ND Pride

Not sure how much the goals against helps in getting a read on the goalies. Each team had 2 goalies, 4 defenseman and basically two lines. They played a round robin (the three teams) of regulation games (17 minute periods). Team white had two games on Saturday while Green and Black each had one. Team white was gassed after the first period of the second game so perhaps not a fair read on their goalies (Kringstad and Grothman) - they might have been better off going to run time for the third period or switching the format so all three teams were involved in each scrimmage game on an alternating period basis. That would have prevented the situation with one team coming out fresh against one that was tired. Probably would not have been a big deal if each team had four lines but with two lines a team it was tough. Plenty of ice time for everyone.

The roster should be posted soon. The players who made the team were informed this evening between 7 and 9 PM. Their first practice will be this Friday from 7 to 8:30 in Fargo. I have some of the names of players on the team and will see if I can get the remainder.

If you re-read my previous post carefully you will have an answer to your first two questions. In summary, "when" would be this weekend (March 17, 18, and 19th). "Where" would be Hazen, North Dakota. The entire practice schedule, along with locations, for the next few weeks is available on the North Dakota Amateur Hockey Association website: ndaha.org under the heading of "Special Projects". The specific player lists were provided by those in charge of administering that program. The teams are not posted, at this time, on the web.

Here are the rosters for the tryouts for Team North Dakota this weekend in Hazen: Team Green Dehne, Welk, Guidinger-Goalies Hildahl, Smith, Olson, Engberg-Defense P. Campbell, Greicar, Harrie, Jerome, Benke, Burdick, Philion-Forwards Team Black Bown, Houkom-Goalies A. Petersen, Dingeman, Slominski, Burkett-Defense Monson, Mihulka, Schmitt, Wedin, Blue, Ritchie, Knaus-Forwards Team White Kringstad, Grothman-Goalies Jundt, Delisle, Lybeck, Gregoire-Defense Klenow, Dittus, Bustad, Weir, Lee, Jore, Kline, Hovet-Forwards

Well, for what it is worth Friday March 10th was the last day of classes at UND before spring break which runs next week. Students start to disappear on the Thursday before - some even earlier than that.

In reference to the Thief River kids skipping the Fall Elite League that is not true for all of the players. Robby Phillip played on the Great Plains team this past fall.

I have not heard that rumor prior to your post. The Energy have tryouts so I would guess that he would have to go through the tryouts for the Major Midgets. I have not tracked their website so I am not sure how they have done this year. In a way I would not blame him for looking around. The AAA's play a lot more games, get better exposure for juniors, and all of the kids on the team are more focused on hockey than the typical high school team. If I hear anything I will share it. I believe that short term he will be trying out for the North Dakota 88/89 team and he has one more shot at the USA Hockey Festivals - Select 17.

We could create a new thread called something like: Post High School Hockey: 2006 We could also leave it as it is because basically we are talking about current high school hockey players even though the regular season is over. The benefit of a new thread is that this one is 122 pages long - hard to navigate if you want to get any history - also over 2,000 posts. We could put this one to bed and open one with a better title. Any other ideas out there? Next August or September someone could open up another new thread for the 06-07 high school season. There are other kids out there too that would be of interest who are already in juniors - Willert, Selk, Graalum, Bair, Lamoureux, etc. Come to think of it we could start a thread on North Dakota Players and the Junior Leagues. Might be interesting-Stadstad is playing, Vigen, Cusey, McIntyre etc.

There were a few individuals interested in who was playing juniors after North Dakota High School hockey. Here are a few observations on that: the Bismarck Bobcats played the F/M Jets last night, and again tonight, and Ross Monson and Justin Connell were not listed on the roster for the Bobcats - for whatever that means. As everyone knows, Paul Weisgarber started for the Jets and, in my opinion, looked very good. The Elite Exposure tournament posted the first 180 of 200 kids (10 teams with 20 per team) who applied and were accepted into their scouting tournament at Shattuck in April. Acceptance and attendance at this tournament is an indicator of a player's interest in playing juniors, d-I, etc. Here are the North Dakota kids accepted as of today: Sean Deichert, Jake Delisle, Andy Dittus, Kris Graalum, Nick Klenow, and Marc Milhuka. Two juniors (Deichert and Graalum) and the others are seniors. Other notables in the tournament include: Jake Berquist, Beau Christian, Jordy Christian, Pat Deitz, Jeff Foss, John Lee, Matt Nordhagen (Thief River). The group includes a lot of Elite I players, and some National Festival players. Team rosters will be built and posted by March 24th. The tournament is being marketed as being heavily scouted by USHL, NAHL and D-I scouts.

Not sure what the situation is relating to their sophomore year. Hopefully, when they get to their sophomore year they will be able to spell it correctly.

Weisgarber will practice and play games with the Jets. Apparently they opened two roster spots with the other going to Jonathon Meyers, previously on the roster, from Eden Prairie High School. Klenow was cleared to practice with the Jets but will not be playing in games. Interestingly, Meyers (a top scorer in the Elite League this past fall) and Klenow played together for the Minnesota Blades AAA along with Tyson Dozak, quite a few years ago.

Correct, Welk is trying out, his registration was sent in. As far as Monson is concerned it is possible that he is doing the Bobcats as he was in their pre-season camp. I will see what I can find out.

Your list of the 88s is correct. The goalies were Justin Welk and Michel Hillman. Lines were: Weisgarber, Connell, Lamoureux; Stremick, Klenow, T. Campbell; A. Campbell, Flurer/S. Wedin, G. Larson; d-men were A. Peterson, Grande, Dingeman, T. Anderson, A. Spriggs, and Ross Monson (the team was short on quality defensemen from the original tryout pool and Monson was converted to defense). Mark Bry of Red River and Milo Johnson of Bismarck coached the team that went 33-4-3 including nationals which they were leading 3-2 before giving up two power play goals in the 3rd period of the championship game. This was a unique game in which parents from nearly every major hockey city in North Dakota could complain together about the refs. The previous year this team went to the Great Flood Tournament in Winnipeg and, in a seven game tournament run, destroyed most every Canadian team they played en route to winning the tournament. If most of these players were together along with Galt, Mihulka, Rosendahl, and some of the other top 87s from the west, they would have a great run at the Chicago Showcase.

On the list several players from the old ND 88s team would not be eligible for Team North Dakota, based on North Dakota's adaptation of the Chicago Showcase rules. That would include the 1988 birthyear players from the ND 88s that are still juniors: Drew Flurer, Trevor Anderson, and Nathan Stremick. I agree that the remaining ND 88s in the state, along with 1987 birthyear players like Marc Mihulka, Erick Galt, Paul Campbell, etc would be one heck of a powerful team. Last year the 88/87 group of Select players gave Team North Dakota one heck of a game until Team ND pulled out a win in the last few minutes of the game.

Earlier on the board someone said that Jundt is a D-1 level tennis player so perhaps that is the direction he is going to take. That is just second hand. I have heard nothing on either of the Campbell's in the conversations that I have had.

Marc is trying out for Team North Dakota in a few weeks. I think he also has submitted an application for the Elite Exposure Tournament sponsored by Shattuck and the Elite League. Kids accepted into that tournament will be posted, so they say, on March 1st, on the Elite Exposure Tournament site. A few other North Dakota kids may be in the Exposure Tournament.

You are welcome. And, for what it's worth, Central won the Spirit Award to go with their strong 3rd place finish in the tournament.

Al Henry of Devils Lake.

I don't think that there is anything inappropriate about mentioning the unfortunate activity of throwing things on the ice. It does not matter who does it. In my book it is appropriate to complain about it and I would hope people would complain regardless of how their team does in the tournament - or even if they are in the tournament. Regarding West hockey I think they did a relatively good job overall. In terms of final scores in the first round the gap was reasonably close. Central's empty netter gave them a two goal win in essentially a one goal game. South has taken apart most of the east region teams but Devils Lake kept it to 5-2. Grafton did handle Williston but they had a player(s) missing and Bismarck came back to push Red River. Clearly, there is more to the game than the final score.

Central 4 and Minot 2 with an empty net goal at the end. Another sad ending for Minot.

You can track Showcase activities on a local site and also the event itself on the Showcase site: http://www.usahockey.com/amateur_hockey_as...cago_showcase// Local site: http://ndaha.org/html/team_nd.html The roster will be posted first on the local site listed directly above.

We have a situation that was seen by players, coaches and fans - which was a vicious hard slash and you attack the victim? We have heard enough about this incident. Let it go with class instead of tossing out a putdown. The kid was injured - that he was able to play - with less than 100% effectiveness in EDC is irrelevant. The content of your post is absurd. In the words of one of the refs, the slash was a cowardly gutless act.

Well, he received medical care for the injury and wore a splint although I do not know for how long. He did play in EDC and there was no talk from those closest to the situation about any broken growth plate.

Thanks.

Thanks for the note. You raise an important point however, when you touched on the sportsmanship thing. I really don't want to touch that one with a ten foot pole but there is, at times, a fairly wide range in sportsmanship with some of the EDC teams. I think it was under more control at EDC because everyone was somewhat afraid, or they should have been, of what the refs might do. Hopefully, state will have a crew that has not decided that the game is all about them. I don't think I have ever seen so many games where the opposing fans were in agreement on one thing.