UNDhockey22

The goal was scored last night because Brian Lee did not give 100% effort on the play. Give anything less than 100% against a player like Blake Wheeler and things like this are bound to happen. It is no different than the goal scored the 1980 Olympics against the Soviets. A routine dump in, everyone feels the play is over, and the next thing you know, the pucks in the net.

I can't agree. I would have loved to see Irmen in a Sioux uniform. Although he may have been a thorn in our sides, he averaged at least a point a game in his time playing against the Sioux. We'll get the gophers when it matters most. For now, we were outplayed and it shows on the shot chart. I think Minnesota almost had a 2:1 advantage over us in this category.

It's a little lofty to call for an undefeated season, but Red River will be very good. It's too bad LaDaceaur (sp?), Galbreath, and Meland are all on one team. The reason for that being, I doubt they will have 3 Mr. Hockey finalists from one team.

If Herbel had a great GPA, his coach would definitly use that to his advantage in the voting process. If Wurden did not have a great GPA, I would hope Wilson would not bring it up. Because there are rules on releasing a students grades, Wilson could simply claim he does not know what Wurdens GPA is and because of that it should not affect the voting. For all the coachs know, Wurden could have a 3.5. Now I'm not sure if that happend, or if you can really conceal a students grade like that when he is up for an award like Mr. Hockey, but it would be a logical to solution for a coach to promote a player that has less than spectacular grades.

Another intelligent post by an obviously intelligent poster.

Welcome to the other 5%? So in your opinion I am wrong for believing Wurden should have won Mr. Hockey? So Paul Castron (Amateur scout NHL), Dave Hakstol, Dave Siciliano, and Brian Murphy are all wrong when they want to sign, scout, recruit, play Danny Wurden instead of Herbel? Danny Wurden had only 9 less points than Herbel as a d-man. Not only that, while Herbel was skating circles around guys from hockey powerhouses like Rivers Collegiate, Bismarck JV, Dickinson, Bienfat, Central Butte, Antler River, and Boissevaine, Wurden was playing against teams like White Bear Lake, Moorhead, Grand Forks Red River, Rochester Century, Stillwater, and Grafton. With the overwhelming evidence supporting Danny Wurden for Mr. Hockey, I am comfortable saying Wurden was shafted. I am going to no longer argue on this subject because I have yet to hear someone support Herbel in an intelligent manner. Take your beliefs, and I'll take mine, and at the end of the day, I'm glad to be sided with the likes of hockey gurus at levels much higher than that of this message board. *An intelligent case to support Herbel for Mr. Hockey would have been... Eric Herbel left his Jr. year to persue his career in hockey with the Omaha Energy AAA in NE. This is clear representation of his commitment to the sport, and the amount of sacrifice he is willing to have to succeed. He rejoined his high school for his senior year despite playing with lower quality players than that with the Energy. He put the success of himself behind that of the team and helped Bottineau to a record of 11-12-1. Despite not having as high quality players as teams like South and Grafton, Herbel was still able to produce an incredible 53 points in just 24 games. Herbel is not only a goal scorer, he has proved he is a good sportsman aswell. Herbel only acquired a total of 8 penalty minutes in those 24 games. Eric is commited to excellence not only on, but off the ice aswell. Unlike some other Mr. Hockey finalists, Herbel is great in the classroom and in the community aswell. It has been rumored that the Bismarck Bobcats of the NAHL have expressed interest in Herbel, although there is no solid evidence to support this claim, it is reasonable to see why they would be interested.

Eric Meland is a junior. He was not up for the award. Anyway, you proved Blantsons point. There were coachs in the East who could not decide whether to give the award to Wurden, or the leading scorer in the state (Miller). Every coach from the West wanted some recognition for the West and voted for Herbel.

When I post on this message board, I am probably right 95% of the time if not more. I don't open my mouth on subjects in which I do not have concrete evidence to support my case. In the case of hockey, I almost always have concrete evidence to support my case. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I agree. That does not mean there opinion is an intelligent one, however. If I were to say, in my opinion the classiest player to ever play in the NHL was Marty McSorely, it would be my opinion, but that would not make it intelligent. I am not posting to try to get someone to appeal who the award was given to and have it handed to Wurden. No. This conversation arose because some people felt the award went to the proper individual, which it clearly did not. I do not base many of my posts on opinions soley of myself. USHL, NAHL, WCHA, and NHL scouts would agree that Danny Wurden was the best player in the state of ND this year. Now, if you want to call me God for not only studying the game of hockey, and using opinions of individuals who have similiar and greater hockey knowledge than mine (NHL scouts) to help draw my conclusions, instead of posting unintelligent and biased opinions, go right ahead. I have thought about the outside factors that go into Mr. Hockey. Even so, Danny Wurden was too good to be passed up for the award.

A few things. Not winning the Mr. Hockey award will have no affect on Wurdens success in the future or hurt his draft stock at all. NHL scouts could care less about who wins this award. Now, it really does not matter how often a player from the West wins the award, either. Just because a player from the West has not won the award for 15 years does not mean that we should favor players that are nominated for the award from that side of the state because it has not had a winner in a long duration. Now, Blanston, I agree very much so with the majority of your post. But in the beginning of your post you say "It does no good to sit here and argue over something very few of you on this board are educated about." Well, and I am not intending to be standoffish because I agree with most of this post but, where is your hockey education coming from? I only ask because at the end of your post you say something to the extent that Western coachs should not have the same voting power as Eastern coachs? Tell me how that solves the problem? That would not solve the problem, my friend.

Great point, you just changed my opinion (rolling eyes). If by pompous you mean intelligent, then yes, I am very pompous.

RedWing77, are you reading this message board, or just coming to your own conclusions? No one said Herbel did not deserve the award because he was from the West (great players come from both sides of the state). No one has said anything about Herbel not deserving the award because he plays for a bad team. I'm not so sure what your reading skills are like but maybe you need to have them fine tuned in the near future. To tell you the truth RedWing77, I think your a liar. You say "I could argue that some arbitrary guy on GPR deserved it... let's say, the guy who wears #7. I could come up with the best case imaginable and I might even convince the lot of you (most if not all of you know more about high school hockey than I, I admit) that I'm right". Could you really? Could you really post something like that? I doubt it. I would love to see you try, however. You don't know if Eric Herbel is the best player in the state. You don't know if Danny Wurden is the best player in the state. But some of us, unlike you, are able to distinguish between good players and great players. Now, I would be thrilled if someone could make a case on behalf of Herbel that says something other than "he won the award, get over it". Or "the coachs voted him so he is the best player in the state". Those are hardly arguments that someone with hockey sense would make. If your argument is going to be "the winner of the award deserved it", okay. Just like when Wayne Gretzky was 19 and he lost the scoring title because he was tied for points but he had less goals and more assists. Although, the scoring race is not as much a matter of opinion like an MVP award would be, it is a matter of opinion that goals are more important than assists. Is that that proper opinion? You could side with those who voted on the award (coachs, like you are now). Or you could side with arguably one of the greatest hockey minds to ever grace the ice (Wayne Gretzky, who said by giving the award to the person with more goals, you're sending the message that assists are not as important as goals). Point being, you can't always just go by what a high school hockey coach thinks. Does the coach have his own agenda? Maybe. How much does he really know about the game? If you've studied the game, these are things you are able to do, if you haven't you have to take the opinion of the person with more knowledge. Which is what you are doing. These coachs know more than you, so you side with them. Somebody should ask Herbel who he thinks the best player in the state is.

You are unable to come up with an intelligent reply to any of my posts, which solidifies what I already believed. You are either very young, or have not been around the sport very long.

Biased? I am not friends with Wurden nor Herbel. I do not like South, and I think Bottineau has a terrible team. You can have your opinion that Herbel deserved the award, but your opinion is still wrong. Get over it? I simply replied to a statement made on this message board, and then replied again when someone questioned what I know to be a fact. I am not losing any sleep over this, but it's sad when someone who is clearly the best player in the state is not acknowledged like he should be. End lesson.

Knownothing, your name is very appropriate. I already addressed the issue of potential, and went in depth into why someone playing in the USHL is obviously overly qualified to win Mr. Hockey, and is almost definitly being snubbed if he does not win the award. You however, ignored those points and played something like a broken record. Anyone who is unbiased as to who wins Mr. Hockey would agree that Danny Wurden was the best player on the ice in the state of North Dakota. I'm not one to base the quality of someones play on points but Zach Miller put up numbers as good as Herbel in the East. Obviously he had better players with him, but the competition was much harder. If you consider all the above facts it's easy to come to the conclusion the Miller and Wurden split votes, and the West (who wanted to see there own succeed, with disregard to who the best player is) all voted for Herbel. It's a harsh reality. Now, I'm not going to argue this anymore because your skull is obviously to thick to take in any logical information. In the next few months to a year you will be able to clearly see who the better hockey player is. And when the time comes I don't want to hear "he just reached his potential in those fews months". Please.

Askew is one of the best players North Dakota High School has ever seen.