dagies

Is it possible to be too old? (I got it)

I agree. Generally speaking, if there are personality or character reasons behind a scenario such as Hirsch's that information gets out behind the scenes. Why? Because the teammates talk to their friends who talk to their friends who post on message boards. The fact that there seems to be pretty much NO smoke in the air about Hirsch being a jerk and a slough-off tells me that this is likely more than a character flaw. In this case it would appear that the team is faithfully following Lucia likely directive to zip the lips. Why would they do that? Because they wish no ill will on Tyler. Why would they wish no ill will on Tyler? They don't blame him. If he was a jerk and a goof-off, how many people would clam up to save his reputation? Not too many. Case in point, and I don't bring this up to rile up Gopher fans. Rick was one of the first people to comment about Vanek causing some problems in the Gopher locker room. Of course he was ripped apart by the faithful. Step forward a year and you will begin to see the comments by some of those same faithful that indeed there were some issues. What I'm getting at here is that someone yakked and eventually there's some smoke that leads to a fire. In Hirsch's case, there doesn't appear to be any smoke, so there's probably not any fire. This is a pretty strange and high profile situation so it would be logical that the "other" story would be leaking out. I don't see it. That's my take, anyway.

Irish, I think we found something we can agree on.

I wonder if Jutting also told the cops "I pay your salary".

Snow driven across North Dakota? Because I've seen that snow....

I thought with the "Negative-Nellies" thing maybe someone would try and have a sense of humor about it. I was trying to.

It looks like he just realized he let out the f-bomb on a tv interview.

His tagline references a past Sioux performance, therefore it makes no sense to call it out as "out of date". As for his previous post, his comment without examples is no less relevant than a lot of the stuff people were whining about, IMO. And I think he used the word "most", not "all".

I don't know about analysis, but one fan's opinion....

Yeah, well, that's been well documented here. I thought it wouldn't hurt to throw out some positives for all you Negative-Nellies.

Considering this I expect a Sioux sweep against Alaska this weekend. Alaska is a decent team but this is the level of opponent the Sioux must be able to sweep at home. I think the pressure is all up and down the forward lineup this weekend.

I was out of town this weekend so just caught up on the board here. Thanks to my host SoDak Sioux Fan for allowing me a quick post after Saturday's game. I had another Scotch and water to toast the victory.... From what I have read in media stories and on this board here are my impressions of things at this time. Goaltending: Lammy has given up 5 goals in 4 games. Nice. Hakstol says he's healing up and coming around. It looks like the Sioux have a chance to get that consistently good to very good goaltending we're all hoping for down the road. We'll see if that pans out, but the recent results are a definite improvement over the most of the first half of the year. Defense: Even without 2 of our better defenders the Sioux held CC to 17 shots on Saturday, and were effective enough over the last 4 games to give the Sioux a chance to win, even with an anemic offense. Certainly goaltending is a cog in the defensive effort, but I don't think it should be overlooked that the Sioux gave up 4 real shots over the last 40 minutes of Saturday's game. This also has to be a testamant to responsible forwards. If the Sioux can continue to limit the opponents opportunities and good scoring chances, they give themselves a chance to win every game. See Wisconsin the last couple of years. Yes, I don't expect the Sioux will be that dominating on goals-against, but a strong effort in that area puts the team in a much better situation than it was in most of the first half. That's the way I see it, anyway. Another positive point is the apparent improvement in play of Big Joe Finley. Both Fabian and I think Hakstol appeared to be very complimentary of Joe's play this weekend. Fabian said he played "big and tough". Isn't that what we've wanted? If Big Joe and keep it up, that's another area of improvement we fans have been looking for. Offense: The Sioux continue to struggle to find goals, but other than Friday's game the Sioux have gotten important goals from several non-front line scorers. Obviously this trend must continue, with more forwards chipping in. The VandeVelde line appears to be getting better and better from what I read. I think there's a good chance that Toews will come back as a renewed player with more confidence. I doubt we should expect to see a WJT tourney performance from him every night, but isn't it possible that a resurgent Toews might help elevate everyone's game? It will be tougher for Toews as he will be playing against older and more seasoned players than he was at the WJT, but at the same time he appears to have figured it out. I'm looking forward to seeing how his return might affect some others. A month ago I was lamenting the fact that the Sioux had average goaltending, average defense and average or worse offense. The only decent part of their game seemed to be the PP. The Sioux have now won 3 of 4 (albeit not against top 5 teams) without much of their top PP unit. The team now appears likely to have solid to above average goaltending, good enough defense, and still a chance at an improving offense. I think there's reason for optimism. There's lots of season left, but little that can be wasted.

Because Lucia had the foresight to ask Mankato if they could delay the MN homegame for 1 day. Hakstol couldn't do that because it was an away game. That's my understanding. It really helped MN too. They beat Mankato 5-1 with a shorthanded team on the road, and won 1-0 with a full? lineup at home.

Except Boston College in 2001, 1999 and Michigan in 1998 and just about everybody in 2001-02. This isn't meant to be a rip on Blais who is my favorite Sioux head coach and a legend of Sioux hockey. But Blais teams that were dominant in the last part of 1990's tanked at year end, and no one seems to remember the struggles of the early 2000's other than 2000-01.

Oh, and I have heard Clement doing a lot of Sioux games this year. What's your point? I suppose my tag line is out of date too.

It's interesting that you needed to police our board but had nothing to say about the same rumors being floated on GPL. Start there, then I have no problems if you want to come over here....

They all added the "-ay" at the end for him.

Sioux outshooting CC 19-16

Great job to kill the 5 min penalty. Sounds like Lammy made some big saves. Maybe the Sioux can pick up a little mo here and take it to CC.

Just checking in. If the shots in the first are really 12-3, I'll take my chances if the Sioux outshoot CC 36-9 for the game, even if we're down at the moment. Keep it up, boys.

Turns out it's when YOU talk the hockey world listens.

Ohhhhh, Johnny. Missed the SH EN chance....

I wondered if they could go the final 3 minutes without a penalty. Nope.

Do you think Team Canada heard me?

It's not good to give up a shorthanded breakaway on the 5-3 PP. What a killer a goal might have been there.