farce poobah

I like to hate Notre Dame as much as the next person ** but their schedule of a few cupcakes works out the same as playing a few games against the bottom of the conference. #SimpleMath ** it started in the late 70’s when a medieval dickweed named Don Lucia played at Notre Dame. Because he’s from Grand Rapids , a few Farce Members who knew the family were able to level a devastating combination of recalling real embarrassing events, and plausible events that would get him piffed off. (Not just “your mom effs bears”, but “your mom (insert name) had sex with (insert name) at (location) on (date). It would be a cousins wedding or something. Anyway he got really mad after several of these. Retaliated by shooting pucks at us. Which we thought of a scoring a win in the mind games.

https://news.asu.edu/20220103-arizona-impact-asu-again-among-nations-top-research-universities Arizona State is massive in research, non AAU most likely because they don’t have a medical school.

Indeed. Only things I can think of: (1) is that his boss asked him to fire some staff that he was not going to; (2) he wanted a roster revamp and the GM et al said no or couldn't get it done. Otherwise, this should have been two months ago.

Rick Zombo - nice conversation with Adam Wodon: https://www.collegehockeynews.com/news/2022/06/20_QA-With--Lindenwood-Coach.php On a different team, back in 1982-84, he might have been THE star player. At UND, overshadowed by some other great talent ... he notes that all 6 defensemen on the 1982 Title team played in the NHL. Had the privilege of a couple fast conversations, back in the day. He still talks fast, as far as I can tell from Wodon's notes. Good luck in NCAA D-1 this year, Zombo.

The cool part about going to Philly is you sign a 5 year contract but only have to work 2.

Andersson launches a bouncing puck .... for a goal! 3-3. Very Bina-like.

Of course, if your primary rooting interest is one of the other 11 teams still in contention, you'd rather play the Maple Leafs than the Lightning.

Bruins? Declawed. How to stand out in a Carolina crowd? Wear a green Whalers jersey!

The two changes will help visiting teams adjust, especially my favorite team. Less obvious than the narrower ice is the change to corner radius. UND PK likes to clear weak side by ringing it around the boards (where the point is usually vacated by D shifting toward the play). And on a dump-in, we often flip it to the weak side corner and have the puck bounce into a shooting/possession position for the weak side forward. Both of these tactics come into play with a 'flatter' corner. I'm sure the coaches amongst us will have other observations about how games at 3M Rink at Mariucci The John will be different.

At UND, he had a knack for coming up big during moments that needed big plays. Nice to see him continuing that.

On behalf of the rest of the NCHC, I'd like to thank SCSU for failing to figure out how to play well on regulation size ice. 3W - 8L - 1SOL in conference games last year. (It's been going on a long time, but is more noticeable in years like last year where they were dominating at home, for the most part.) Coach Larson: "Well, we sucked last year, but the bad news is we have everyone back. So I expect we will suck again this year. "

Always a good night when Teee Jaaaay Ooooooshie gets the GWG in the playoffs. https://www.nhl.com/video/oshie-redirects-puck-over-glove/t-333416302/c-11594651

Nobody picked Crosby. Nobody picked Ovechkin. All those advertising dollars went to waste.

The kind of a post you make if you are daring the AD to not renew your contract. Or if you're an insecure egomaniac. Or both.

Given the fiscal situation in Illinois, which affects all levels of government there, I’m unsurprised. Would have actually been surprised if they decided to go forward.

Someone has to finish last, so here goes: Gaudreau - Calgary Tkachuk - Calgary MacKinnon - Colorado Landeskog - Colorado Huberdeau - Florida Barkov - Florida Andersson - Calgary Makar - Colorado Ekblad - Florida DeAngelo - Carolina

Very interesting, and unsurprising. To me, looks like Eastern hockey conferences are now going through what Western conferences went through a decade ago: a logjam, where the existing conferences are full. (ECAC at 12 isn't going to be adding anyone, Hockey East at 11 might add one, and Atlantic Hockey is up to 11 (with Robert Morris already returning next season). The solution seems clear: someone out East is going to have to break off or split up. (Or alternatively, the independents will have to gather together.) The easiest-to-see is the western NY / Lake Erie schools (Mercyhurst, Canisius, RoMo, RIT, Niagara) who would need just one more to get a small-footprint conference with less travel expense than today. The other observation is that conference alignments are usually multi-sport and so "friends helping friends" is pretty common. But I don't know who will speak up for Stonehill, Utica, Long Island, Lindenwood etc. (Augustana, with Sanford Health money talks.)

Yup, and his 2.94 GAA puts him right in the middle of the Big Ten goalie stats, and the .918 save percentage is solid. Clearly, UND coaches saw something, and I'm not going to second guess that, for sure. But proven against NCHC competition? Not yet.

The unproven spot is goaltending. But we have an excellent goalie coach. and most of the NCHC is going with unproven goaltending too.

My compadres had a large repertoire of songs to sing at the end of a winning game. Fortunately for us, the Fighting Sioux had a lot of wins during the day. My faves? Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie - band was good with this one. 50 Ways to Leave as a Loser - "hop on the bus Gus" and a lot of made-on-the-spot lyrics Would love to hear those agin at the Ralph sometime ... (With apologies to Paul Simon and Burl Ives.)

Phil Kessel (TOR 2010-11) is on line 1 for you. Nick Bjugstad (FLA 2013-14) is on line 2.

"He plugs up the net for us, so nothing can get through" - Heavy Metal Hockey, 1987.

Since this is a Western college hockey board, I'm not surprised people are generally in favor of home ice regionals. Nearly 75% of the four team regionals would have been out West, going back to 2015 (when Miami would have hosted! **). Three West, one East. Sounds fabulous to me. A chance to see regionals in person. But if you're in charge of a program out East, are you going to vote for that? Highly unlikely. They've got it cozy "as is", with 40 mile bus rides. So I can't see a change to that approach drawing even half of the votes. Unless of course, someone can tickle the NC$$ hierarchy and get pre$$ure applied to force the Regionals to be profitable too. That external pressure - from outside the coaching fraternity - seems necessary before minds change and the structure of regionals changes. Otherwise, let's just play the whole tournament in one site, preferably a warm weather site where college hockey seeks to grow (Vegas, Arizona, etc). And yeah fans get some time in the sun between games. One weekend of Friday-Monday for the Rounds of 16 and 8, and the next weekend for the semifinals and finals. ** Among the NCHC, only CC and Omaha wouldn't have hosted a four team home ice regional.

#NorthDakotansForGlobalWarming

I like your optimism.