It was not the prettiest weekend of DU hockey that Magness Arena has ever seen, but nonetheless Denver swept Michigan Tech on homecoming weekend. Friday night the Pioneers won 5-2 followed by a 4-3 victory on Saturday night when the 2005 NCAA National Championship banner was raised. “Hard fought, at times making things more difficult on ourselves than we needed to, the more we put ourselves in these positions the more you can see that these guys can make themselves better,” said coach George Gwozdecky referring to the weekends games. Saturday night the game got started with the banner raising, with former captains Nick Larson and Matt Laatsch releasing the banner. Senior captain Gabe Gauthier put in his third goal of the season to get the Pioneers off to a solid start. The second period started with a Paul Stastny goal and finished with two Husky goals and a tie game. After a disappointing period Gwozdecky had a few words for the team, “With these guys I just had to remind them what we stand for and belive in and what makes us good and effective, I thought we started taking shortcuts and were sub-standard in the second period.” “It always sets in when coach voices that he is disappointed in us and our performance and we never want to let him down, he goes out there night in night out to make everything perfect for us,” said Ryan Dingle.DU’s leading scorer Dingle quickly responded with his seventh and eighth goals of the season in the first four minutes of the period to give Denver a 4-2 lead and eventual 4-3 win.”No, we don’t spend a lot of time projecting numbers. Right now Ryan has learned how to position himself. He provides great energy, great jump, getting a lot of loose pucks and is able to make great plays. He is putting the puck in the net right now,” said Gwozdecky.Adrian Veideman got the scoring started on Friday night in the first period with his first goal of the year. MTU quickly tied before sophomore Ryan Dingle put in his team-leading fifth of the season for a 2-1 DU lead after one period. In the second period Dingle and freshman Chris Butler scored to give Denver a 4-2 lead after two. In the third session freshman Patrick Mullen put in his second of the year to ice it and send Denver to victory. DU got a much needed sweep and now have a three-game winning streak heading into next weekend’s match at Minnesota State.”The win against North Dakota really started our momentum, that was a huge win for us, we contested the pucks, got to loose pucks and put pressure on the defenseman and that’s what we did this weekend and it shows we are successful at it and what we have to feed off of,” said Gauthier.The line of Gauthier, Stastny and Dingle has combined for 14 goals and 22 assists in the first eight games.”The line itself has intelligence, great vision, power, high energy and all three of those guys bring certain aspects of those dimensions to that line,” said coach.”It is really a fun line, when you have two guys playing next to you that know what is going on and have a great sense for the game, the chemistry there is truly a fun thing to play with,” said Gauthier.The Pioneers will look to continue their winning ways at 1-6-1 Minnesota State and continue their solid play. DU’s next home game will be Nov. 18 and 19 against Minnesota.