puck71

With the weather today, what's the best way to find out if the games are postponed? Some basketball tournament games in Fargo today have already been postponed to Monday, and from the forecast last night there was supposed to be more snow in Grand Forks...

South scores with 6 seconds left!

South has been controlling the puck most of the third period and had a few good scoring chances, but hasn't been able to put any goals in. Grafton has had a couple good chances too. Just over a minute left now. Hooking penalty called on Grafton with 1:09 left.

I can only assume that's the reason - I think they were at 15 minutes before and thought that jumping all the way to 20 was too much to do at once. I would think eventually they'll get to 20 minute periods to match (as far as I know) every level above them (juniors, NCAA, NHL) but they didn't want to do it all at once. Although maybe they shouldn't have high schoolers playing the same amount as the NHL. I'm not 100% sure about football, but basketball goes from 32 minute games in high school, to 40 in college, to 48 in the NBA.

I'd be curious to know what happened there. Did Minot bench a bunch of people? I watched both of those teams yesterday and Minot played way better than Century. I know it's a letdown to play in the consolation bracket, but you should still beat teams that you're way better than, not lose by five goals.

I don't really know the details of the Defense situation. All I was basing it on was what I saw yesterday compared to last year's State tournament, and the fact that they lost Erick which almost guarantees at least a small drop in defense.

Just got back from watching all the games (minus one period). First game I missed the first period, but the 2nd and 3rd periods South completely dominated Century. The score reflects that (6-1 in those periods) but it could have been even more lopsided than that. South's defense is down from last year (how could it not be?), but they have a lot of offense and a good goalie, and seemed to be playing pretty well. The first period looks like it was a lot closer though - someone else can comment on that, but it was 1-0 Century after 1 and I think only 10-6 shots advantage for South. The second game was probably the best of the day (not the most exciting, but the best overall). Grafton was clearly the better team, but not by a huge margin. They stepped it up at the end with a couple late goals, but this game was tight all the way, before ending up 5-2. The third game ended up being the biggest blowout, but was a lot closer than the 6-0 score indicated. I didn't follow much hockey this year, but how did Bismarck end up winning the West? Were they favored or was there an upset? For my eyes, they were the third best team from the West (after Minot and Williston). Anyway, Devils Lake outplayed them from beginning to end and were rewarded with a lot of goals. I think a 4-1 or 4-2 score would have more closely represented how close the game was, but Devils Lake clearly was the better team. The last game was the most exciting by far, but was also probably the most lopsided on the ice. The shot margin is a little deceiving, but Red River definitely dominated play throughout. Williston actually played a lot better at the end I thought, until the last 3 or so minutes. The first period was all Red River, but Williston withstood it and improved from there and almost held on to the end. They really had a good game plan to try to counter Red River's superior skill and experience - they hit hard and played the positions and got sticks on almost every pass and shot. They didn't take any chances and never gave up any odd-man rushes. They also played smart and only took a couple penalties. I don't care what the shot count was - Williston played a great game and deserved to be as close as they were. There were a lot of shots, but they were all contested and only a few "great" scoring chances. Overall, I think the West played pretty well but it's clear they're still a notch below the East. I think Century was definitely outclassed, but the other three West teams belonged there and could have won at least one of the games. I tried to be as neutral as I could, but I do live in Fargo and probably can't help but be a little biased.

Weisgarber picked up another goal plus an assist last night for the Jets, both on the power play. I'm not 100% sure, but it looks like he's skating on the first power play line.

Probably not, since his numbers are the best in every category and his team won state. However, as mentioned there were a lot of good goalies in the state this year, with six goalies with a GAA under 2.5, and seven with a save percentage over 90%. Definitely fun to watch at state this year, with a lot of low scoring games with more scoring chances than it would seem.

I saw some of Weisgarber's first game with the Jets tonight. He was actually out there quite a bit, including on the power play and penalty kill. I thought he played pretty well, but it's obviously tough to go from skating with a team you've played with half your life to a team you've played with for a few days. It'll take some time to get in sync with everyone, which is probably why he was out there so much. There were some passes missed and so on where they'll probably connect a couple games from now.

Do you mean the near-goal in the championship game?

I'm not sure how he could have avoided the goalie. I hate bringing it up again, but I finally got around to capturing the replay of it. I don't think he could have done anything other than what happened. The goalie was moving to the right which is the same way Weisgarber was falling. He tried his best to kind of roll off the goalie but the hit from behind was hard enough where he had enough momentum that he couldn't get to the side fast enough. Even if I were to concede that he could have gotten out of the way, there's no possible way it could be cross-checking, since he had the stick in one hand and I don't even think it even hit the goalie - worst case scenario 2 minutes for roughing. For those of you who haven't seen the play at all or haven't seen the replays, I posted the clip online and you can take a look. It's in the Xvid codec so if you can't play it you need to get that. Since this is a current event and I'm commenting on it, I consider this to be a fair use of copyrighted material. As such I will take it down before too long. Here's the link: http://www.puck71.com/weisgarber_penalty.avi Sorry for bringing it up again, but it is the off-season now after all and we need something to discuss! If there are any other controversial plays you'd like to see I might be able to find those as well, but the other plays I think are pretty clear.

I've looked at the eligibity rules and I can't figure that out for sure or not. They list rule E: "Players who play exclusively for a Junior "A" team are not eligible." but it doesn't say what time frame that exclusivity covers. I would think it applies to the school year, but it doesn't say.

The referees quite often are paying attention to too many other things to get the numbers of the goal scorer and assists exactly right. If they get it wrong it's up to the team or to other officials to correct the scoresheet. The scoresheet isn't finalized until it's signed after the game so there's plenty of time to get it right.

It's a big arena so it will look pretty empty even if there are a lot of people. Thursday it was pretty empty, especially for the games without a Grand Forks team. Friday night it started out pretty empty but steadily filled up until the end of the night when I thought it was pretty full. Tonight it wasn't packed but there were a lot of people there. I've been to state basketball and that's alright, but I'll take state hockey any day! Great kids, great teams, and best of all great games! I hope to be able to make it up there every year, at least for a few of the games.

Sorry I thought they would use USA Hockey rules...can you link me to the official high school rules?

If you're going to go that route, then technically it should have been a five minute major plus a game misconduct. USA Hockey Rule 608(b): A major plus a game misconduct penalty shall be imposed on any player who injures an opponent by

I don't know if a 2-1 record and an 8-7 combined score is really having their number...obviously Red River has had a slight leg up over South this season, but not that much. It wasn't just a push, it was a pretty hard cross check directly from behind. The penalty on Paul was the most bizarre and terrible call I've seen in a long time. They called a penalty on the Central guy too (for checking from behind) so they did acknowledge that he did something wrong. I think (based on signals the refs were making) that they thought Paul intentionally cross checked the goalie while going down, but I think he was caught off guard by the cross check from behind after the whistle (3 penalties in one!) and he instinctively grabbed his stick while going down and happened to fall right on the goalie. Hate to split hairs, but the 5 on 3 goal was GPR's first goal (putting them up 1-0). Their second goal was Campbell's amazing goal from behind the net which put them up 2-1. That was one of the best goals I've seen in a long time. Some people might chalk it up as a flukey goal, but I think it was pretty clear that the goalie relaxed for just a second, Campbell saw it, and fired a shot right off his skates. A very impressive and quick shot that was in the net before the goalie really even saw it coming. Tomorrow night's game should be another great one. Both teams have had some very dominating stretches and some very unimpressive stretches. The bottom line is they played well enough to get to the championship, and I think either team deserves it. South wins 4-2.

Central pretty much always has a shot against any team, becuase of their quality program and such, but they'll have to play a basically flawless game since South outscored them 11-2 in their two wins this year, including a 7-1 win just a couple weeks ago. In their last game South started very slow and gave up an early goal to Central but went on a huge roll and scored 7 unanswered and it wasn't really ever close after the first 7-10 minutes or so. Both games tonight should be good games, but I expect South and Red River to both win by 2-4 goals.

Today wasn't South's best game, but they had a ton of chances. There were 2 or 3 shots off the post that easily could have gone in, plus a few passes in front of the net that just missed. I will give the Devils Lake defense some credit for not letting these goals in, but South easily could have scored a few more goals, while Devils Lake basically took advantage of their biggest scoring chances. I'm not too worried about tomorrow's game, since they just played Central recently and won 7-1, but of course anything can happen. South's biggest strength (in my opinion) is their depth, which is why they have been playing their best in the second period when the other team is worn out and South is still fairly fresh with three lines playing pretty much equal minutes and producing. I don't remember which line was on the ice for the second goal today, but the third line scored 2 of the first 3 goals today before the first line added the last 2 goals. Quickly on the other games - I missed the first one so I have no comment on that one. I watched most of the last 3 games and the most evenly matched game was GPR vs. Williston, even though the score ended up the most lopsided. I was pretty impressed by Williston, but they gave up a couple soft goals I thought (4 goals on 8 shots in the 2nd) and couldn't put any goals in when it was scoreless for almost the whole first half of the game. I think Williston could beat Grafton if they played again, especially if they were totally healthy. I thought Red River basically dominated their game, but obviously didn't put the game away. I left after they went up 4-1 and was surprised to see Bismarck had almost come back. Red River did play well for the first two periods though.

I don't see any indication that there will be replay on KVLY, either in the official announcement or in the TV listings. Here's the full announcement regarding TV coverage (from ndhsaa.com): SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Due to NBC's coverage of the Olympic Games from Torino, Italy, the North Dakota NBC Sports network announces the following changes. Coverage of the Boy's Hockey tournament February 24th and 25th will be seen live on KXJB-TV in the eastern part of the state. In the western part of the state, it will air live on Midcontinent Communications cable channel 39 in Bismarck and channel 23 in Minot, Williston and surrounding areas. In Dickinson, the State Hockey Tournament will be seen live on Consolidated Cablevision. In addition, a delayed broadcast of the State Hockey is scheduled for overnight Friday at 1 am and Saturday at Midnight central time on KFYR-TV in Bismarck, KMOT-TV in Minot, KUMV-TV in Williston and KQCD-TV in Dickinson. The Olympics will not affect the other televised tournaments. Coverage of the Girl's B, Boys' and Girls' A, and Boys B will be seen live on your local NBC station.

I agree. Sometimes it's hard to resist arguing, but with State only a couple days away let's focus on that. After that there hopefully won't be much to argue about What are everyone's state plans? I'm planning to go early Thursday afternoon to get there in time for the South game and hopefully some of the first game. Since I'm there I may as well stay for the evening games. Then I'll probably come back for the Friday and Saturday evening sessions.

I didn't say anyone had the upper hand or got the bounces. All I said was playing on your home ice is an advantage. Depending on the situation it can be a big advantage. It won't be enough to let a bad team beat a good team, but it can tip the scales in an otherwise evenly matched game. Again I don't think that was the case this Saturday...all I said was that in general playing a tournament on home ice is an advantage and thus I think it should be avoided if possible. As I said, unfortunately it's not really possible right now. I didn't say that playing at The Ralph would be home ice advantage, for the same reason you gave - they haven't played there all year. There is a slight advantage to playing in your home town (basically due to more fan support), but not as much as playing on your home ice. The two previous years when EDC and State were both at the Ralph I do think that gave the East a slight advantage over the West since they'd just played three games there, so I'm glad they moved EDC to Purpur. Given the choice I'd rather a team get advantages at Region than at State, so I do think it's a good thing that EDC was at Purpur. But it did give the GF teams an advantage. Was it an unfair advantage? No, but it was still an advantage.

Yes, it's a big advantage to play tournament games on the same ice as you play your regular season home games. You know the rink better and most likely will have a bigger crowd. I don't think that's the reason Red River won but it was an advantage. I think the reasons Red River won are that Mihulka had an extraordinary game and South played a subpar game - take that for what it is, I didn't say South "should" have won or make excuses for them, all I said was they played a subpar game, which is true. However, with the lack of decent rinks with decent seating in the state there's really no other choice of where to host regionals. Obviously the Ralph is the best rink but I agree with those who have said it's an unfair advantage for the East to play there before State. The Ralph should be reserved for state and no games should be played there beforehand. The Coliseum is a non-standard sheet of ice and as such I don't think it should host tournaments, and I don't think it should be in a smaller town, so we're left with Purpur for now. If/when Fargo builds a better rink I would propose EDC switch between Fargo and Grand Forks. Actually I don't think it would be a bad idea to have EDC over at the Moorhead Sports Center, but it would be tough to get enough ice time with Moorhead High and Concordia College having games, not to mention all the other stuff that goes on there. As for the rest of what was posted today, can't we just let one player's mistake be one player's mistake? It doesn't matter where he's from originally or what school he goes to. He made a mistake and was punished for it. I don't get the argument that Wilson should have benched him. Just because one or two specific other coaches may have done it doesn't automatically make that the "right" thing to do. He was already punished and had to sit out a game. Whether or not the coach sits him for more games is totally up to the coach and depends on the situation. In general I think that on-ice behavior (during/after games) should be punished as dictated by the rules (as happened here) and coaches should bench players based on off-ice behavior (practice, etc.). Of course some coaches do it differently and that's fine, but that doesn't mean everyone else is wrong. I'm not sure about the "no comment" situation, but it's not like there's a press conference and he skipped it. The reporters just hang out by the locker room and wait for people to talk to. If people don't want to talk that's up to them. At the high school level I certainly don't think there's any obligation for anyone (including coaches) to do interviews and give statements. The pro level is a totally different situation and any comparison to that is out of line in my opinion.

Why did the media stop running Mr. Hockey? Personally I prefer the idea of an award being voted on by people who aren't on the team or associated with the team.