burd

Yeah, when the guys who can finish move on you realize how special that ability is.

Very impressed with the Dogs and the way they play. They worked hard and skate extremely well.

Boys showing good restraint drawing penalties but not taking foolish ones. Now they just need to find a PP

OK, I'm going to take a shot at an analogy that is probably complete bullshiat, and I'm sure you guys will tell me if it is. Remember that old Stiga table top hockey game? We used to have tournaments in the dorm using a wind-up kitchen timer for 5 min. periods. When you had one or two players who were not very skilled, the game was usually pretty slow, because it took them a while to find the right levers and then couldn't get control of the puck very well. They often had goals scored on them while they were looking for a lever to match the man nearest the puck. If you had two players with skill, the game could be incredibly fast, with the puck flying around, rarely staying on a players stick for more than a brief second. Some goals were crazy good and some werre pure lucky bounces. But if you had two skilled players, the game could also be pretty slow if one of them was a control person. When their winger got control, played slowed to a near stop while he set it up for the winger to either take the shot or get a pass to the crashing center. It would be wait . . . wait . . . wait . . . BANG, shot on goal. In those games the puck would fly around until the control guy got control with his winger or dman and then it would slow right down. Those players were often very skilled and could actually play the face-paced, crazy game pretty well--they just were more comfortable with the control game. I like Hak a great deal. Outside of York, I think he is one of the best program coaches in the country. But his is a control type personality. He teaches a perimeter game in the Dzone, including the breakout. (everybody does, but he moreso) He is more comfortable having his Dmen hold the puck just a little too long out of caution and then chipping along the boards to a winger who is covered, resulting in a scrum inside the blue line because it is a low-risk play. If his guys understand their roles, work hard, and mind their coverages, there will be few goals scored against them from crazy plays and odd-man rushes. On the other hand, sometimes that system seems easy to forecheck, and if not everybody plays their part or hustles enough, it will seem like they are chasing around, always a step late in their own zone all the time. I didn't see last night's game--sounds like it was up-and-down. You would think with the speed and skill this team has (along with not much size at forward) they would welcome race horse hockey. But I don't think Hak is real comfortable with that kind of game tempo. He does it, I don't mean to say he doesn't, but I think his basic personalilty is to use caution and control first. A little like the guy who preferred to play his tabletop game that way. If Hak made his living playing tabletop hockey, I think he would be a control guy. It's just his personality.

I understand that in the age of butterfly goalies, shooters will go high, but pucks near the ice and on net sure find a way of going in a lot of the time, either through a five-hole, a tip, a skate, or a rebound. Waterbottle goals are hilite material, but sometimes Kristo goes that way a little too often IMO. Easy to pick nits, though. He's really been hustling this year, as he did last year. They will start going in.

I'm old too, Fetch, and I also tend to like what I have. But when you're old you also realize that nothing is ever what it was--that change is what brought us to a good place. The WCHA is not the same conference I grew up on, but it has been a wonderful experience. The quality of hockey in the new conference will be right up there with the best in the country. Adam will be off the ice. I won't have to stay up real late two nights a year. My medications won't be affected, and my prostate is not bound to get any worse. I will greatly miss the gopher and badger rivalries, but when they bring home the banner in April '13 the Sioux will not have kicked the last gopher azz. And yes, it's a good thing Adam is upstairs and not on the ice.

Do you have a link or a cite to his suspension? It's been a while, where is Sugars?

If it is true that Don Adam has it out for the Sioux, then he shouldn't be reffng Sioux games or any other games for that matter--I'm sure we can all agree on that. But if he is wearing the stripes for a Sioux game, then Hak and the boys need to BE SMART ABOUT IT. Control what you can control. I'm a Hak supporter. I would rather have him than either Lucia or Eaves, both good coaches who have had a lot of their fan bases calling for their heads after several years of just plain bad hockey. The team will come around. One thing that frustrates me, though, is the way we have been losing so many puck races this year. It's not just Saturday nights. You could argue that the Sioux were outskated on Friday night too and would have lost that game if it were not for Saunders and an opportunistic offense. There is a lot of speed and quickness throughout this Sioux lineup , and they are not big, so hustle and winning puck races will win games for them. I understand that the way coaches have designed defensive coverages explains some of it, but not all. But we can't lose sight of the fact that this is a very talented Husky team. When they get all their players healthy, they will win a lot of hockey games.

And now that some Kristos and Simpsons have decided to go elsewhere because of all that and we have some roster spots to fill, if there are any young players out there who like to pout and whine and who will give up when they get a bad call, come on over! The rematch for this series will be intense, especially if SCSU gets a couple of its horses back and Parks is healthy.

That's true. It's as if he lacks confidence unless he is carrying it out of the zone. Is it my imagination or do our Dmen seem to hold the puck a long time before making the first outlet pass? That may be a scheme, but they often seem to hold it until the lane closes.

Man up. We got beat on the ice by a team that outskated and outhustled us. SCSU deserved the win. The refs sucked, but we would have gotten beat anyway.

The unfortunate thing is that the talk will be about the officiating, which was pretty poor, but the Sioux flat got outskated. They got beat when it was 5 on 5 too.

Whatever it was, it was not smart.

I'd like to see how fast he can shuffle across after they let him out.

You're probably right. Some bad calls, but Hak really has to keep his cool there. He just has to.

I don't know what the Homers were saying on the radio but on the streaming they were saying it would be one or the other, not both. Did they call the same thing last night, in reverse?

So did Hak get a penalty

Sioux being badly outhustled

Questionable calls hurt, but SCSU is winning the races to the puck. That is not out of the Sioux's control.

Situations like this are good for the team at this point in the year. Although it was not an egregious hit, Schmaltz will learn to avoid that situation. Saunders will have to carry them for the next 4+ minutes, which he is capable of. If SCSU scores and the place starts to jump, the Sioux will have to learn not to panic and to come back. Good test.

Don't be a quiter, passit--there's a lot of hockey left. But if SCSU gets 2 out of this, it will be a long way back.

Not the least bit surprising call. You make that hit, borderline though it was, you expect that call.

It is nice to have a goalie whose college experience has been knowing that it was up to him to keep his team in the game--that his team would not win in spite of him but because of him. His positioning is so good. Last night he made some huge plays on cross net passes without flopping all over the place. He was just where he needed to be. I wonder what coaching he had at UAB, if any.

Saunders really played a strong position game last night. He saved the Sioux's arse in the first.

I think it's because the Canadian players who have played here all skated before they walked.