nascar99

Guessing Colin Grubb won't be committing on or shortly after August 1. But certainly someone we all should have on our checklist

Might have to wait till August 1, but that's only a week away

US 2009s to watch for August 1

Just checked it out, appears to be from the Colorado College series. Hopefully he & several others on that visit loved the Ralph & campus

From what I ready on Twitter, it made it seem like Ryan is going to serve in a hockey operations/off ice role and not as a player. Unless I'm totally misreading Dave's tweet.

It would appear so, but I haven't done the biggest deep dive into the Canadian 2009s yet. Landon DuPont is in his own tier, then James Scantlebury, Alexis Joseph, Eli McKamey seem to be in the next tier, but I've read great things about Brock Cripps, Brock Chitaroni, Blake Chorney, Kaden McGregor, Camryn Warren, and others like Brock England. So not sure how big Tier 2 is but England is definitely a 4 star ranking.

Considering he'd been on 3 HS teams in the previous 3 years before a year with the Fargo Force, not the most surprising thing. Volatility is just common with his situation, the GPLers brought it up on their forum last year prior to August 1. Might be a "Coach Dad" situation going on there.

He told me via Twitter DM that he's hoping to have a big list (or two) out by early to mid next week. He's busy with multiple things going on so it'll be out a bit later than usual.

This is the result of CHLers being NCAA eligible now. Lower tier NAHL guys who were getting NCAA scholarships will be pushed down to D3 & ACHA. Very possible he has friends at Oklahoma State, the exposure to Oklahoma culture from his billet family & overall living down there pushed him in that direction, or he just wanted the big school experience but still play some sort of hockey. Going to play D3 at Gustavus Adolphus or Adrian can get pretty expensive in terms of private tuition.

Highly touted 2009 center & Red Deer Alberta native Brock England follows North Dakota on IG. He'll be with the Seattle Thunderbirds in the Dub full time this year for his 16 year old season. I would imagine he's one of many targets for Chyzyk and Jackson.

The black NODAK jersey is the best one here IMHO. Agreed with @AlphaMikeFoxtrot that the Fighting Hawks "Post Office esque" logo on the shoulder doesn't look good.

Diagonal NODAK wordmark is solid. The bland ass "NORTH DAKOTA" wordmark just isn't good. This is why I love most NHL jerseys, very much prefer the logo/crest on the front instead of wordmarks.

Did they release them already?

A lot but not all. Nguyen (Dub), Woodworth (Q), & Sova (O) are all 2004s that were very solid producers in junior. I'm actually excited to see how UNO does in the NCHC this season. St Thomas doesn't have the tradition/history of North Dakota, Minnesota, Denver, Michigan, Wisconsin, & even Minnesota Duluth at this point. Part of the reason why I don't get excited about them on the schedule.

I'm interested to see how true/consistent this could be. Nebraska Omaha and Colorado College will be recruiting Dub guys pretty hard moving forward, & many of those guys will be mid-later round picks. So many teams recruit MSP Metro so it'll be interesting to see how many Tier 1 & Tier 2 talents St Thomas can get. Someone on GPL said that St Thomas has done fairly well already with early offering & committing Metro guys before they blow up & take another step to get offers from Minnesota, North Dakota, Denver, Wisconsin. If St Thomas takes a step as a program & becomes a consistent tournament team over the next few years, maybe I'll feel differently, but I just don't get excited seeing them on the 2025-26 schedule.

Thinking about this again after looking at the non-conference schedule again: there's nothing wrong with playing Bemidji State every other year. But they're not a powerhouse & other than being a regional, close by opponent, they don't get me excited to see on the schedule. As I've said in previous posts, I'd rather be guaranteed to play Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, & Boston College or Boston University every year. St Thomas coming into the NCHC doesn't inspire me either & eats into the available amount of non conference games (unless the NCHC is re-doing the allotment of conference games).

There we go.

Listening to more of Wodon's interviews with coaches: it's like Wodon doesn't want to grow the game & just keep it small & niche (which means it declines over time). Very much an "old man yells at cloud" mentality. I get it, change is hard, but the neutral site regional format playing in boring atmosphere places like Worcester, MA, Providence, RI, Manchester, NH, Albany, NY, etc is not helping the sport at all.

IG & Twitter account logos have gone black: new logo for this season upcoming?

Really interested to see Josh Zakreski. Older freshman, has some offensive touch, solid forechecker. Really want him to be able to play that Brad Marchand, Brandon Tanev, or to use a recent NCHC example, Jared Wright/Rieger Lorenz bulldog, relentless forechecking style. It's possible that I'm thinking too highly of him, but I think Zakreski can be a big time difference maker sooner rather than later.

That will be interesting. I think the rule change allowing CHLers into the NCAA means that there will be very few completely dead periods in the NCAA Hockey world (& hockey world in general for that matter). August 1 recruiting, recruiting throughout the calendar year, NCAA season, various junior seasons, tournament, playoffs, pro signings, draft, international tournaments, etc.

Congrats to Cole Smith & fiancé Hannah Cook on their engagement & their newborn son!

Really interested to see how many of the CHL 2008s (those who went major junior before the rule change) commit to the NCAA. We've seen Keaton Verhoeff (North Dakota) Cooper Williams (North Dakota), Pierce Mbuyi (Penn State), Braidy Wassilyn (Boston University), Ty Meunier (Nebraska Omaha), and maybe a couple others commit. There are tons of big name 2008s still in play. Carson Carels (follows North Dakota, Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, & St Cloud State), Beckham Edwards (follows Boston University, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Penn State, Notre Dame, North Dakota, Ohio State, Providence College, Denver, Michigan, & Boston College), Mathis Preston (follows Boston College & Penn State), Daxon Rudolph (follows Michigan), Ethan Belchetz (follows Michigan). Some others who are private & I don't follow yet so I don't know, and others like Brooks Rogowski who don't follow any NCAA teams, but that doesn't mean they'll never play in the NCAA. Obviously, follows aren't everything, but they're a decent indicator of current/recent past interest. Of course, those who follow Penn State might only be doing so as a result of Gavin McKenna committing there. I'm in the process of gathering a list of 2009s & late 2008s (US) & their leanings as we approach August 1.

Incredible edit, not sure if you made it.