farce poobah

I'm withholding judgement until after Sunday's games - lot of big interconference matchups that will drive a LOT of PWR comparisons down the line. The UMD-Vermont, Wisconsin-Yale, UND-Notre Dame and Minnesota-Northern Michigan games are big.

Maybe Chris Porter will get a shot? PK has been a problem for St Louis, and he skates and reads plays really well.

As a fan of Caddyshack, I find Noonan an unfortunate name for a goalie... "Noonan, miss it Noonan, miss it ...".

The TSN feed is also available via ATDHE and channelsurfing.net .... With the USA broadcast on the NHL Network (USA).

Speed Kills. And right now the USA is speedier.

It's Dean Blais Hockey.

The NHL Network's promotional ad urges viewer to watch the game so they can see future NHLers. Which made me wonder - "on a typical roster" UND vs USA National U-20 Team, which has more future NHLers? * The recent Sioux teams have been in the 7-12 range. * Not sure how Team USA has been ... Anyone have a sense?

That would be a very fair weather thing to do.

What you're missing is its the football schools, and their AD's driving the bus. They would leave UND behind - UND is not a Big Ten school.

Oh, hi there Mr. Lucia.

Very quiet here. Sioux giving UMD no room to skate, no room to make plays, getting the puck out of trouble, and getting good goaltending. Overall another nice period. In the words of Jonathon Toews, "Finish 'em off, boys!!"

1:35 left

PK successful. Eidsness standing tall. 3-2.

Mankato 2, Minneapolis 1, 6 minutes left in the 3rd.

Oh, I feel much better now. Thanks for setting me straight. And I agree with Burd; its a great story.

OK, call me crazy. Among NHL scorers through 12/1/09, which school has the alumni with the greatest points so far this season: (A) North Dakota State (B) UND Answer: Trick question. It's a tie. NDSU (Bottineau) Dustin Penner and UND Zach Parise with 30 points each. Strange but true. http://www.nhl.com/ice/playerstats.htm#?navid=nav-sts-indiv

It was a masterpiece of misdirection. It happened right in front of me, and I still barely saw it. Trupp crossed behind the net, and he passed it in the same motion as if he were stickhandling. All the Zeroes followed him, and when he passed it back to Malone, the net was wide open and Malone could have pushed it in with a dustpan. Trupp has been on a roll...

Other stats from NHL.com ... former Sioux in the top 30 of various stats: Goals: Parise 13 (11th) Assists: Parise 15 (18th), Zajac 14 (26th) Points: Parise 28 (7th) Shots: Parise 99 (2nd), Blake 74 (23rd) Faceoffs: Toews 60.1% (4th) Johnson 56.4% (10th) * (Toews at almost 80% on the powerplay!) Hits: Greene 79 (4th) Blocked Shots: Greene 54 (12th) Giveaways: nobody (trick question) Takeaways: Blake 25 (4th) Penalties: nobody (obviously goons) Shootouts: Toews 3-3 (4th), Parise 2-4 (18th)

Another reinforcement of how good the WCHA was during the decade - NHL Plus-Minus leaders through 11/25/09 - 5 of the top 9 : (Source: NHL.com) 1. Matt Carle, PHI (Denver) +18 2. Zach Parise, NJD (UND) +17 3. Chris Pronger, PHI +13 3t. Brent Seabrook, CHI +13 5t. Duncan Keith, CHI +12 5t. Travis Zajac, NJD (UND) +12 5t. Jonathon Toews, CHI (UND) +12 9. Alex Goligoski, PIT, (MN) +11 3 of the top 7 are former Sioux. And the top 3 forwards in the NHL are former Sioux. Not too shabby.

He'll be seeing more rubber than a two-bit ...

I kinda like "Beep the Huskies" ...

NCAA-wide, there's a push on to protect visiting teams. One of the reasons that Security has gotten stiff is because the students are behind the visitors bench. Its time for UND to change that, and put the student section behind the Fighting Sioux bench. That should allow some loosening of standards ... ================== Pretty clearly, this is not one thing, but a whole raft of things. Someone has got to start things moving in the right direction ... someone in position of influence at the U.

GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL

We've been ALL OVER them the last few minutes but can't get one behind the Tech goalie. 1:45 left in period 1.

In the recruiting wars, its one more tick-mark in the UND column...