Rick

For the second straight week, Parise was named the WCHA defensive player of the week. Over the four games vs. Wisconsin and SCSU, Parise has a .966 save percentage. For those who think he was a throw-in on the Zach deal....I wish we could get more package deals like that. Actually FWIW, I know there wasn't any talk of Jordan playing for the Sioux for almost a year after Zach committed. Jordan has earned his own way. Remember, he only gave up one deflected goal at the Regionals in Colorado last year. He did his part, but the Sioux couldn't score. If Bochenski and Zach could have put a few past Denver, we'd most likely have the 8th banner hanging from the REA rafters.

Dagies IS Ma donna.

I believe Fisher will be playing in the USHL next year....possibly at Indiana??? I might have the wrong team there. Sid must have gotten a little carried away on his typewriter because Fisher hasn't committed to UND.

Jason Herter

First he needs an offer. I doubt any of the top schools are going to give an offer till they see him play at the junior level.

I think Brian Lee faces the same issue in high school that Matt Greene faces at the college level now. Lee's game suffers at the high school level because the ref's call a penalty if he even thinks about throwing a check on someone. The kid I like on the Moorhead team is Jordy Christian. This kid can fly, has tremendous puck skills and see's the ice extremely well. He's not very big but he's only a 10th grader so if he adds a little more size along with developing his hockey skills he will be the next great recruit out of Moorhead.

He can't be that great of a prognosticator. After all, I don't remember him predicting that the Gophers were a fraud when they were rolling along at 17-4 during the first half. If you would have, it would have turned out he was right.

Blaiser was forced to go with bigger players because of the way the ref's were calling the games. As each year passed and the Sioux racked up year after year of WCHA championships and NCAA national championships, teams were allowed to hook, clutch, grab and ride on the backs of UND's small speedsters. So Blaiser had no choice but to build a bigger team to try and fight through all of that. Now, it appears that we're getting back to a game that smaller speedsters like Spirko can thrive in. Matt Watkins is another player who will add a tremendous amount of speed to the line-up. Hopefully the league will keep calling the obstruction if we make the transition back to the small, fast guys. Blaiser didn't want an Olympic size rink because his teams were built around speed, skilled passing and a quick transition from defense to offense. Once the game was allowed to be changed, that type of team was less effective on the small surface.

There are several younger brothers and sisters at SSM who could be future Sioux. I believe Murray also has a younger sister who plays hockey (I might be wrong on that). Phillipe Lamoureax has a couple of twin sisters who are the top players for SSM as 9th graders. By the time they get to college, they should dominate for 4 years. Maybe they'll accelerate and be at UND by the time Phil is a senior. Mario is also a big-time recruit. Hopefully, they'll all want to return home and follow Phil's lead. We could potentially have 4 Lamoureax's playing for the Sioux in 3 years. Plus, there are a couple more (Roger Lamoureax's kids) up in Calgary that are pretty good players.

I remember when it was announced that Blaiser was leaving and our friends over on POI were all giddy about the prospect of UND not getting the top recruits anymore. Well, Hak, Bubs and Eades first recruit was Zach Jones, then they get the two top recruits out the the BCHL (Andrew Kozak and Matt Watkins), they get the #1 overall pick from Canadian Major Juniors and the top player for SSM (Jonathan Toews). Toews put up huge numbers at SSM last year as a 10th grader and now with this announcement out of the way and not hanging over his head, I suspect he will continue to tear things up at the AAA Midget level. I think whats good about this is that he could be at UND for 3 years. If Zach Parise had accelerated, we would have been able to keep him for 3 years. It will be interesting to see how Toews can adjust to college hockey at such a young age. He'll be younger than Danny Bertram was when he started last fall for Boston College. Bertram has done fine but he hasn't excelled yet. Toews has more size than Bertram so maybe he'll have a bigger impact. But I don't think we should have unreasonably huge expectations for the kid. Remember, when he sets foot on campus, he'll just barely be 17 years old.

I guess I should have read more posts before I replied. Dagies beat me to it. I don't believe Kobesew and Kolonos gave verbals. It came down to BC and UND and they both chose BC. Chelios had verballed to Gino and then several weeks later he decided he would still take his recruiting trip to UW. Gino didn't like this and told him he might be better off at UW and suggested he should go there instead. Gino felt you had to bleed green to play for the Sioux, so when Chelios decided he was going on another trip, Gino decide he didn't bleed green.

During the WJC's I saw The Great One, Ray Bourque, and a host of other big name celebs. Lou Lamoreillo and David Conte of the NJ Devils had seats behind us so I had a chance to talk with them. After the Juniors were over I didn't think we'd see any VIP's last weekend, but did anyone else notice the guy in section 306 they showed on the big screen at 4 minutes 30 seconds of the 3rd period Saturday night? What was he doing? I know I recognized him from some where, I just haven't placed it yet. It appeared, after they showed him, he was signing autographs. Is he some sort of celebrity? He had a good looking chick sitting next to him. I wonder if he was a former hockey star?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Toews is the leading scorer in the World U-17 tournament. His Western team is playing for the gold metal today. http://www.prairiesportslink.com/ar...spx?art_id=5973 http://www.hockeycanada.ca/e/champi.../2005/sked.html

Dagies, remember to use your spell-check next time. Other than that, thanks.

Crosby playing for the Sioux wasn't as far-fetched as you might think. I'm quite sure he was giving serious consideration to it and pretty sure the Sioux were the only college team he was considering. He got a terrific deal to play Major Juniors....a deal that they couldn't pass up. A player with Crosby's talent is rare and just the fact that UND was the only school in his sites says a lot.

VandeVelde collected 3 more goals tonight in Moorheads blowout of Roseau. Last winter I remember asking Blaiser, Hak and Berry why they took him so early, and Blaiser said they wanted to get him locked in before other teams realized what potential this kid has. Oshie, VandeVelde, Watkins, Kozek & Lee should put up huge offensive numbers for the Sioux. I wouldn't be surprised to see one or two more added to the list before the end of January. Lee was probably the best high school defenseman last year as a junior. He, along with Chorney and Jones, will give the Sioux the top three defensive recruits coming into college hockey. It will be interesting to see how high Lee goes in the draft. Does anyone know who the highest drafted Moorhead player is? Was it Matt Cullen?

There were a couple of recruits in this weekend. Jones was here for Saturday nights game.

He's allowed to respond to the question and acknowledge they are recruiting the kid, but that's about as far as he can go.

I think the picture and article says it all. I'm sure the SCSU PC Administration is all giddy over this. They're years ahead of everyone else. It should make for a great marketing campaign for the school. I wonder if this...ahh guy, has any connections to the hockey program? I'm sure this will help the UND students when they make up some posters/signs for the SCSU series.