Chris

The goalie coaches at Michigan and Minnesota are both there on a volunteer basis. I kinda doubt Ron Hextall walks away from being an assistant GM in the NHL to go live in Grand Forks and work for free.

You guys aren't quite right. Derek Shepherd was a linesman for the Minnesota/Maine game. Because it was a regular season game, they used the normal one referee system. The following night in Mankato, they played an exhibition game, which used the 2 ref system, and Campion and Shepherd were the refs.

Isn't this thread all about hyping a player that had almost identical stats last season?

By the way, for all the people that were ready to offer a scholarship to Wayne Gretzky's son, he's playing on the Midget AA team at Shattuck.

How many of those WHL kids could have played college hockey? And now how many of those WCHA kids could have played in the WHL? I doubt there were too many WHL teams beating down the door for Dan Quilico or Ryan Lasch three or four years ago.

And how many kids from California are going to the NCAA? And out of those kids, how many would have actually had the option of going to the WHL? The very top prospects like Mitch Wahl and Colin Reddin didn't even really consider the NCAA route.

Are you serious? I'd say the WHL does a much better job of drawing the top California talent than the NCAA does. I guess we'll have to see how Ty Gretzky does at Shattuck, but like I said, if he had a different last name, would there be that much attention given to a kid that played JV Prep School hockey in Arizona last year?

I don't think Ty Gretzky would get that much college attention if his last name were spelled differently. I had forgot to mention that I did see Dave Hakstol at the NAHL Showcase last Friday. A lot of coaches were hanging around up there because they could watch that, and then go down the road to watch the Elite League that weekend.

This should answer both questions. http://westerncollegehockey.blogspot.com/2...nd-tessier.html

Robby Phillipp had a goal today. If the circumstances were right, I could see North Dakota taking a chance on him in a couple years. Beau Christian played pretty well in goal too.

The Sioux haven't talked to him yet, though some other WCHA programs have.

It's confirmed that both Bloodoffs are going to be playing for Kelowna this year, so you can cross him off the list. http://westerncollegehockey.blogspot.com/2...departures.html

Lucas Bloodoff got traded to Kelowna this summer, so I think he might end up playing there. He's a good player, but really more of a banger, and the that doesn't seem to fit the Sioux's style of play.

I guess, but it's not like he's losing anything if he says, "I want to play college hockey." If anything, it's probably more to his advantage to say that he's not interested in the Q and try and get a better contract out of it. That seems to be the popular thing to do these days.

You're probably right. http://thechronicleherald.ca/Sports/523293.html "Cichy, the team

So far as I know, he's not related to Rick Nash, since they're from different parts of Canada. He does have an older brother named Brendan that will play for Cornell next season. Also, this is kind of quirky, but I found an old NPR segment where Riley is talking about the affect of the NHL lockout on youth hockey. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4113001

Keep in mind that a player is more than just stats. Everyone I know that has seen Winnett play absolutely *love* the kid. He had very good numbers for someone his age, but more than that, he's a very complete hockey player and a very smart and classy kid. My guess would be that Rick is talking about Riley Nash. I guess he really came on at the end of last season and I think he'll have a big year next season. Also, Kelly Zajac seems to be a pretty good player and I think the general consensus is that he'll follow his brothers to North Dakota some day.

I got word today that the Sioux have showed considerable interest in him.

I would guess he'd be on the radar. He seems like he might be a bit of a late bloomer like his dad was. He was invited to the NTDP trout two years ago and was less than impressive. He was decent last year playing AAA hockey in Michigan, but he wasn't in the top 15 in GAA or save percentage. He played really well at the Select 17 Festival though and made the U18 team this summer, so maybe he's starting to get it together. F-M's other goalie next year, Beau Christian, is also a guy to watch.. He played in the same league as Belfour last season, but had a 0.44 goals against and a 97% save percentage in 9 games. He was on the best team in the league though, and tended to start against weaker teams. Plus, the league games make up a small percentage of their schedule compared to tournaments and other games and I don't know how Christian did in those.

I really think it's the opposite. Jordy hasn't impressed all that much when I've seen him play. I mean, he looked like he could play at the WCHA-level, but I don't think he'll be a star. But I think Marvin will be a very, very good college player. It's not very often that a guy his size can skate that fast and have hands that soft. I'd put him in the same class as Mike Forney. I'm really disappointed that he didn't end up in Mankato because I think he'll be a special player.

I really like Don Cherry. The best thing about the playoffs is that you get Coaches Corner pretty much every night. I just wish I could still watch CBC. I think he's probably wrong with his remarks here though. According to their website, the Wild only have 3 Minnesotans in their entire organization. Erik Westrum, who spent the majority of the season in the AHL, A.J. Thelen, who spent most of the season in the WHL, and Mike Erickson, who plays at Western Michigan now, and will never play for the Wild. If anything, I think the Wild need to change philosophies and management and start going after more local, American born players. You can't complain about the Devils either because it's hard to argue with the success they've had over the past decade. If anything, it shows that more teams should be focusing on college kids. The World Juniors thing works both ways. A few Canadian kids that play college hockey don't make the Canadian squad because they play in the US, and a few American kids that play major junior don't make the US team because they play major junior.

Boots committed to Ohio State.

Does anybody know anything about Kyle Scholand from East Grand Forks HS? He's really small for a defenseman, but I was pretty impressed with the way he plays.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I just noticed this as I was searching back. Whoever said that it was electrical tape was correct. Every year the equipment manager spends a couple hours cutting and putting the tape on the helmets. It's actually a strange story of how Michigan got to wear those helmets. In the late 80's, the Hartford Whalers were thinking of switching to a dark blue helmet, so one of the hockey equipment manufacturers made up a bunch of dark, blue helmets, but the Whale decided against using them, so this company had a bunch of dark blue helmets laying around. The Michigan coaches heard about it and decided to buy them all up. They figured the wings on the football helmet were so recognizable, and helped in recruiting, and figured it could do the same with hockey.(This was around 1989 when Michigan wasn't the power it is today. They had finally had their first coupel of winning seasons in a long time but hadn't been to the NCAA tournament since 1977.) So they took the blue helmets and added bright yellow electrical tape to look like the football helmets. I believe the first game they ever wore them was at Joe Louis Arena in the CCHA tournament against Bowling Green. Michigan never announced that they were changing their helmets, so when they took the ice for pregame warm-ups, the entire arena went silent. Even the Bowling Green players that were already on the ice stopped their warm-up and just sort of stared at them for a couple minutes. I believe Michigan ended up winning the game. I think they might have just missed the NCAA tournament that season, but have made it every since then.

Beau Christian is definitely a name to keep an eye on. He's from Moorhead and is the cousin of Jordy Christian. I think Bryan Hogan is pretty good too, but it'd be pretty rare to see a kid from Michigan go out to North Dakota. Someone mentioned Justin Guttek earlier in this thread. There's some other defenseman on his prep team that North Dakota is probably looking at as well.