jimdahl

I knew Subban was going to be good for penalties, didn't know he was going to get ejected.

Here's my 5-minute effort (hope all these guys are playing, I narrowly avoided putting Letang in!) I only picked two Caps Ovie (WAS) Backstrom (WAS) Nash (NYR) Tarasenko (StL) Stamkos (TBL) Hudler (CGY) Byf (WPG) Subban (MTL) Karlsson (OTT) Weber (NSH) Price (MTL)

Yeah, I got that far in pondering the scoring scheme and decided I was in over my head

Being a Caps fan, I'm used to high expectations and unhappy exits. I thought this article on some of the intangibles a coach can bring was interesting. Are the Capitals ready to 'raise their flag'? While the "here's how this year is different from all those that we lost" aspect is reminiscent of articles we see about UND pre-Frozen Four each year, it's different in that it gets to focus on differences in coaching (because the situation is somewhat reversed from UND's--the Caps have some stability in the players but have been cycling through coaches at a rapid pace).

That's exactly what I was hoping for -- slashdot style community moderation where posts are hidden if they're too downvoted or highlighted if upvoted. Alas, this software doesn't do that as of now.

There's some discussion of this effort over in Indian nicknames in the news

The timing was not a complete accident We'll see how it goes over the summer.

Not to mention the different match-ups in the East -- someone would play TB instead of the Rangers, and my Caps would be guests of Montreal instead of hosts to the Islanders, huge changes.

I've been chatting with Mafiaman about reputation / post evaluation systems, and looking back it's been a long time since we've tried this so. So, I'm going to make a slight change. I've enabled both positive and negative post reps. (I'm not turning per-user rep back on because there's not yet a solution to the problems described above.)

I loved the (Leno?) joke from the time -- "The Washington Bullets are concerned that they're name is associated with criminals, so from now on they'll just be called the Bullets".

It's official, by picking Providence, WiSioux is your 2015 bracket challenge champion. http://siouxsports.com/hockey/bracketleaders.php http://siouxsports.com/hockey/bracketuser.php?username=WiSioux

Next to their Frozen Four appearance banners? (too soon?) If BU wins, siouxfan1956 wins. If Providence wins,

As you know, I like to consider the offending post vs the posters' entire body of work (much as you might look at the entire waddle or flock instead of an individual penguin). Visitors who post only to aggravate are trolls, but a similar post by someone who regularly contributes could be ok. If someone is just here to aggravate, we'll take care of them (just like an Albertan hunter would take care of a bruin).

I cleaned up most of the inappropriate language....

Sorry, that's definitely one of my more neglected projects. I think the confusion is that the site looks more like it wants to be a news site than a blog. As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be a link that leads to a specific blog of yours, instead the link is a feed of the articles by a particular author (you). The feed didn't appear to be a blog and doesn't have a blog title, so never got spidered. Restated, I think of the stuff on that site as news articles (and they're often posted here as such), in contrast to Goon's World which is treated as a blog. That's consistent with how other authors/sites are treated (gfherald articles go in news, but schlossman's blog goes in blogs). Perhaps the distinction is becoming antiquated, but for now there is one.

At this point, we're probably just talking about fame and glory (your name permanently on the list of previous winners in future years' threads) this year. We've done prizes in the past, but I'd want to announce them up front. Open to any suggestions for next year

Yeah, despite it clinching for Washington, I was really hoping Ottawa would win last night and make things interesting.

Even though 60% picked UND to win it all and 21% picked BU, the only wild cards are the 5% who picked Omaha to win a semifinal and the 1% who picked Providence. Of the three people currently at 13, only one controls his own destiny to stay in front -- bissioux if UND and Omaha advance and UND wins it all will win. Otherwise, we've just gotta wait for the games

Hmmmm I don't think you can. At that point it moves the "most recent read" marker to the last post in the thread, so doesn't actually know where it used to be. I don't think it keeps a history.

Agreed that no one gets fired for losing in a championship game, but the discontent would certainly grow. UND fans hate this analogy, but it's apt -- Doug Woog was a superb, high win percentage coach who never brought home the big one while fans watched their rivals bring home championships. As long as he was making the playoffs, he was safe, but he had lost the goodwill to keep his job through even a mild downturn. I think any coach who continues to succeed but not bring home a championship at a school that expects championships will eventually find himself in a similar situation. This seems a fine year for Hakstol to win it all and silence such talk for another decade. Oh, and I'm not looking past BU either, not that it matters.

Absolutely. I said in a different thread that we've seen it at all before, no big deal if/when UND exits early. But if Blais wins a natty for Omaha... there will be some unhappy fans.

I'm gonna call this one for Omaha now... proof that the game isn't rigged, I have none of the Frozen Four http://siouxsports.com/hockey/bracketleaders.php

It mostly occurred to me that the secondary ticket market just got a lot more expensive.

Looks like three people picked RIT (one picked them to advance out of the region)... let's see how this turns out.

Yep, some Sioux fans might be too fast to write this off as an easy win. QU is a great team. This was a turnaround game.