 mark. The Bulldogs made their fifth appearance in the NCAA tournament with a trip to Canton, NY to battle St. Lawrence University for the second-straight season in the NCAA regional round. UMD fell in a tight game 1-0 and finished the season ranked fifth in both the USCHO.com and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine polls.

The following are some \"Bulldog Bits\" from the 2005-06 season:

• UMD had several high-notes at the end of the season as junior netminder Riitta Schaublin was named a 2006 Patty Kazmaier Top-3 finalist and a first-team All-American…Schaublin earned her second straight 20-win season while posting the nation's second-best save percentage (.943) and the seventh best goals against average (1.57)…her efforts led to her garnering a spot on the All-WCHA First Team, recognition as the WCHA Student Athlete of the Year and a USCHO.com First Team pick…the Basel, Switzerland native, will complete her undergraduate degree in mathematics at the end of the 2005-2006 academic year and will enroll in the match graduate program at UMD next fall…a team co-captain, Schaublin set the Bulldog career records for goaltender wins on Dec. 3, 2005 against Minnesota State University, Mankato with her 45th career victory (she now has 5)…she also has been credited with a school-record 2,039 saves as a Bulldog, currently good for the 12th place on the NCAA all-time charts.

• UMD will graduate two seniors from the 2005-2006 team, as D Krista McArthur and F Larissa Luther competed in their final games with the Bulldogs on March 18, 2006.

• McArthur leaves UMD as the teams all-time top-scoring defenseman…the Alliston, Ont. native tallied 91 points on 24 goals and 67 assists in her 114 games with the Bulldogs…she claimed the top spot on Feb. 10, 2006 in the 8-0 victory over the University of North Dakota (0-2=2)…the previous high was 90 points by Navada Russell (1999-2003)… sophomore D Rachael Drazan and juniors Suvi Vacker and Jill Sales are also among the top-10 defensive scorers…Drazan is seventh (30 points), Vacker eighth (23), and Sales is ninth (21).

• Luther finished her career with 45 points, including the last goal of the season at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center on March 4, 2006 against Bemidji State University.

• Junior F Jessica Koizumi finished the season at the top of the scoring charts for UMD, garnering 17 goals, and a team-high 26 assists, for 43 total points on the year…her closest competitor was fellow linemate junior F Noemie Marin, who ended the season with 39 points (22-17=39).

• Koizumi and Marin did well on the national scene as well…Koizumi finished No.12 on the assists per game boards with 0.76 assists per games…Marin came in at No. 10 on the goals per game (0.73) charts and No.12 in points per game (1.30)…the Bulldog freshman class also did extremely well in the national standings…rookie F Sara O’Toole netted six game-winning goals, good for a tie for third on the national charts.

• Despite a tough middle portion of the year freshman F Michaela Lanzl came in third on the UMD scoring charts (18-11=29)…she also came in eighth on the national board for points per game for rookies (1.12), ninth in power-play goals (8), and 12th in goals per game (0.69)…Lanzl’s 29 points in her first season with the Bulldogs was good enough for the 10th highest number of points for a rookie in UMD history.

• Marin and Drazan were both honored with All-WCHA Second Team honors, while Lanzl and McArthur came home with Third-Team spots.

• For the second straight season the Bulldogs scoring was dominated by two classes. While the 2004-2005 season saw the majority of the goals for the senior and sophomore class, the freshman and junior classes drove the 2005-2006 season. The rookie accounted for 47 of UMD’s 120 goals, while the juniors tallied 58. The sophomore and senior classes combined for 15 goals on the season.

• The magic number for the UMD seemed to be the number four…the Bulldogs finished the season with a perfect 17-0-0 record when scoring four or more goals, and were 0-2-0 when allowing four or more.

• Despite a few games, UMD was dominant when scoring first…the Bulldogs ended the season with a 20-1-2 mark when getting on the scoreboard first…UMD was also 19-1-2 when leading after twenty minutes and 18-1-1 when leading after two stanzas.

• The best month for the Bulldogs was November…UMD went 6-0-0 during the second month of the season, including two shutouts and wins over North Dakota, Bemidji State and Harvard.

• UMD recorded six shutouts during the 2005-2006 season, including a historic 6-0 victory over Minnesota at Ridder Arena on Oct. 29, 2005…the win was the largest margin of defeat the Gophers have suffered at home and their first-ever shutout at Ridder Arena…Schaublin earned four of the six on her own and combined with Ciarletta for the other two.

• The Oct. 14-15, 2005 series with St. Cloud State saw two team records fall…on Oct. 14 the Bulldogs set the team record for the fastest two power-play goals when Tawni Mattila and Koizumi combined for power-play markers just 42 seconds apart…the following evening Koizumi and Mari Pehkonen combined for goals just six seconds apart to set the teams fastest two goals in a game record.

• The Bulldogs were well represented at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turino, Italy…UMD was represented on seven of the eight teams participating in the women’s tournament and has two current (Lanzl-Germany, Pehkonen-Finland), one feature (Saara Tuominen-Finland), and eight former (Jenny Potter-USA, Caroline Ouellette-Canada, Patricia Sautter-Elsmore-Switzerland, Maria Rooth, Erika Holst-Sweden, Kristina Petroskvia-Russia, Nora Tallus, Satu Kiipeli-Finland) players at the games…Ouellette earned her second-straight gold medal; while Rooth, and Holst took the silver; and Potter completed her medal collection with a bronze.

• The Bulldogs have already signed three top recruits for the 2006-2007 season…the first supplement is Tuominen, a forward from Tampere, Finland, who has been on Team Finland’s roster at the World Championships the last two years…Tuominen participated in the 2006 Winter Olympics, with current UMD forward Pehkonen...she also plays for Ilves Tampere in the Finnish League, who won the Finnish National Championship…for her efforts on the team Tuominen was named the best offensive player in the league…a season ago she completed the year in the No. 2 spot on the overall scoring charts with 37 points in 19 games played…to bolster the defensive corps UMD will add Fairbault, Minn. native, Sarah Murray…the daughter of former Los Angeles Kings Head Coach Andy Murray, she has played for Shattuck St. Mary’s since 1999…during her junior campaign, besides being a defenseman for current Bulldog netminder Danielle Ciarletta, she tallied 30 points, on two goals and 28 assists…the final addition to the squad will be a utility player that will be able to play as a forward or a defenseman…a native of Garden Grove, Calif., Jaime Rasmussen has played for the California Selects since the 2001 season…during that time she has been apart of two National Championship teams, once in 2001 (Under-12) and again in 2005 (Under-16)…a participant in the last two USA Women’s Development Camp’s in Lake Placid, NY, she was named the California-Selects Defense of the Year for the past four years (2001-2002 to 2004-2005).