dagies

I agree with much of Farce Poobah had to say. Just got back today from a fun weekend in GF of hockey with good friends. I would say that I think Stafford looked a bit slow on Friday. I wonder if he's getting tired out. I wasn't too surprised to see him placed on a different line on Sat and I thought he played a bit better. I think Schneider is looking better than when I saw him in St. Cloud. Handled the puck with more authority this weekend I thought. Fun game to watch, nice to see the boys dominate from start to finish. And Parise........Wow. He works so hard, every shift. And what FP said about killing penalties.

My own opinion on the matter is that there is nothing "going on" with Brandt as some have implied above. Here's my perception of the situation: Back during the Tech series, I think, Blais said he was going to give Jake the chance to take over the #1 slot. He played ok, but not great in the Friday night game. Had he played great I think Blais was going to play him the next night. Instead, Parise got the nod and shut out Tech. The next weekend both Jake and Jordan played well at MN. Very evenly. Now Parise was starting to put consecutive weeks of excellent games. Parise plays Friday against Denver and looked great again. Add that to a week of excellent practice and I think Blais decided to see if he could do it back to back, which he did. Basically, I believe Blais is looking for one guy to rise to the top, to be the go-to guy down the stretch (can I use any more cliches?). My guess is Jordan might be locking that up right now, and Jake will be the guy spelling Jordan from time to time. That's my guess. But who cares, we got a couple of guys playing very well right now in nets, and that's something Sioux fans can smile about.

I think "First Team All-American" covers some of that.

No, I think if you put me at Center, you would have difficulty telling the difference between me and a goalie. (who just stands there, or better yet, flops).

I agree. I would think it surprising to find the players actually debating with the fans whether a call was made correctly or not...

Porter seems to be doing a real nice job. His speed and physical play, coupled with good decisions with the puck and the ability to bury it from time to time have really made him a very good contributor. I'm very impressed with him this year. He's certainly exceeded what I expected of him. Of course, all I had to go on was statistics from the USHL.....

Let's just say you wouldn't see too many resemblances if you saw us next to each other. But put me in a uniform on the ice and you might have some difficulty telling us apart. HaHaHaHaHa! I crack myself up sometimes....

Thanks Pat!!!!! That's interesting....

TFF!

We're a team that wants to be championship material. We're at home, and we just split on the road with a big rival. I think we need to come home and show Denver whose house they are in. Our goaltending is playing well right now. Our forwards need to drop a few in the basket. D needs to keep working on playing a tight game. All players need to work on minimizing the bad penalties. PK looks great right now. Let's make Denver take some penalties, and keep improving the power play. I'll be up for the weekend, finally, and can't wait for Friday!

Geez, and I thought 40 was old!

I'm sure more penalties could have been called on the gophers but frankly more could have been called on the Sioux as well. I think the game ended the way it should have. Time for the team to learn what it can from last night and apply it the rest of the way to their benefit.

Long and the short of it IMO is that the Sioux got it handed to them tonite. Yeah, the goofers got more PP's. Sioux could have been called for some more too. First period I think the Sioux looked like the better team, but it all changed a few minutes into the second. I always want the Sioux to win, and I was smacking my ceiling when we thought we scored with 14 seconds left, but the fact of the matter is sometimes it might be ok to lose when you should lose. Maybe you learn more from that than squeeking one out. I watched the game on TV only, but man, the goofs looked awfully good. And like someone else said, I wouldn't have wanted to squeek this one out and then try and beat them down the road in the playoffs with everything riding on it. They won't feel cheated this way. Props to Parise tonite. For the domination the Sioux were handed the last couple of periods and he only lost 2-1 is pretty good. Just when we thought maybe Brandt was going to take the goaltending reins down the stretch it seems the competition for the #1 goalie just keeps getting stronger. Brandt played well last night too, but can you say Parise was worse tonite? I don't think so. Not happy with some of the penalties our boys took. Canady last night did try to hold up but shouldn't have been in that situation, and Prpich tonite threw out that blatant elbow to the head (however, couldn't have happened to a nice Taylor). We gotta be smarter about some of that stuff. Hale played a good game tonite, and I thought Parise looked great again too. Murray looks like he's going to be special but still is 6 inches from making a bunch of special plays each night. Hope he starts clicking on them soon. O well, we got 2 points and I won my total goals bet so all in all I'm satisfied with the weekend. Next week I get to see the Sioux in person. I've been looking forward to this yearly trip all season!

speaking of face-offs, I think it was the 3rd period and the Sioux were on the PK in the Gopher end, and Prpich took the faceoff instead of McMahon. Any one else notice that?

jk, thanks for bringing up Briggs' comment. I was thinking of that myself! I thought Parise was an animal tonite. Played very well, and physical. Set a tone right off by giving Ballard a bit of what he was giving. Hard to believe Genoway's slash was called and the spear on Taylor was not. They were almost in the same place on the ice. There were some missed calls, certainly, but overall I don't think there can be too many complaints that officiating affected the outcome of the game. Most of the calls that were made were good calls I thought. A few were not called that should have been. Sioux didn't have the offensive flow that MN had I thought. MN really looked better offensively. They know how to work on that big ice, that's for sure. Really liked Schneider going over to clear things up with Taylor after his scrum with Murray. I like that Gopher fans think he's their tough guy and what does he do? picks on a 160 pound weakling. Schneider looked like he was ready to go. Big guns for both teams came up big tonite. Will the big guns be the story tomorrow or will this be like so many series when the big scorers score in one game and everybody else scores the next.... I think the boys need to thank Jake tonite for the 2 points. Oh, Woog was good tonite I thought. Called a spade a spade either way I thought.

Oh man, I thought he was better than Reed!

Amen brother. I've never regained my passion for baseball since the big strike, and now just when I'm getting back into being a Wild fan (hard to come back after the North Stars debacle) there will be an ugly money war. Thank God for the Fighting Sioux.

I agree with Slap Shot too, and PCM's comments. Woog is a homer. At the same time, he's willing to call a spade a spade regarding the play on the ice. And that's about all I ask for. I like listening to him because he's insightful as far as how the game is played, and colorful, even if he's not polished. It could be worse. It could be Reed Larson...

And they have won at least one game per series on it in Mariucci for many years. Even when they weren't supposed to.

How do you compete with posts like these?

Way to go Kevin and Jason! Miss seeing them on the ice for the Sioux.

I thought I've had some tough luck, but it doesn't bear mentioning next to yours. (We've seen some of the same games....)

I think his AD was awfully harsh on him. I don't mind that he was suspended a game. Rules are rules. His AD should have given him credit for speaking up for protecting the players, even if he didn't agree with how he said it.

That would have been fine. But you didn't. And continued to argue. I'm just allowing you to be you.