ND Pride

I agree with Siouxmama, it is interesting to see what other types of athletic talents these hockey players have.

I do not know about all of the players but here is what I have heard. Clark Dingeman, defenseman from Bismarck High, will play hockey and baseball for the University of Minnesota at Crookston. Adam Campbell of South has been reported to possibly play for Concordia. Nick Klenow, if he does not play juniors, would play soccer and hockey at Concordia or Hamline. Andy Petersen visited St. Olaf and they are interested in him for their hockey program although he appears to be headed to UND if he does not make a junior A team. There are others out there that probably have plans as well. There are about 9-10 North Dakota senior players who have not been drafted or tendered (Delisle, Slominski, Klenow, Greicar, Petersen, Benke, Kringstad, Harrie, and at one time Paul Campbell) trying to make junior teams and some of them may end up in D-III if they don't get picked up for juniors. Other graduating senior players include those drafted, tendered or protected by USHL and NAHL teams: Weisgarber, Galt, Dittus, Jundt, and Mihulka. I apologize if I have inadvertently left anyone out of that list.

Blanston you are getting your leagues mixed up. Typically, in the Tier I USHL you will find players with college offers before they begin their Junior A careers - in Tier II - such as the NAHL - I am not aware of such cases. Then again, I am sure you are probably already aware of that as this season I don't believe there is a single North Dakota high school player who has yet committed to a D-I school. There are some who have had D-III "offers/contact" though.

I do not know of any web posting for the F/M Jets that would list all of those invited back for the final tryout. Paul Campbell did decide not to continue with the tryout. He is a strong player and looked good. Brad Benke was injured at the tryout. Jon Greicar looked good in the tryout as he did at the Chicago Showcase. I did not know that he was injured. Andy Petersen looked good as well but apparently did not make the invite list to the final tryout. In my opinion he should be playing Junior A hockey. Nick Klenow was invited back to the final Jets tryout. There may be some others - have to wait and see if someone has info on the others. Has anyone heard about Slominski or Delisle? Have not had a chance to talk to them. Two tendered players were at the Jets camp - Andrew Muir and Jordan Yindiphol.

The following North Dakota High School Hockey players were at the F/M Jets tryout this past thursday through Sunday at the Super Rink in Blaine: Andy Petersen, Paul Campbell, Greg Slominski, John Greicar, Nick Klenow, Brad Benke, and Jake Delisle. Other "locals" include Tony Dorn of Theif River Falls, Josh Fandrich, Isaac Vatnsdal, and Shawn Goos of Fergus Falls, Conner Useldinger of East Grand Forks, and Derek Kaiser of Crookston.

Good luck to Marc with his tryouts - he should have a lot of success in juniors. John Greciar had a great tourney at the Chicago Showcase and should have a good shot at juniors as well.

I see the high school hockey post has come back to life. Somewhat of an absurd direction but just the same some activity. This is a big month in the USHL and NAHL as most teams are ramping up with their tryouts - should be interesting to see how it breaks out. If anyone has any info on past tryouts (Fairbanks had one in the twin cities in May as did one of the Texas Teams) please share what you know. Cedar Rapids started their invite only tryout today and Des Moines has their open/futures tryout starting on Friday June 2nd. Tri-city aslo has an invite tryout in Bloomington tomorrow. On the 7th Sioux City starts a tryout and Des Moines has their invite only starting the 8th. Waterloo begins an open tryout June 9th and there will be a number of North Dakota players at that event (Weisgarber, Klein, etc). The 16th Green Bay has an invite only and I assume Andy Dittus and Tyler Jundt will be there as they were drafted by Green Bay. The F/M Jets have an open tryout starting Thursday, June 8th and there should be a lot of ND players there including Team North Dakota players Paul Campbell, Nick Klenow, and Andy Petersen. I would expect that Marc Mihulka, who was tendered by the Jets, would be there as well unless he has a bye until their final camp in July. If there is other info out there please share.

North Dakota High School hockey players selected in the 2006 USHL draft today include Andy Dittus in the 5th round #6 pick by the Green Bay Gamblers and also in the 8th round Tyler Jundt the #4 pick of the round also by Green Bay, and then in the 10th round Paul Weisgarber as the #2 pick of the round by the Waterloo Blackhawks.

The first pick in the USHL draft for the Lincoln Stars was Matt Bartkowski. Bartkowski played for the Pittsburg team that was defeated by Team North Dakota in the Chicago Showcase. Here is a clip from the Lincoln Stars website on him. He was a very impressive, strong, smooth skating d-man with his only fault being a check from behind on a Team ND forward that earned him a game ejection. The Lincoln Stars used their first round pick (10th overall) in the annual USHL entry draft to select Matt Bartkowski from the Pittsburgh Predators. Bartkowski , 6-1 190lbs, tallied 25 points in 49 games with a plus/minus rating of +47. He was named Mr. Hockey for the State of Pennsylvania.

[ Just a quick note of facts concerning this years team. Team North Dakota made history serveral different ways. 1st it was the highest finish ever only falling in sudden death overtime, 2nd forward Andy Dittus recieved the "Best Forward of the Tournament" award. I think no other participant of TND has ever achieved. There is so much nonesense talk about east being better that west that I think this year was a good testiment that there are skill players on both sides of the state and North Dakota has and is continuing to make its mark in the national hockey ranks as a state that can produce some very talented players. TND deserves all the kudos it can get. One other quick note, Kudos to the TND coaching staff. They changed the team from playing as individuals into a team that was unified and dominating. Job well done Coaches

This is a ND hockey thread and when a team from ND does well maybe we can just enjoy the success and not engage in meaningless speculation about how they would do against other teams. That is the kind of metaphysics that gets arguments going that really can't be settled. Let the kids enjoy their success instead of starting conflict within our own group here on Sioux Sports. The Brooks quote presented by Specifics is about a philosophy of team building and that was the spirit of the comment not to compare a group of high school players to one of the greatest amateur hockey teams in history.

I want to be as positive as I can as Pittsburgh is a good team. However, they had some cheap players. Their top defenseman #3 Bartkowski put a Team ND forward into the boards head first from a check from behind. For that he received a 2 and 10. The Team ND player had a sore back and chest but no significant injury from the checking from behind. The injured ND player was taunted by another Pittsburg player as he lay on the ice. Pittsburg is a tough team and played hard to win - they had beaten Minnesota earlier in the tourney. The problem developed after the final whistle when three of their players appeared to start fights with Team ND players after the final buzzer. To their credit the Team ND players did not respond to the Pittsburgh assaults. As I see it the aggression came out of frustration and poor sportsmanship - that is how they received all of those penalties. After the game when players were leaving one of the Team Pittsburg players put a shoulder into a Team ND player as he walked through the lobby. In summary, some of their players demonstrated a very low level of sportsmanship. On a positive note, congrats to the players on Team North Dakota, the staff, parents and others involved in what turned out to be an outstanding representation for hockey in North Dakota for both the girls and boys.

Team North Dakota beats Team Wisconsin again 4-2 with goals coming from Delisle, Hovet, Burdick, and Harrie. Wisconsin's second goal comes off of a fluke misplay by Team ND - off a ND player's skate.

Team NOrth Dakota beats Team Wisconsin today 4-3. The team moves on to the semi's as the #4 seed to play the #5 seed which is ........ Wisconsin.

The New Jersey game was sort of a flip side of the Michigan game. With Michigan team ND led 3-1 and the game slipped away 4-3 but against New Jersey Team ND trailed 3-1 going in to the third before pulling out the tie. Today's game against Wisconsin will be critical in terms of final points in the pool.

Thanks for the stats Jack. Team North Dakota led 3-1 before the game slipped away 4-3. Apparently this would have been the first time North Dakota would have posted a win over Michigan in this event had they prevailed. Tough loss for the team after the early lead.

Thanks for the detailed update Canseco33. Much appreciated.

Right now he is on his way to Chicago with Team North Dakota - probably somewhere west of Madison, Wisconsin right now (8:09 PM). Seriously, as was pointed out he was tendered by the FM Jets and like many other players is waiting to see what types of invitations come out from teams in other leagues (USHL). Players who are not yet in the league will have a fairly long wait to see where they end up. Some USHL teams will have their rosters set by late June (actually Des Moines should have their roster before the 15th of June - at least their final tryout completed). Most NAHL teams will not be set until July. Waiting is the name of the game in junior hockey unless you are clearly one of the top tier players in the country.

Team North Dakota played Team Minnesota today at 3:30 as a tune up on their way to the Chicago Showcase. It was a reasonable showing for Team ND as the game ended up 3-1 in favor of Minnesota. Given the fact that some thought the team might be down this year, this initial performance shows a lot of potential as they should improve as the tournament goes on.

Is it strange that people who post on this board have actually been to the games that they talk about? And that they might even have a connection to one of the teams? That seems normal to me - most people share the real experiences that they have as that is what they know best. Actually, I provided more information on the 88/89's and their goalie so the hypothesis that I am connected to that team makes a lot of sense. Trying to see how you get "adamant" out of what I said - which is basically a reporting of facts about each team. Isn't it better to hear about an event from someone who attended it rather than second, third, fourth iteration through the twisted, distorted grapevine. People have been talking about Klein and McBain leaving their schools for the past few weeks/months but I have no pipeline of inside information on either.

Couple of things on the 88/89 team - they have some very good players. Three AAA kids came back from out of state to tryout for that team and LaDouceur and Galbreath from RR are on the team as well as Stremick from Minot, Meland (RR), Miller (Grafton), McBain (Hazen). Plus Travis Rybchinski is a good coach. Eric Hartzell, one of the goalie's for the 88/89s, is the son of Sioux Falls Stampede coach Kevin Hartzell. This "third string Stampede goalie" led his White Bear Lake High School team in the Minnesota State High School Hockey tournament to a victory over Rochester High School who was backstopped last year by current Stampede goalie Alex Kangas who is going to the University of Minnesota. The young Hartzell kid is the real deal as a goalie and will eventually be playing D-1 hockey. Hartzell is a major force for his team when he is on the ice. I would rate him well above any goalies I have seen in North Dakota or adjacent Minnesota teams in the last couple of years. The scores were reported as 3-1 and 2-2 with the 88/89s putting one in later in the second game to secure a tie. Mihulka, Campbell, and Slominski were not at the second game. Last year the younger team (88/87s) had team North Dakota down 2-0 until Team ND rallied to win 3-2 in the last 8 minutes. That edition of team North Dakota went on to finish 3rd in the Showcase. Both teams should develop nicely with more practice together. Good luck to both teams as they continue with their post season activities.

I thought it was funny too. In fact, he has added a lot of good humor to this thread.

http://www.ndaha.org/html/team_nd.html Go to the link above and click on TNDG Roster

Not that I have a vested interest in this give and take on predictions but Jack Mickelson indicated a long time ago that it would be different in the state finals this year as far as South was concerned and he was correct in his prediction. I suppose I could scroll back through the scores of pages on this thread to find it but he did make that prediction.

Beat me to it, nice job and thanks for the info.