farce poobah

Well we got a little help tonight. NE 4, BU 2, final. Still unlikely that we can catch BU, but you never know.

In a game involving a team ranked near us in the standings, NE leads BU 2-1 in the second. Webcast (yes I'm bored):http://ne.cn8.tv/shared/video/cn8NE-winmedia.asx

Sounds like something that a crazy goaltender might have picked up in high school, playing for a team with a Native American nickname.

The game was CC and I think their coach was Jeff Sauer. (He was pretty new then.)

Bingo! Correct. Just the one game in 1984, 1-2 in overtime. It made for a long drive home Saturday night and Sunday (especially considering the title game went on and on and on ... )

It's not OUR fault!

I'll do some of the easy ones: Lundbohm, David and Brian Panzer, Jeff and Jay Hoogsteen, Kevin and David Ulmer, Jason and Jeff Toews, Jonathan and [sorry, wishful thinking]

Sorry, we've never played St Cloud in the Dance.

Which current WCHA school have the Sioux played but never beaten in the NCAA tournament?

Rats. How about a hint - older?

great question - how about Nakonechny, Krmpotich, and Palmiscno. It was because "U keant spell their names!" (Ukrainians...)

You are correct. I was looking thru the tiebreaker with the BADgers, which we'd lose and be seeded 7th for the WCHA playoffs.

[whispering] Don't look now but the Sioux PK is 17 for their last 17. Sign that goaltending is healthy (and hot) and positional play is improving. Moving like a unit very well indeed.

We can still finish 7th, in an extreme scenario: Sioux lose both, UW sweeps, Tech sweeps, CC gets 3/4 points. We need one win to clinch home ice. (Less than that brings the other guys back in the race.)

The other good news for the Sioux is that the games are road games. Plus our winning % is good on big ice this year.

The biggest reason not to is what you said - it works in Premier League because there's relatively consistent personnel from year to year. (And more teams, so the schedules change less.) The alternatives just aren't very palatable. Nobody will voluntarily just leave the WCHA. Forcing BSU out of D1 hockey, and denying their entrance into the WCHA would do just that (and slamming the door on any future teams out west) are not good for the game either. The trick is to bring teams into the WCHA without sacrificing traditional rivalries...

Let's create 2 leagues of 6 teams each. (The current 10 in the WCHA plus Bemidji and UNO.) Put the top 6 in one league and the bottom 6 in the other league. Inter-conference scheduling means everyone will get home games (3x each in the top league and 2x each vs the other league, for a total of 27). Win the bottom league and you get promoted to the top league. Finish last in the top league and you get demoted to the bottom league. Like football in Europe. For UND, MN, it would mean the same # games against "top" rivals (in a 4-year cycle, we'd get 12 against MN either way). By creating a second league, we create a second autobid. This means teams like Mankato, Tech, and UAA get an improved shot at making the Big Dance. Which is why they would sign up for this scheme. Blast away....

Since 1/1/07 in WCHA play only: Goepfert: 12 games, 23 goals, .939 save percentage Lamoureux: 12 games, 24 goals, .930 save percentage (Now if there was just a way to put askerisks by those fluky goals against....) For all the renown Goepfert gets, maybe Phil has been playing just as well.

I think they will pick 10 finalists ... Voting for phase 2 begins 3/15 after the 10 finalists have been announced. (Phase 1 goes to March 4, vote early and often folks.) I think that Duncan's chances will suffer because of guilt by association, given the highly publicized off-ice issues of 3 teammates. Given the Hobey Baker committee plugs "character" as one of their key factors, I think they don't want to be seen as endorsing that kind of thing. Sadly. I think Duncan's chances of POTY - league and national - are much better. On ice, he's been phenomenal.

wats the dell wiht duncon hes'' too hsort to win the WHCA scoring title anyways

http://www.uscho.com/stats/index.php?conf=wc&gender=m I had not realized just how BIG Duncan's lead is for the scoring title. (And when I looked it wasn't yet updated for tonight.) Also, gotta love a TECH goalie leading the league in GAA.

It does, but the road win bonus is only nonconference. And the SLU is "neutral" not road. No bonus for us (unless Dartmouth gets into the top 15.)

After a slow start on the PK, we're doing pretty well lately. Clearly, "your goalie is your best penalty killer" and Phil looks good. But out positional play, a unified box, getting in front of the shooter, blocking lanes, all look good lately.

http://www.uscho.com/FAQs/?data=selection#b8 Q: What about this "good wins" or "bonus points" criteria? Isn't this just a subjective fudge factor? The so-called bonus for "good wins," instituted for the 2003 tournament, is not subjective. Teams get bonus percentage points added to their RPI for defeating teams that finish the season in the Top 15 of RPI. For 2006-07, the bonus criterion was altered to give points only for a road win, as opposed to the old system, under which home and neutral-site wins also counted, albeit less than road wins. This further limits the importance of this factor. The amount of bonus points awarded has not been made public by the NCAA, but it is a fixed and finite amount. Because the committee chooses to keep the amount of the bonus secret, it opens itself up to people believing its used as a fudge factor. You'll have to trust us that it's not.

Correct.