dagies

I wish I could take photos like that. Very impressive.

He will learn. Wasn't it Matt Greene who planted one right out on Vanek's stick in the Final Five a few years ago? I don't recall Matt doing that again.

I read somewhere the comments from Hakstol that people who think the WCHA will be down this year because of all of the departures are wrongly calculating the strength of the league. Maybe this is one indication of that.

Brett Hextall stats. Currently leads his team with 17 points and a 1.3ppg average in 13 games. 73 PIMs! Appears that Evan Trupp just played his first game. Good to hear he's back on the ice again. Derek LaPoint is tied for 2nd on his team in scoring after 3 games with 2-3-5. +3 and 6 PIM's Jake Marto in 4 games has no scoring, 0+/- and 4 PIMs. Brad Malone in 3 games has no scoring, -2, and 13 PIMs Danny Kristo through 8 games leads the U-17 team in scoring with a 4-3-7 line and 4 PIMs. Shea Hamilton DNP

Going back to the original point, Lucia whines, after McMahon beats up Vannelli, that the Sioux are the ones who are always involved in fighting. Then after Flynn apparently wrestles a Wayne State player to the ground (for protecting his own goaltender), Lucia is happy about the "grit" that he showed. You can't have it both ways. I wonder what Motzko will say if Flynn does the same thing against SCSU, considering he holds Lucia's "former" opinion on the matter.

He was a man-boy among boys?

Go Ryan! One of my favorite Sioux.

Not saying he Dowell couldn't have been picked. I just don't think it's automatic that Elliot couldn't be as well. Siouxman, I agree. I thought there were too many passes to men who had Badgers all around them.

I did not think that Lammy was run over on that goal. He did get knocked down but I thought it was incidental, and possibly even caused by our own guy coming back to help out. While Finley made a terrible mistake with that puck, that wasn't the ONLY mistake on that play, IMO. At least Jones and Porter appeared to forget to close the back door. Every Sioux player came to the net, looking forward, and no one checked behind them. What happened? The puck bounced between Jones' legs and Dowell walked through the back door and put it home. Both Jones and Porter could have worried about clearing opponents away from the crease instead of looking for the puck, and if they had, the puck there would have been no one to swat it in. Bucky did that all night, and the Sioux failed on that play. IMO, overall, I think Finley played a fairly good game. That was one bad mistake, however. I thought Lee and Chorney both had good games. It does appear that Lee is playing with more confidence and playing more physical. I thought VandeVelde looked better than what I saw last Friday. He took a bad penalty but it was an aggressive penalty at least. He looked ok out there I thought, except for face-offs. We could have used to win a few more face-offs overall tonite. Did anyone else think that Watkins was tackled on his effort. It looked that way to me. I think the refs were letting them play both ways, but that one hurt. The Sioux appeared to get away with a couple of offsides calls, IMO, and Bucky got that one. Speaking of Watkins, on that attempt I sure thought that looked like Oshie until I saw the # on his back. That was an outstanding effort. I thought he had a good game. The DOT line looked very good. Toews was a man among boys at times. The one time he falls down with the puck, why did it have to be after picking up the loose puck on that PK? Did anyone else think Oshie should have passed to Toews on his waived off goal? Before you call "hind-sight" on me I was saying this even when we believed that had been called a goal. Give Oshie credit, it was an incredible effort and attempt that could very well have counted with just a bit more luck, but it appeared he knew Toews as open and had a step on his man, but kept the puck. Now, maybe he felt that the passing lane to Toews was closed, or he was hearing "one-to-many-passes" in his head, so I'll give him credit for that. I just wonder if anyone else thought he took the 2nd best option that time. Duncan was really throwing the body around out there. There didn't appear to be much love lost between these teams. The rivalry could be heating up. If Elliot isn't the #1 star, who is? Bucky played very strong team defense that limited the Sioux's chances. But do you single any one of them out? They didn't create many offensive chances either. Who do you pick. The most obvious member of the defense is the last man standing, the goalie, in a shut-out situation. I wouldn't have any issue with that. The man got the job done. Lammy deserved better than he got tonite. He's playing very well. Hopefully the team will give him some cushion in future games. I'm very disappointed to have lost this game. With perspective I have to remember that coming into the weekend I would have been happy with a split. But I feel like we took the tougher game of the weekend last night. Tonite more cards were stacked in our favor and we didn't get it done. These could be 2 important points. There's time to recover them, so all is not lost. It just would have been nice to really strike a blow against Bucky at this point. Overall, I was happy that the team seemed to play very hard with a lot of grit in both games. They seemed to come a bit unglued in the last few minutes tonite. Hopefully there was something to learn that will benefit them in later games.

With 3 of Bucky's top offensive players out tonite there should be no excuse for losing. I would expect Elliot will be pumped to try and steal this game. And I wouldn't be surprised if Bucky tries to slow the Sioux down by being very physical. In the end it was ironic that the Badger announcers on FSN were commenting on the greater # of hits the Badgers had put on the Sioux, but it was Badger players who couldn't continue the game. Unfortunate injuries, that's for sure. Sioux must win tonite.

FHG, that was NOT a knee to knee hit.

That's exactly it, FHG. I have no issue with the play. I have issue with the coach whining about it when it happens TO his team, and smirking when his team does it.

RW77, I don't dismiss that Chorney made some good plays last night. I just don't think he played as consistently as he usually does, and for every really good play he seemed, to me, to have some sub-par plays that evened out his whole performance. I could be wrong, I know that. Just the way it seemed to me. Chorney is a heck of a player and I expect tonite he will have a better game, if only in my eyes!

From the Western College Hockey Blog: Woog picked SCSU to sweep and they nearly did. I'm picking SCSU over DU in the WCHA, so this game will hurt my prediction. Would like to have seen Duluth handle UML as I think Duluth will be a much better team this year than last. Nice win for Tech. My favorite, however, comes from this Strib story: So the gopher player plows into the opposing goalie, and the D makes Carmen pay for doing that. Flynn retaliates and Lucia approves. This from the man who complained that "every time there's a fight North Dakota is involved". I guess it's ok when your guy is on the winning side, but when your guy gets his attitude handed to him, then it's wrong.

Sorry, some of us just enjoy talking about it. Know that when you see my posts you can just skip them. Or better yet, put me on "ignore".

Got to watch the game at Senser's on the big screen, even had sound. Met a nice Sioux fan brother. Good night all around. Now to hockey: I thought Bishop was missing for a while, but then I thought I saw him late in the game on the ice too. I did see him skating off after the first period and wondered if he was testing his legs or his equipment... I believe Oshie's penalty on Skille was bogus. From what I saw on the FSN replay, it appeared to me that Oshie hit Skille from the side, and as Skille was getting pushed off the puck, he little-old-ladied Oshie's right arm and pulled him down. Skille did it very skillfully and held the arm and Oshie tight to his body so it couldn't be seen. That's what I thought I saw, anyway. Oshie was in a lot of scrums tonite. Maybe Bucky was trying to get under his skin. Humorous point of the night. Early first period and 2 Badgers take Big Joe Finley to the ice. First one in, of all people, is Brad Miller, pushing Dowell around. Moments later Fabian looked like he wanted to go with Dowell. Something must have happened. Looked like Fabian even punched the linesman accidentally, but it was hard to tell. Miller was very present, especially early in the game. He looks like he belongs. I wonder if Genoway is so good the coaches feel they can't afford to sit him. He'll either play D, or if not he'll take a forward spot. The guy is fun to watch, but if passes the puck in front of the net one more time I hope Hak makes him do Herbies until he pukes. Bina looked excellent out there tonite. I thought Lee and Chorney looked so-so. Lee didn't seem to play with a lot of authority early on. He did have a beautiful shot on Elliot in the 3rd period that merits mentioning. With most of the players in the right half of the zone in front of Elliot. Lee skates the puck along the blue line toward the left side where there was open ice. Just as he's at the halfway point he launches a beautiful wrister that Elliot couldn't see until it deflects high off the crossbar. Oh, that was a great play. Chorney seemed to have a tough night. He made some good plays but seemed to fall a lot, and coughed up a couple of pucks. He's a better player than that and I would expect tomorrow will be a better story. I thought Porter's hit on Klubertanz was legal. He did not stick his leg/knee out into Klubertanz, but did seem to lean his body. I don't think that was a penalty from what I saw. Finley just about wripped Skille's arm off. Funny that there's a way to do it legally, but there is. Joe played a very solid game. Second funniest point of the night was the comment about him skating while dragging 2 plows. I, too, thought he looked a little slower than the rest. That's ok. Porter and Duncan both beat Elliot high glove side. Coincidence? I don't know. What a great shot by both guys. I really can appreciate Porter's he had to collect the puck from his skates. In one motion he stops the puck with his skates and positions his body to take the accurate shot, which beats Elliot. Nice feed from Kozek too. Speaking of that line, last week I was scratching my head about whether we could keep the DOT line together because I was afraid the PKW line might not cut it. Tonite they were very effective. Porter looked great out there. He seemed in control, and played faster than the game. Watkins seemed to have a solid game too. He had a nice first period attempt where he patiently skated the puck out front between the circles before letting go a great wrist shot. Speaking of wrist shots, Skille's goal was something else. Heck of a shot. I liked the breakout pass (missed shot) he'd taken earlier that lead to Oshie? getting a strong chance for a goal. Had he gotten his blade on that puck as he fell that would have been one of his all time great goals. I have to agree with RW77 on the 3rd period. I thought the Sioux dominated the first, won the second and get beat badly in the 3rd. I was hoping we could just hang on for the tie. But in OT the team seemed to take it to Bucky, and that was great to see. Also great to see was the excellent effort by Zajac. He collected a mistake behind the net, did not panic, carried it around the net on his backhand and took a shot. While that wasn't that tough for Elliot to stop, Elliot didn't control the rebound. Tons of traffic and confusion in front, and in a split second Zajac managed to get another backhand on the puck right as he got smoked to the ice. Too late, however, as the puck flew past Elliot's far side into the goal. How nice is it to have a lower line guy that can make an opponent pay for a mistake at a critical point in a game? Sioux were faster than the Badgers. I do think the D has some shoring up to do. Lammy seemed to play confident and play well, again. Key to the game? I don't know for sure how many penalties the Sioux had, but unlike past years it seemed we weren't killing 8-9 penalties. And for a couple of the pk's, Bucky was nice enough to take a penalty as well. I wonder if this really wasn't the difference. We played a lot more even strength hockey and didn't wear our best guys out killing penalties. Stream of consciousness over.

For those who aren't familiar, Colbert has an excellent show. He does a way over the top parody of a self-important news/talk show host. Anyway, the Saginaw? OHL team named their mini mascot after him. Now he shows highlights of the hockey team on his show, and makes a big deal about it It would be fun and humorous publicity. But if you haven't seen the show, there's no way I can effectively describe how cool this could be.

Here's a little perspective on Hextall, though the info is about a year old.

Comedy Central

I still can't believe no one thought "The Colbert Line" would be a good idea. Does no one watch The Colbert Report?

It looks like I'm in for Friday night.

Beat ya, Sioux_Hab-it.

I think it's good to be consistent in that manner. I just don't like the idea for hockey in general.

I know deflections used to count. I'm just not sure I like the change to trying to score by deflecting one in with your skate. I think it could be tough to tell if a deliberate "kicking" motion is used, or whether the player was just getting their foot in position to deflect the puck. For instance, with one of the example videos used I still think it's open to interpretation if the puck was simply redirected or kicked in. I guess maybe I need to see an example of what they would view "kicked in". Maybe that would end up being SO obvious as to render my concern moot.

I still don't know if I like the skate rule. I would think it will be tough at times to know if the puck was redirected off a skate or if it was kicked in. It's one thing if it was a lucky bounce, but I just don't know about allowing the intentional redirection with the foot.