farce poobah

Well, that was fun. Its good to win, and its good to feel like we're playing well, but I think this team's best hockey is in front of them. I was really proud of the effort, and want to note that UND played 5 games in 9 days with a shortened bench. Getting Stafford back, if that's how it plays out, would be a huge boost. I thought the all tournament team could just as well have picked Duncan and Toews. RYAN DUNCAN: is playing some just great hockey right now. The best compliment I can think of is to say that he reminds me of David Hoogsteen at times... great hands, makes plays look easy. JONATHAN TOEWS: skated thru the whole da#$ team at least twice, made a bunch of just sick plays, ending up with a goal and 2 assists in the title game. Smart in his own zone.

Great pics, just great. Thanks!

Last night's 8 goal outburst for St Cloud was a combination of factors. One was mystifying passes by Gopher D (Goligoski flings it right at (?) Hooten in the slot for goal #6 ... Harrington with a great centering pass earlier. Another was Vanelli pinching and getting caught (but the situation called for gambling). And the goaltending by both Briggs and Freezy was as soft as you'll ever see at this level. If the Sioux fling the puck around like that tonight, we can expect to give up a bunch of goals. I don't see it happening at this point. We were terrific yesterday with the first pass, especially our top D. If we play as well tonight as yesterday, and don't take penalties, SCSU will be hard pressed to get even 2 goals. On the other hand, we didn't get sustained offensive pressure much yesterday. I thought we got a couple quirky bounces on 3 goals. And UW got a couple bounces too ... Could just as well have been a 1-1 game. KEYS for the SIOUX: 1) Hit Hit Hit. SCSU is gassed. They stopped moving their feet the last 30: of last night. Getting hit repeatedly takes some of the energy level down. 2) Use speed, move the feet. We're quicker PLUS fresher. 3) Use the whole bench. I think UND's 4th line is better than SCSU's 4th line ... meaning we can have top guys fresher for PK and PP. 4) Poise in our own zone. Time to claim the autobid. ... and if so, it just might be the case that #1 overall Minnesota gets sent out east as the fairer outcome than sending them into GF and the tougher road to the Frozen Four.

Minnesota DRAWS a lot of penalties with speedy skilled forwards. I thought Campion was pretty balanced last night. St Cloud took some dumb penalties that gave the Gophers momentum ... Actually, a Minnesota win today helps the Sioux slightly in the pairings ...

According to my pairwise predictor (courtesy USCHO) UW could pass MN with a win today. In that case, it might bring Holy Crap Cross to Grand Forks and send Bemidji to Green Bay. Other than that, and Pride, there's nothing at stake. But don't underestimate what Pride counts for in a Badger-Gopher game....

You guys are totally hilarious ... read the thread after just getting back from the X. DUDE! SWEET! DUDE! SWEET! Sioux remain undefeated all-time on St Patrick's day vs Wisconsin. (OK, technically its now 2-0 but hang with me here...) The pain of those November whuppins is not so distant, and in both games it could have been 8-2 except that JPar played out of his mind. Point being, the Sioux have improved tremendously in the 120 days between matches. In particular, we're now playing as a team; guys have poise with the puck, work to get open before we have possession, positional play is generally very sound. I think the extra timeouts also helped UND today. Down two regulars, it gives the coaches the option of shortening the bench. What I thought I saw late today is a bunch of line juggling, with 10 forwards seeing a lot of time .. and Miller and Marvin the occasional shift. Also, we were hitting early on, which is ALWAYS a good sign. More to come. Go Huskies. Go Wolverines. Go Toothpaste.

The year was 1983, and it was the epitome of the evils of smoke-filled rooms. UND finished 2nd in the WCHA, but 3rd place Wisconsin and 4th place UMD were picked instead. From the CCHA, regular season champ Bowling Green was left out entirely in favor of Michigan State. Turns out that UMD's AD was chair of the committee and Michigan State's AD was too. Thank goodness for Simple Math.

Current forecast is snow most of the day Thursday 5-7 inches of snow. If you're coming from GF or outstate for Thursday's game, allow a LOT of extra time (90 minutes) to get across town... Of course the contrarian in me says that we'll be fine since the forecast is for snow. FRIDAY is looking better right now but the hazard will be crazy Irish (and Norwegians pretending to be Irish) in downtown St Paul. Also good idea to allow extra time to get around, parked, in. ALOHA.

I have seats nearby behind the player benches on Friday PM. I'm thinking that after a dive .... "Robbie Earl Diving School is NOW in Session" With diving flags on the perimeter .... Needs spice ... anybody improve?

With all that's happened, we're only down 3 ...

Many comments from Sioux announcers about how uncomfortable UND looks. "Tight" Down 5, 12:21, Sioux ball.

St Cloud up 3-1 20 seconds left, on the major PP

Sertich takes a MAJOR with 2:30 left. (WTF is he thinking?) 3-1 St Cloud. WOW!

SCSU up 3-1 with a couple minutes left

I just hope nobody gets injured ...

A SCSU win probably puts UND ahead of CC in the PWR ...

Oh, and I just thought of one other scenario that comes in to play. IF UMD were to become a TUC, that adds 4 wins to the Sioux record vs TUC's and (without checking the numbers) might move UND to a #1 seed ...

Right!

Yes its safe to buy tickets for the West Regional. I think its theoretically possible for UND not to make it still, but some really weird stuff would have to happen now.

The surviving 5 teams are seeded according to how they finished the regular season. If UMD holds on, then it looks like this: Thursday '#9 UMD vs #5/6 SCSU/CC Friday semi 2pm: #3 WI vs #4 UND Friday semi 7pm: #1 MN vs Thursday winner IF DU comes back to win, Thursday is UND vs SCSU/CC Friday 2: DU vs WI Friday is MN vs Thursday winner.

Bruce Ciskie, UMD radio "listen to the roar of that crowd! as the second period comes to a close!" 4-1 Dogs.

Campion changed it from the 3rd to the 2nd to give DU more time to catch up .

Love those long sustained standing ovations after a job well done. Great work Sioux!!!

http://www3.mnsu.edu/athletics/

And if there's an upset in the CCHA (Northern Michigan, UAF), if Maine/UNH wins HEA and/or if there's upsets in the ECACHL.