Stack

Saturday tickets are sold. Still have two tickets for Friday's game. $25 each.

I have two tickets for sale for the Icebreaker tourney for both days. Tickets are in section 112 Row K seats 5-6. Paid $50 each, would like to get my money back. Let me know if you are interested in one or both days.

Frattin

We need to beat RPI first. Last year we didn't show up for the first two periods against Yale. We can't let that happen this year. Then we can worry about the Denver/Western Michigan winner. I think Denver is going to have a tough game too so it's not a given that they will make it to the championship either,

When I checked out ESPNU yesterday the Saturday games were NOT on ESPNU. Based upon the initial schedule they were listed as "ESPN Syndication" which means that ESPN would be producing the games but they are not on TV yet. I have read though where UND is negotiating to try to get the games on TV locally. ESPNU DOES show the Sunday games being broadcast on ESPNU though.

I agree. Once we hit the regionals the Fourth line doesn't need to play much. With all of the TV timeouts you don't need 4 lines. The idea of rolling four lines doesn't work unelss the game is full of penalties and you need to give your top line players a break. I say we roll four lines at the Final Five to try to keep everyone fresh but once we hit the regionals we go to to three lines using Lammy on the penalty kill and in other strategic spots. Of course this is in the hope that Kristo can come back and play like he did before he got hurt.

This would be perfect if they swapped Merrimack and Duluth. Makes Yale actually beat someone to get out of their region.

Eades yesterday at Boosters said MacWilliam will play this weekend. He also said Kristo is skating but not practicing with the team.

You have to remember that Maine and Dartmouth are currently tied with BU for the 15th spot. How would you feel if we had to play Maine in the frst round of the playoffs which could easily happen?

Sorry I don't agree. My take is that the Number 1 seed wll play Friday night and the Number 2 seed will play Friday afternoon. The flexibility comes into play if Minnesota is one of the top 2 seeds. If they were either Number 1 or Number 2 they would play the Friday night game as they have in the past. This year they are most likely to play on Thursday assuming they make it to the Final Five so that leaves the Friday games already set up.

I realize this but my first bracketing was simply to put the Number 1 seeds closest to home. Since that put New Hampshire in St Louis I swapped the Michigan bracket with the BC bracket. I just didn't show it changed on the final version but I did state that I swapped them.

Sorry I forgot about that . I was looking at the Pairwise on College Hockey News and their version has Dartmouth ahead of BU for the final spot. USCHO is using the RPI as a tie breaker even though Dartmouth wins the individual comparisons with both BU and Maine. But if we go with what USCHO has: The first group is 1 Yale, 2 North Dakota, 3 BC, 4 Michigan Second group is 5 Denver, 6 Union, 7 Merrimack, 8 Omaha Third group is 9 Notre Dame, 10 Miami, 11 Duluth, 12 UNH Fourth Group is 13 RPI, 14 CC, 15 BU, 16 TBD Since Yale and UNH are hosts they have to be placed in Bridgeport (Yale) and Manchester (UNH). But for the first go round I will place the Number 1 seeds closest to their regional. So we're back to Bridgeport 1 Yale vs 16 Atlantic hockey 8 Omaha vs 9 Notre Dame Green Bay 2 UND vs 15 BU 7 Merrimack vs 10 Miami Manchester 3 BC vs 14 CC 6 Union vs 11 Duluth St Louis 4 Michigan vs 13 RPI 5 Denver vs 12 UNH Why not just put the Michigan bracket in Manchester and the BC bracket in St Louis? Hey I'm done. Who knew that when Yale beat CC early this year that common opponent criteria keeps Yale ahead of North Dakota.

Not sure if you are predicting these regionals but if we bracketed today with the current Pairwise you would have: East (Bridgeport) Yale is the host: #1 Yale vs #16 RIT/Atlantic Champ #8 Nebraska Omaha vs #9 Notre Dame Midwest: (Green Bay) (Michigan Tech is the host) #2 North Dakota vs #15 Dartmouth Unless they only use the RPI as a tie breaker and then BU would oust Dartmouth here #7 Merrimack vs #10 Miami Northeast (Manchester) UNH is the host: #3 Boston College vs #14 Colorado College #6 Union vs #11 New Hampshire (Duluth is tied with UNH with Duluth getting the tie breaker but they can put UNH in here) West (St Louis) Host is actually the CCHA no real team. #4 Michigan vs # 13 Rensselaer # 5 Denver vs #12 Duluth (we can't have this so now what?) Why not just swap Rensselaer and Duluth so no first round conference match up). so we'd end up with #4 Michigan vs #12 Duluth #5 Denver vs #13 Rensselaer So would these brackets be so bad? Maybe for attendance you swap the entire Midwest and West Brackets to put Michigan and Duluth close to Green Bay but that's about it. Of course a lot of these will be decided based upon the tie breaker they use.

Hextall for Sunday.

Saturday: Gregoire

Trupp for Saturday.

Frattin for Friday.

Gregoire

Knight

Well they picked up Panzarella so they have at least one more defenseman coming in. USHL though not BCHL or AHL. I'm guessing we might even sign one more unless Hill is progressing.

If you see an Omaha fan at the game or out and about in Grand Forks, thank them for coming to Grand Forks for the games. I always thought we were nice people but when we went to the games earlier this year I could not believe the number of people who thanked us for "coming down" to the Omaha games. They were super nice and even some firemen we ran into thanked us. Please reciprocate!

We can all say that the ECAC is weak but so far this year some of their teams have had some nice wins outside their league: Yale: Beat Colorado College and Vermont Union: Beat Minnesota and Alaska Anchorage but lost twice to Western Michigan and once to Alaska Brown: Beat BU and tied BU, UNH, and Providence St Lawrence: Beat New Hampshire and tied Mankato but lost twice to Ferris State Clarskon: Beat St Cloud but lost twice to Duluth RPI: Beat BU but lost and tied Colorado College Dartmouth: Beat New Hampshire but lost to Vermont What I'm getting at is their overall schedules may be weaker than ours but they have been able to win games against the Big Three conferences (WCHA, Hockey East, and CCHA). After seeing Bemidji State (CHA), and RIT (Alantic Hockey) make the frozen four recently and then getting beat by Yale last year in the regionals it shows that you can't take any team lightly and you better come with your best game every night once the playoffs start. Competition may make our team better but we have to use those experiences to beat teams we should beat. No taking periods off once we get to the playoffs like we did the first 1.5 periods against Yale last year.

Frattin

I started thinking about next year and the players coming in. With four senior forwards (Frattin, Trupp, Malone, Davidson) and three senior defensemen (Marto LaPoint, Genoway) gone for sure, it seems a little strange that we only have one defenseman coming in. Let me know if I'm missing something but what I see coming in next year is: Nick Mattson (D), Mark MacMillan (F), Michael Parks (F), Rocco Grimaldi (F), JT Miller (F), Colton St Clair (F), Brendan O'Dponnel (F). If things stay where they are today and noone leaves early that leaves us with Defensemen: MacWilliam, Forbort, Blood, Simpson, Gleason, Mattson, Hill. So only 7 defensemen with Hill never really playing and Gleason hardly playing D this year. Forwards: Lamoureux, Gregoire, Hextall, Kristo, Knight, Rowney, Rodwell, Nelson, Cichy, Bruneteau, Dickin, MacMillan, Parks, Grimaldi, Miller, St Clair, and O'Donnell. So 17 forwards. Man that's a lot of forwards. Goalies: Dell, Eidsness, Maris (I'm assuming they leave Gotheberg play another year in the USHL. So that leaves us with a 27 man roster. Am I missing an incoming defensemen or is Gleason expected to play regularly and somehow Hill has developed into a reliable backup without ever playing a game? I'm actually fine with Gleason playing everyday. He performed well last year but I think we need one more defensemen on this team. And looking at the forwards man are there a lot of good players going to be sitting every game unless some leave due to not getting the playing time they'd hoped for. Thoughts?

From the picks it looks like Sparky, Siouxknocka, Upper Deck, and Budwmn move on but SiouxSax, and MissSioux85 got knocked out this round since they both picked Pony tonight and he didn't have a goal. Is that right?