farce poobah

SCORES AGAIN! with 1:55 left in the third, to earn his club a valuable, precious point - and some momentum for Saturday. Talk about heart ... three sizes too big. Gotta love it.

One of my favorite 9-year olds calls him Speedwhack "because he's speedy and he whacks the other team". And #26 is "Motorman", "because he motors by the defense". Together, perhaps the best pair of penalty killing forwards in the country.

With the first-round byes going out the window, there becomes a huge difference between finishing #1 or #2 in the pairwise, and presumably facing the MAAC or CHA winner ... and finishing #3 or #4 .... In the inch ratings, CC draws Huntsville .... and UND gets Michigan State. Only a little difference.

I have always feared getting a rotary subfluxation. Of course now that I know what it is, I fear it even more. Layne - Best wishes for a speedy and smooth recovery.

Owens, CC. His team has lost just one game ... and they weren't a consensus #1 ... and I don't think he's ever won the award.

One of the great things about Dean Blais as coach is that he's never going to admit a win was perfect, even 8-0. That relentless pursuit of "better" has been a trait of the Sioux during his tenure. Gotta love it.

ALL HAIL CRAIG PERRY ! ! ! Hard to beat a shutout. ... I didn't see the game, how did Josh look?

I heard the proposal would be the rink had to be regulation North American size OR it would have to have 4000 Fighting Sioux logos on it. I may have gotten it wrong ... I don't have total recall anymore ....

Thanks for reminding me. [shrink, hide, pretend to ignore I ever posted it] I guess when God handed out the precognitive abilities, I must have been somewhere else. Mi cabeza no en casa. And, besides, I still think we'll make a run for the playoff titles. (Especially if #4 can get back into the lineup.)

Gee, I was hoping that we had a new recruit named Kwitcher Whining. I heard he's going to SCSU.

Interesting perspective ... Maybe we could get Myron Allen's "family advisor" to apply some persuasion ....

I wouldn't jump out of the window just yet, nor would I give away my tickets to Buffalo. Lot of season to go...

OK, the instant I turn on the car radio this morning, its pumping out Queen - "We are the champions, my friend... and we'll keep on fighting to the end ..." A sign from God? Cosmic Coincidence? Or just a fanatical passion for Sioux Hockey? You decide. GOOOOOO SIOUX!!!!!

I think the comparisons between the teams' second line and defense are distorted because Lundbohm gets a lot of PP points playing the point ... where it looks like CC goes with 2 defense. If you adjust for that, the statistics look pretty even. The biggest differences, stat-wise are the special teams. Which makes me nervous. Thanks for the coaches show recap, good to hear we are working on PK....

Damn right. Given the choice between a loved one with breast cancer or getting blasted in the corners by Mike Commodore, I'll take Commodore. College, plus college hockey, requires 100% focus to succeed at the level these guys play at. Its amazing they were able to stay in the game at all. And its good to have them both full strength. Nice article PCM. If Virg ever retires ...I'll vote for you.

A lot of goaltending success is confidence, and I think that's the case here, because the raw talent is there ... quickness, eye-hand, etc. But I think his confidence got shaken early by a bad outing at St Cloud, followed a month later by a bad outing vs. MSU-Mankato ... I think Jake will be fine, and I agree with jimdahl's insightful observation that we talk about goaltending so much because that's the one spot on the team that's not fully resolved. Let's have a good argument about ... who should be centering the fourth line. .... or which forwards should be on the 3rd PK unit.

Samurai Goaltender! We can bring him in on a Samurai scholarship, and he can play goalie for the hockey team. Plus if you score on him, he slices your head off. Hat trick prevention.

Another way to look at this ... is against common opponents, the other 2 first-division WCHA teams, CC and SCSU. Vs CC (playing at home): Mankato took 2 points, MN-TC took 1. Edge Mavs. Vs. SCSU (playing home and home): Mankato took 3/8 points, MN took 1/4 points. Edge Mavs. That said, I wouldn't have a problem if the mavs swept either. The Sioux better bring their A game to mankato in February ...

Which means, I guess that UND would be an awesome team, if they put Dubielewicz behind the Sioux defense ....

Excuse me, but we were talking about how good Mankato is. Mankato will have matchup problems, I think, vs MN. But they've been getting much better goaltending, and they have some bona fide snipers. ... They are climbing the ladder. After the series in GF, Blais said they look to be just 1-2 players away from really contending; I agree. I predict split.

I think CC has a good chance of sweeping Wisconsin. But I wouldn't mind if the Badgers softened them up a little bit. And Im glad Zach will get a few extra days to heal his wrist injury ...

Also ... Andy Schneider is (I think) the #2 scoring defenseman with 26 points on the year, behind just Preissing of CC (28).

Good thing for us that Sal and Prideonice don't have weapons of mass destruction.

Speaking of rankings, I think we should loan Canisius some players, to help their RPI ... And I'd ask everyone to root against the 2 western regional hosts ... so that if UND gets that far, there's a better shot at neutral ice games ... Maine deserves to be #1. Look out for Denver and St Cloud ....

I thought the fourth line looked pretty decent. They only got in trouble once, that was early, when they couldn't clear the zone, and Minnesota pressure forced a penalty that led to the first MN goal. Other than that, Fylling had a couple decent chances, and Connelly let go a couple slappers .... not bad. I was expecting we'd have to go 3 lines ...