dagies

Good point on Genoway. There is a guy who could have the potential for "most improved player". Let's not forget some other fairly forgettable freshman performances, i.e. Lee Goren and Bryan Lundbohm. I'll give Colby another year before I lose hope. I keep hearing Porter's name mentioned as someone who could have some impact this next year but if you look purely at his statistics he didn't do anything the average USHL'er didn't do. What that means to me is he might be a hard worker but I'm not expecting to see many points go on the board. We've all talked about how the Sioux have plenty of hard workers, but we need to see someone get the points. Porter could be sitting to make room for some of these other guys on game night. That said, Stafford and Murray should be able to make the lineup regularly.

Ranfranz got as much of a shot as was warranted. Ranny didn't do much in his previous shots with the team and last year he did admirably in a tough situation, but just when he was given a couple games near the end of the season to show he was the savior some people thought he was then he suddenly became human. Ranfranz seemed like a good guy who gave it his best and helped the team the best he could given the situation. Ranfranz got a chance to show what he could do and did his best with it, but his best wasn't quite as good as it needed to be. How can you judge what someone else (Sofie) should or shouldn't like or want? Who truly knows what motivates these players to do what they do? You maybe would have done things differently but that is you.

I don't have a complete answer for you but this will get you by until someone more knowledgeable pipes up. There is particular age where you are 2 young to be automatically eligible for the draft but can opt in. Sort of like high school basketball players opting in to the NBA draft. In hockey if you do that you are ineligible for college hockey. I don't know the exact age but I will guess it is 18. When you turn that age, you are automatically eligible for the draft. If you are drafted you retain your college eligibility. There's probably a few more tangles to make a complete picture but this should put to rest your fears about Parise becoming ineligible. However, Parise could be drafted, be given a good $$ offer, and decide to forgoe the college route and go straight to pro hockey. That could still happen.

Ryan Connelly

True I could see that.

That site had clips of all their players all year. Of course you only saw the best stuff but Murray can play. They had some other great players on that team as well, like Nikifork, Bostock, etc. Pretty cool to watch some of the action. I hope Blais isn't recruiting the goalie on this clip though.

It would seem that way to me too. I agree with what you say.

I seriously doubt Brenden was recruited FROM Air Force. I believe that would not be within the rules.

Hey, I could be wrong. I have no inside info. Just looking at the timing, etc.

Congratulations!

And I don't think Brendan Connelly was recruited to get Ryan. Ryan committed I think 2 years before coming on campus and Brendan was playing for Air Force.

There goes buying left over general admin tickets and sitting in the lower bowl next year....

Here is a blurb from an article on Hockey's Future regarding grades for the Worcestor IceCats players for this past year. No one was rated higher than an A-.

Well, if the rumor that 3 are coming in is true, it leaves open the speculation that Jordan Parise could be coming in. Of course, it could easily be someone else for that matter.

I don't mind a few ties but it seems in recent years there are very high level of ties. This is off the top of my head so maybe stats would refute that opinion. I don't have a great suggestion for how to fix it, but I wouldn't mind seeing either longer OT periods or else 4x4 for a shorter time. Not a fan of shootouts to decide a contest.

Seems to put to rest the Lammy question.

Am guessing Stafford is too young to make the list. For the purposes of draft status, it seems that sometimes size takes precendence over ability at this point in a player's career. So although a high draft status looks nice I don't think it necessarily means a player is going to be a star in the college game or from the get-go.

2 refs mean even quicker whistles when a ref thinks the goalie has covered the puck. As soon as one ref loses sight of the puck he blows the whistles. Considering there will be one ref on either side of the goalie that means 50% more chance someone will lose sight of the puck and blow the whistle. Frankly, I think whistles came fast enough with 1 ref.

http://www.ushl.com/ushl0203/standings_framed.htm Respectable numbers for the season, but not earth shattering.

psssssst. flatspin....same goes for my message.

From a purely circumstantial perspective, one could make a case that Jordan Parise would play with the Sioux. Brothers often follow brothers. Parents probably like having multiple sons on the same team to avoid the extra travel and headaches of trying to see kids play on different teams. Word is, Dean recruited Zach so he could get Jordan.

Thanks everybody for the input. Very helpful, and makes a lot of sense. Now the next time I watch a game, I'll try to see it on the ice. It seems to me a lot of times in hockey you throw the puck to a spot on the ice, because your system says someone should be there to take the puck. Just seemed like the Wild players weren't there. Greyeagle, your explanation especially helps to clarify what might have been going on.

Ok. I've got a question for the hockey experts. It still seemed to me the Wild had difficulty clearing the zone. And it seemed that Vancouver won the majority of the races to loose pucks. It seemed especially noticeable when the Wild would throw the puck along the boards behind the goal. It seemed to me the idea was to either have the puck go to a Wild player on the half wall who would then put it in transition, or hope the puck would clear the players and the zone. However, it always seemed to me that a Canuck player would be the first to the half wall. On the other end of the ice, if the same thing happened again it seemed that a Canuck player was positioned to control that puck. Certainly there were exceptions but this really bugged me for several games. The question for the experts is: 1. Did I imagine it was worse than it was only because I was anxious to see the Wild control the puck and that wasn't happening? 2. Was it really happening, but it was because of the systems the 2 teams play? If so, can you explain the difference in systems and what the Wild was hoping to accomplish? 3. Was it really happening and the Wild were just getting beat?

And quite a good one too. It would have been shameful to let such a good opportunity go to waste. For my part, I thought I recovered nicely.